Body Language

Some individuals really struggle to read body language. The problem with this is that because we can read it, we assume everybody else can, Professor Mehrabian combined the statistical results of the two studies and came up with the now famous—and famously misused—rule that communication is only 7 percent verbal and 93 percent non-verbal. The non-verbal component was made up of body language (55 percent) and tone of voice (38 percent). So the problem is that if we assume that someone is reading our body language and they don’t respond to it then we assume that they are being defiant or rude. Imagine the scene a young neuro-typicals boy is climbing on the kitchen work surface to get his hands on the ever allusive biscuit tin. Mom walks in, Billy turns around and sees mom with arms folded and one of her feet taping. Now almost every neuro-typicals understands what this bodily display means. Billy will admit defeat and get off the work surface and try to slink quietly past his mom. Now Tom who is autistic attempts to climb on the work surface to get the biscuits. Again mom walks in, Tom looks at mom and see’s she is standing differently but doesn’t know what this means, he then remembers he wants a biscuit and then proceeds to get one. His mom reads this as defiance but it is simply a matter of a brake-down in communication. This situation may be made worse with mom using sarcasm; mom say’s ‘Go on then, help yourself’. Which has a hidden meaning of ‘Get down now, before I kill you’. Problem is Tom doesn’t read it this way and only hears ‘Go then, help yourself’ to which he does. He then becomes bemused when you start to shout at him asking ‘what the hell does he think he is doing’. A rule of thumb for these individuals is to use direct speech and don’t rely on your body language as both parties always end up getting frustrated. I had a meeting with a Anna one day and at the end of the meeting I stood up and said “Right Anna, it was lovely to meet you”, most neuro-typicals know this as a sign of the meeting has come to an end. Anna just sat there and looked blankly at me. I very quickly sat down and realised what I had to do. I stood up and said to Anna, “Ok Anna our meeting is over and you need to leave now”, to which Anna replied “Ok, she stood up and left”. The difficulty is that to a lot of neuro-typicals this feels very rude, but sometimes the direct approach is the best approach.

Now some individuals who struggle in reading body language will actually make a concerted effort and study it via books and the internet and they can become better at reading body language than their neuro-typicals counterparts. So remember autism is a not one size fits all disorder, and neither are the approaches be.

I have worked with a few individuals that give of deviant body language to which I mean they hold themselves in a way that neuro-typicals read as one thing but they actually mean another. This at times has gotten some people into trouble. I include in this personal space, I have worked with a few people that just don’t get the idea of personal space and when they talk to you they are right in your face which us neuro-typicals can find quite intimidating. Remember though that they are not trying to intimidate you but you do feel intimidated. With these individuals you will have to teach them an appropriate distance to stand when talking to someone such as an arm’s length away.

A final word about body language is around eye contact. Some individuals find eye contact extremely painful and therefore cannot make it. These individuals under no circumstances should be made to look at you when you are talking to them or they are talking to you. I once worked with a young man who was taught to make eye contact although the problem was he was never taught to break it, so when he looked at you he would stare which some people find very off putting and at times it even got him into trouble with people that did not know him.  Some individuals can only process one sense at a time so that means they can talk to you but when you want them to listen they have to look at the floor. Never grab a child’s face and insist on eye contact. If you make them look at you they probably can’t hear a word you are saying and for some, you are causing them extreme pain, which means you assaulted them twice, once by physically hurting them and secondly by causing pain via the eye contact. If you have to get them to look at you teach them to look at the top of your head and only do this if they don’t feel any discomfort doing it.

I have heard of many stories of children getting into trouble at school for not looking at the teacher. Imagine this scenario; Billy is looking out the window whilst the teacher is giving a history lesson.

Teacher “Billy, you are not listening to me”.

Billy “Yes I am”.

Teacher “What did I say”.

Billy “You talked about King Harold and the battle of Hastings and how he got an arrow in his eye”.

Teacher “You trying to be cleaver”?

Remember Billy is literal

Billy “No, that’s what you said”.

The teacher views this as sarcasm and now shouts

Teacher “GET OUT OF MY CLASSROOM NOW”.

Billy not understanding why he has been sent out punches the door.