Like what is mentioned in the textbook,
‘Just as relationships are an integral part of our everyday communication experiences. Communication is an essential part of the relationships we have with others.’
For healthy beings like us, we talk, laugh and joke all the time. It’s so much a part of our lives already, that we rarely stop and think of the different ways in which we express ourselves. Getting our feelings or thoughts known to people, probably wouldn’t and shouldn’t pose much of a problem.
Then I suddenly thought of autistic children.
Based on recent research by the Autism Resource Centre (Singapore), 5,472 out of our population of 4 million are children under the age of 19 years, diagnosed with autism.
How do they get their thoughts across to others?
In a world of their own, these autistic children usually keep to themselves.
Aint they robbed of the opportunity then, to communicate effectively with the people around them because of their developmental disability? Depending on the severity of their autism, they are unable to show their feelings through facial expressions, eye-to-eye contact, and to feel for others. As though losing the ability to put their thoughts into words isn’t enough.
Moreover, they are unable to use regulators and adaptors to make their emotions known.
Seeking to be understood by others would be a challenge for them, much less establishing friendships with other children of the same age.
Now, if interpersonal communication is already an issue for them, how would these autistic children take part in group discussions?
Interaction would be hindered by their weakness in expressing themselves.
Well.. at least they wouldn’t be subjected to any of the groupthink symptoms because they are not dependent on each other.
7 comments:
Yeah, it certainly is thought provoking as to how autistic children communicate with the people around them.
Are they even aware that they themselves are ' autistic' and this label diffentiate them from the other ' normal ' people around them.
But I think they will have their own trouble communicating as well. Such as the character in the book The Curious Incident of the Dog. He is an autistic child who is very good at numbers and logic. Yet he has trouble expressing his emotions through physical touch. His parents are unable to hug him or pat him on the bag for this will cause him to turn violent for it disorientates him. Hence they communicate by fanning out their fingers and touching their finger tips, a way to show that they care and love about each other.
Some food for thought ay? =)
Your last line was quite the poignant end. Ha.. then again while these individuals (kids and people diagnosed with autism) continue to remain very much unique and uncorrupted (by Groupthink) in a sense, how many of us out there can actually get along with them?
I guess every human would want to communicate and be involved at some points in their lives, even autistic kids... it must be really frustrating for them when they are unable to get their message across to their friends or family.
It will take special effort to form meaningful relationships with anyone, more so for the case of autistic children. It will probably be an emotional rollercoaster (ain't that so for all long-term relationships?) for autistic children and their loved ones. It's not impossible, tough maybe. Then again that might be why it will be so worth cherishing.
I feel that bringing up the issue of austistic children is very relevant in this case. Good job on that!
I've watched a movie (I forogt the name but I know it was in 2002)where my favourite actor, Shia Labeouf acted in as an autistic 13 year old. In the movie, it showed how badly his peers in school treated him. I felt sad looking at the way people could not understand him or his situation. His autism drove his dad to paranoia and his dad did not pay attention to him as he felt whatever Shia attempts to tell him is unimportant and what he communicates is inaccurate.
Although nowadays much help is given to children and teenagers to assist them in coping with autism, I feel that there could always be problems/miscommunications when interacting with them. As far as groupthink is concerned, I do agree with your stand that they would not be a part of the cause of groupthink too.
i actually have a cousin who have mild autism. and i managed to devise certain ways of communicating with him. encouraging him, or just simply talking without expecting any response but i know he understands.
it was qte difficult at first, but i believe it takes special effort for one to comunicate well with anybody,not only pple with autism. i guess one just have to adapt and learn ways of conversing with different kinds of people, in order to form interpersonal rs. just as how im trying to get my other cousins to socialise with him,and not to shun him.
people communicate, animals communicate, insects communicate, so yes, autistic children communicate too. it's just how.
as i think about the autistic people i have interacted with before, i remember a girl who was the older sister of a friend. even though she was about the same age as me, i remember the conversation we held being very child like. she would show me photos of her and her friends at a school play, and tell me things which a child would normally see.
i guess what i'm trying to say is that at the end of the day, autistic children sees the world in a different light. and as such, the way they communicate and interact with the people in their lives is also different.
haha i agree with your last line, since they are not subjected to groupthink i would think that they have the most freedom to be whoever they want to be in the world that they have created for themselves; they are pure and untouched. in some sense i am envious of their detachment from reality and thus society. :|
but i guess this is only one side of the coin.
pearleen.
Hi trixia,
This is an interesting post about autistic children and linking it to interpersonal communication.
I've had quite some experiences interacting with them while i was teaching in a special school while helping the teachers with autistic children.
Yes, they are unable to maintain eye contact or communicate with us through words that we use. Therefore, most communication concepts that we learnt in class are not applicable to them.
Contrastingly, they are a group of people who uses regulators and adapters most frequently! As we see them flapping their arms and jumping about, these are signs of adapters they use in order for them to feel the surroundings around them. Sadly, these behaviors are not socially acceptable and makes the public feels that they are of a 'different species'.
The reason we feel that they are of their own world is actually because of our own inability to connect with them and understand them.
It is truly an interesting experience to learn the way to communicate with them and join them in their world of thoughts. =)
Nice post!
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