Effective Listening and Speaking Strategies

I've always had a problem listening. Autism is kind of a pain in the ass like that. If what I'm listening too isn't interesting to me I'll disconnect from my surrounding and drift away into my own thoughts. Its gotten me in trouble more than I care to admit. Hell, some of the adults in my life thought I might have a hearing problem (it was the late 90s-early 00s and autism wasn't really a big thing yet). Its been an ongoing struggle to force myself to keep listening to things that don't grab my attention.

Likely one I'll be dealing with for most of my life.

One thing I did get good at was presenting ideas. This I firmly owe to my background in community theater. So much of theater is based around proper (for the play) posture, movement, gesture, voice, volume. I learned so much from that experience.

Eye Contact actually came from my mother. As an autistic person, eye contact is uncomfortable for me but for most people it is essential to communicate trust and honesty. My mother taught me to look at people's foreheads when I was uncomfortable as this gives the other person access to your eyes while giving yourself the illusion that they aren't looking directly at yours.

Comments

  1. Dana_botOctober 8, 2019 at 8:55 PM

    Wow! Your mom was so smart to teach you the forehead trick. I've never heard that before.

    ReplyDelete

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