Summer Reading Update!

I've been spending most of this summer reading Alan Alda's memoir whenever I have the free time.  A couple of weeks ago, I got an e-mail from Kelly Gilpin from Future Horizons publishing telling me that they want to send me Ellen Nothbohm's new book, Ten Things Your Student With Autism Wishes You Knew.  I immediately sent her my mailing address and got the book two days later.  Inside the book on the cover page is a sticker that says "Advanced Copy."  Thanks!

I'm enjoying this book tremendously.  I just finished Chapter 5 and had to comment about the three minefields of social communication that a student with autism encounters at school:

Vocalic: Not understanding sarcasm, puns, idioms, hints, slang, abstraction.  May talk in a montone voice.  May speak too loudly, too softly, too quickly or too slowly.

Kinesthetic: Not understanding body language, facial expressions, emotional responses.  May even gesture or posture inappriopriately.  Doesn't understand eye contact.

Proxemic: Not understanding physical space communication, the subtile territorial norms of personal boundaries.

These three types of social communication didn't even exist to me when I was a child.  Being at school was a land of confusion and frustration every day.  I thought some of the other students were making up the social rules that I was violating.  I wonder why they assumed I knew what they were talking when I told them repeatedly that I didn't believe a word they said to me.  I thought they were nuts.

Before I was diagnosed with Asperger's Syndrome, I had realized for years that I was having difficult with vocalic and kinesthetic communication.  I was totally unfamiliar with proxemic communication when I was diagnosed.  Hard to tell what is the appropriate physical space when I'm among people.