COMMUNICATION.md

How To Communication Effectively

Because a neurodivergent person has often had a lifetime of communication difficulties with neurotypical people, communication can be particular stressful, often with a mis-communication blame is placed on them, rather than as a shared problem.

Often neurotypical people can communicate in a variety of different ways& often non-literally that can be confusing if you don't understand the context, subtext, hints and body language may go unseen to a neurodivergent person.

There are lots of implied gaps in the way a neurotypically person communicates that are unspoken that a neurodivergent person just won't be able to see and read, and indeed some things a person thinks they said clearly and concisely may be full of missing context and information holes.

It's important to be able to review your own communication style and survey what you think you said inside your head, compared to the actual words spoken or written down.

Often a neurodivergent person has to put in extra effort to communicate more precise and accurately than perhaps a neurotypical, sometimes this can be observed with difference in speech cadence, with more gaps and pauses whilst the rest of a sentence is formulated; it's important to respect such differences in communication and have patiences with those around you, assisting and enabling everybody to communicate their viewpoints across without being interrupted or in the worse case, ignored.

As an autistic person it is often a common experience that you may have said the answer to the problem months ago that you thought everybody else heard, only you have to wait months for everybody else to catch up, finally experiencing a colleague suggesting the same idea you did in seemingly the same way but it gaining immediate acceptance from the group.

If somebody said something you didn't understand, is it because they communicated it poorly, or because you failed to interpret it correctly? People may naturally dismiss or ignore something they did not immediately understand, rather than seek to clarify their misunderstanding.

Communication problems often result when two different mindsets collide, one mindset may be working with entirely different model of reality compared to another person, imagining two totally different pictures of the same problem, both view points may be useful to enabling a higher quality of work.

Imagine a world where a majority of people think of a red bike as the best choice of transport and you're that one person out of a thousand who thinks a blue car is the best choice, the blue car might be a better mode of transport than the red bike, but because the majority are only thinking of a red bike who find it difficult to think of anything else apart from the red bike, the red bike wins.

Effective communication is the responsibility of all parties involved, everybody has to do their part in contributing towards a shared truth.

Whilst all of this appears to be negative, often a neurodivergent due to the extra energy they put into communication may be a better communicator than the average person, being able to read and assess situations much better than other people, whilst they might be known for being blunt or saying inappropriate things it's likely they've gone to extreme lengths of thought and assessing the characters of those around them before commenting and knowing that it's safe to do so.

• Avoid ambiguous language, be concise

    A concise and unambiguous style of communications is often difficult to achieve, those who likely believe they are good communicators may still communicate poorly.
  
    An example may be;
    
    "Let's meet after lunch"        
  
    This statement is open to interpretation and is too wide open to be concise, "after lunch" covers a large time period, did you mean literally after lunch, or during the afternoon, or at the end of day? a better way of saying this would be;
    
    "Is it OK to meet at 2pm?"
  
    Specifying a time for example and asking if it's ok, which is important to give people a choice, some neurodivergent people have a tendency to people please and will say "yes" to lots of things even if it has a negative impact on themselves.
  
    Autistic people can be very literal communicators, saying something as simple as a commonly phrase such as;
  
    "Don't cry over split milk"
  
    May be lost in meaning, rather than interpret this sentence as "don't get upset over something small" somebody neurodivergent might literally something looking for a patch of split milk somewhere and wondering why somebody thinks they're crying when they're clearly not.
  
    It's important effort is made to say directly what you mean, rather than with a layer of analogies, and/or pleasantries.
  
    Indirect hints if you are trying to express when somebody has done something wrong has also likely to be missed, other cues that you are angry such as slightly raised voice, body language could be missed.
  

• Be happy to provide clarification when asked

    Do not be offended if somebody asks several times for clarification on the same points, do not assume with communication difficulties that it's entirely the other persons fault for not understanding, communication difficulties is the responsibility of both participants in the conversation, 50/50.
  
    When clarifying a point, try to avoid repeating the same sentence you previously said, this usually doesn't help.  Consider using alternative tools to help with communication, such as drawing diagrams on a notepad or using a whiteboard (also available in physical and online forms!).
  

• Ask about communication preferences

    Not all communication is verbal, provide alternative options, such as text only chat, email, voice only calls; do not enforce your communication preferences upon others and don't assume the default is a voice call, or face-to-face.
  
    Be adaptable in the way you communicate.
  

• Keep focussed on a single topic during a conversation

    Context switching is difficult, not keeping focus during a meeting increases cognitive load on the participants, be strict and maintain focus unless the topic for discussion has reached an end both parties mutually agree on.
  
    A person with ADHD may flip between several subjects at once and potentially derail the conversation, but time and consideration still must be given to gauge if these tangent points are truly irrelevant to the conversation or building an argument to demonstrate and strengthen a point.
  
    It's important is somebody often derails conversations to help assist them thoughtfully and privately, they may appreciate a polite reminder during meetings to stay focussed. 
  

-[ ] Do not insist people give you the answers to important questions asked during a meeting

    Even if urgent, try to resist the urge to pressure for an answer to an issue immediately.

    A person may need time to process everything that has happened during a conversation, sometimes if an important decision needs to be made and they are rushed into a decision they can often make the incorrect decision, or agree to something that is not within their best interests.

    An ND person can often be a people pleaser, efforts must be made to avoid pushing into saying "yes" to another task to complete, when in reality if they had time to think about it and reflect upon something, to realise saying "no" was a better choice for everybody to manage mutual responsibility.

• Do not use accusatory language when a misunderstanding occurs

    Assigning blame to another for poor communication immediately creates a defensive position, escalating a discussion into an argument quickly, language such as "you misunderstood" or resorting to defensive mode when somebody doesn't understand your point will generate a poor reaction.
    
    Even when you believe you are explaining something simple, you may still not be doing a good job of communicating, resisting the urge to get frustrated and instead try to find alternative ways to get the point across.
  
    "maybe I didn't quite explain that correctly" is a better phrase when confusion ensues, and then attempting to explain things in a different way (avoiding repeating again exactly what you said previous, just in a different tone) or find different ways of communicating other than verbal, for instance drawing a diagram.
  

• Make effort to not interrupted people mid-sentence

    Interruptions mid-sentence can be very disturbing, whilst neurotypical minds might be able to recover from an interruption mid-sentence it will likely be more disruptive to the neurodivergent mind, often causing them to forget their train of thought and unable to recover from the interruption.
  
    It's also important to wait for extra time to ensure a person has finished speaking before jumping in, often neurodivergent people can have different speech patterns, it might not be obvious the difference between the end of a sentence compared to a pause for thought whilst trying to formulate the next part of the sentence.
  

• Give time for difference speech cadences

    People can speak slower, or need extra time to formulate a sentence, exercise patiences and try not to overload the other person with a swamp of words to fill in silences, silences are ok.
  
    Do not assume a person with a slow speech pattern is less intelligent than yourself.
  
    In the context of a meeting & as a host, you should be responsible for controlling those who are quicker to answer questions, often immediately responses aren't the best considered options for selection;  however the responsibility for this lays with all meeting attendees.
  
    Do not assume a person has finished talking if they have slightly longer delays between words than normal, avoid interrupting or ending their sentences with information they were about to divulge in due time.
  

• Do not ask a question to a person than list optional answers before they've had a chance to reply

    If you're asking a question, you don't know the answer, give them space to think about the question and provide an answer, it is not good practice to list a set of answers to your own question, literal thinkers will believe these are the only options, and none of them may be a correct answer.  It gives the impression you never really wanted their answer anyway, or what they wanted was never a viable option.
  

Video Calls

• Reassure people and make them feel comfortable about turning off camera

    A camera on may encourage a person to engage in masking activities, such as forcing eye contact, or resisting the urge to stim in a stressful situation, such as rocking backwards and forwards or pacing the room, which can help regulate thoughts and emotions and anxiety.
  
    Do not assume a person with their camera is absent from the meeting or not listening, exercise trust and reassurance.
  

• Enable text chat

    Be open to all forms of communications and as a meeting host you should regular check the text messages during a meeting.
  
    Somebody who consistently contributes via text should not be negatively viewed, however some consideration should be given to ensuring those how are more vocal and quick to respond aren't controlling or driving the meeting in a certain direction without allowing space for input from all attendees of the meeting.
  

• Enable transcriptions

    Sometimes it can difficult to hear over a video call, having live transcriptions enabled helps ensure adequate & concise communications and also provides a quick to read historical record of what was said during the meeting for those unable to attend.
  

• Avoid talking all at once

    With audio sensory issues, it's often difficult for an autistic person to focus on a single voice, a meeting host should also act as an arbiter between contributors to ensure voices don't overlap during a call.
  

• Mute yourself if in a noisy room

    With audio sensory issues an autistic person may struggle to isolate one noise from another finding it difficult to listen to somebody talking whilst there is also distracting background noises.
  
    It's important attendees should find a quiet space free from background noise to conduct calls, failing that ideal attendees should be self aware enough to mute themselves when not talking.
  

Text Communication

• Bullet Points

    Consider reformatting all communicate into a bullet pointed list of items.
  

• Bold Important Text

    So a person can quickly scan a text block for just the important things they need to know.
  
    usually in a work context, two things are the most important, "what do you need" and "when".
  

• Avoid Walls Of Text

    Break up sentences with extra spacing, logically organised into paragraphs communicating a single idea/point per paragraph.
  
    Remove excessive words, strongly edit your text.
  

• Choose as easy to read safe font for all written communication

    Certain fonts can be easier to read than others, regardless of you're neurodivegent or not.
  

The good news is, many common and standard system fonts are accessible. Here are some common fonts that are generally more readable than others:

• Arial
• Helvetica
• Tahoma
• Calibri
• Verdana
• Times New Roman
• Century Gothic

https://business.scope.org.uk/font-accessibility-and-readability-the-basics/

• Avoid unnecessary small talk

    It's ok to not start a message with "hello, how are you?" - if you're not wanting a detailed answer to this question, do not ask the question.  Is it ok to send a message and jump right into want you need to ask.  Some people may feel uncomfortable without a opening sentence to a message like this, however to omit it is perfectly ok.
  
    "what's up guys?" - what does that even mean when asked in a group context?  Is the expectation everybody answers at once?
  

• Place less of a focus on correct spelling & grammar

    If the understanding of what a person was trying to say got through poor spelling may be unimportant within a casual context.
  
    Often a neurodivergent person can put in a lot of effort to get things correctly, repeatedly read things to themselves 5, 6 or even more times and see no error.
  
    often can be very harsh on incorrect spelling at the expensive of bothering to acknowledge or understand what was communicated at all.
  
    Be understanding of communication errors and friendly offer assistance rather than undermining any point they were trying to make. 
  

Personal Comms

With the below two points, it can be difficult to suggest methods and strategies for dealing with slow message responses, it's often important to note not to take it personally, often it's not related to if they like you not, nor to force somebody to respond to you. In fact, if a message or a person is more important to them, more time can pass when they take care and attention to formulate and write the perfect message, containing all the detail they think it'll require.

Often somebody can take weeks to respond to a message, but also when they realise how long it's been, they can feel guilty about taking so long, which can also enable shame and the thought "it's too late now, this person probably hates me".

It's important in this case to provide reassurance and not confront a person for being poor at messaging, a confrontation will likely make it worse.

• Text messages may take days to get responded to, if at all

    ND's will take a long time to respond to message, several days if ever at all.  It does not mean they do not care about you or what you have asked about.
  
    Messages can be a source of anxiety and stress, often formulating exactly the correct response with all the nuance detail required is hard work, more so the more important a message may be, depending on the person asking.
  
    Respect the need for alone time! (unless urgent)
  

• Voice mails may never be checked

    Neurodivergent people may have avoidance issues, it might be difficult for them to listen to their voicemails.