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10:10pm April 20, 2015

madeofpatterns:

into-the-weeds:

A note to everyone who interacts with me in speech (or fast-paced text):

I have some problems using words!

I know this comes as a shock to you (I mean, if someone is reading this and they’ve never seen it happen, it might) but I do! I drop words, I stammer, I get stuck, I use the wrong script. Sometimes I can’t get anything out at all. Sometimes fingerspelling, signing, typing, or writing helps; sometimes it doesn’t.

Usually you guys are pretty calm about this! I appreciate that.

What seems to throw people off the most, though, is when I say the wrong word. I understand why–words mean things, and if I use the wrong one, you think I mean the wrong thing. This can be disconcerting and concerning. It can be cause for alarm; sometimes, it can even be right. 

I need you guys to remember that it isn’t always the case.

I need you guys to remember that I have a communication disability. There are a lot of reasons I might use the wrong word: I heard someone else say it while I was building my sentence, it’s phonetically similar to the word I want, I don’t know the right word, something got mixed up while I was filling in my script, etc etc etc. I work really hard on my words. Most of the time, that means that when there are problems, people can’t tell. This is probably for the best! But I need you guys to remember that it happens all the time, as in multiple times an hour on a good day, and that means it probably happens at least once in a given conversation.

And just.

Keep calm, okay?

It is totally cool to ask me if I meant this word or that word. Totally cool! Appreciated, even! But please don’t have a heart attack because I said Medicare instead of Medicaid, or persecute instead of prosecute, or even something bigger! When you do that, it makes me want to stop talking. And sometimes it works. And sometimes it creates a cycle that is really hard to break.

Okay. I’m done for now. Just please remember, okay?

Keep calm and it’s just autism.

me too me too me too

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