A PARENTING EXPERT EXPLAINS HOW AND WHY EACH UNIQUE CHILD ON THE SPEC-TRUM MIGHT REQUIRE A DIFFERENT COMMUNICATION STRATEGY, AND OFFERS HIS TOP TIPS FOR COMMUNICATING WITH YOUR CHILD.

By Dan JONES

Communication needs differ depending on the individual child. Autistic individuals who struggle with comprehension due to learning difficulties or significant communication challenges will need to be communicated with differently than autistic individuals who have average or above average intelligence. These individuals may not display significant communication difficulties, but they may find what is being communicated boring or illogical, and they may therefore not be interested in listening. Of course between these groups there are all of the people in-between.

The difficulty with subtlety

As an autistic individual I have always found it easier to understand and communicate with animals rather than people. This is because animals generally don’t have multiple levels of communication.

If an animal is calm, it communicates calmly. If it is scared, it communicates fear. If it feels the need to fight, it communicates aggression.

People have subtle expressions of communication which are very difficult to understand, they also have mismatching communication. They may smile and say everything is okay, while actually being angry. Then, when you assume they are okay— because that is what they said—they get annoyed that you didn’t realize they were angry.

Let me give you an idea of how best to communicate with autistic individuals. They need the communication to be clear and unambiguous. So say what you mean, say what you want to happen and expect to happen, and make sure your verbal and non-verbal (including tone of voice) communication matches up.