When you boil down “Autism” to it’s core, by most definitions, it’s a lack of ability to communicate and socialize, usually derived by an inability to understand or “get” people. People with Autism have a hard time figuring out what it is that people mean by the things they say, they have a hard time knowing when a person wants to speak up or just listen or what their tone means.
For the most part, we as a society think they’re the ones with the problem, they can’t figure out what we do… but when I think about society and all the greed, two faced, double talking, innuendo, plays on words and so on and so forth, maybe they’re confused for a very good reason.
When I stop and think about it, when I really sit down and think about what people around me are saying, very little of it makes any real sense. If my brain wasn’t working over time to understand the context, the slang, the double meanings and the hidden messages… it would all seem very bizarre to me.
We, as a people, have messed up our languages in so many ways, over using sarcasm and irony to a fault, throwing in double meanings into everything to sound witty or smart…. actually, when I think about it, perhaps all men have a touch of Autism because let’s face it, not one of us understands the ‘hints’ and ‘signs’ from women.
It gets worse… I have approximately 20 teenagers in my facebook friends list including family, babysitters and so forth and not one of them can spell very well, not one of them understands grammar at all and not one of them cares. Those teenagers will grow up to be adults that will speak very differently from how I speak. Do you think what they speak will be easier or more difficult for an Autistic person to understand?
What I’m trying to say is, maybe it’s not those with Autism that have the problem. Maybe it’s us. We’ve perverted our language so much that half of the time, we don’t even understand what it is we’re trying to say anymore. If the internet is any indication, we’re losing our basic skills and replacing them with faster, more convenient, lack of skills! How many times have you seen someone use ‘loose’ instead of ‘lose’? Or ‘there’ instead of ‘their’? There’s a million examples and it’s only getting worse.
If you know someone with Autism and they have a hard time understanding you, maybe it’s not them… maybe it’s you. Slow down, think clearly about the message you’re conveying. Chances are, if you think about it, it’s not the message you actually are telling.
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