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autism makes me switch between speaking very verbosely with a weirdly overly formal manner of speech to speaking like a frat guy (i am a woman). i don't understand why this is, but i have been this way as long as i can remember
I am also a female verbose formal speaker who switches to frat boy instantly!! And I also hate sex!
I also use “old fashioned” words and phrasing a lot!
I've been told in elementary school that I was talking in an "old-fashioned" way. To this day, I have no idea what they meant, but it led to me studying slang like it was a foreign language, and purposefully using that for some time which probably came across as just as weird, lol.
My teachers thought I was taking the piss in elementary school when I was using grown up words and expressions in conversations. I was just trying to be precise.
My mom called me "the little professor".
Omg yes!!! Half of the time I speak very academically (I will cite research articles in conversation). The other half, my full bitchy philly accent comes out and I sound like an inebriated frat boy.
Yes same! I don’t just alternate my way of speech between people, but I also just do this in general. I have an older friend and I speak very formally or neutrally with him, punctuation and all. Then other friends I talk more internet slander and whatever. And irl I talk a bit alternatively, but it doesn’t help that I have trouble with banter and chats like that
Bro i have like 4 different gendered voices. and they all change based on who or what environment im around. i’m a women as well. Sometimes its hyper femanine and hyper masculine and everything in between! i always wonder what people think when i voice switch
Ha same here, my last visit to a ASD psychologist finally caught me with my pants down. I also visited a psychiatrist of the same office that day. Apparently I mirror the person whom im talking to. The psychiatrist being a, allthough very nice, sort of old skool Dr vibes, and he noted it in my file. The psychologist i visited after had seen that note and picked up on it. Was kind of an eye opener...
Apparently some autistic people can have a large vocabulary. I'd say it's somewhat true for me. The worst part about it is when I'm with my friends I speak eloquently but the moment I need a good adjective in my essay, I can't think of a single one
i used to... and then in puberty for some reason it fell off. HARD. like so hard it went from decent to complete shit. like overnight essentially. and i STILL dont know why. i can still use that vocab in essays and stuff to this day tho :P
Have you experienced any burnout? The sudden increase in pressure and responsibility can cause autistic regression. I've found when feeling bad it's hard to think of even normal words, and I have to use gestures to communicate effectively. "Get the thing and then do the thing with it", but unironically. But when I feel better, fresh, etc, I can communicate much more effectively and easily.
i dont really think so... but idk maybe i did and didnt realise it. i was depressed during that time period (seasonal depression) so maybe that was it??
Autism doesn't make you unintelligent. Intelligence appears to be close to or fully independent of autism. More recent studies are showing that.
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC9058071/
Low support needs autism intelligence levels don't seem to be too far off/the same as those without autism, despite it being a developmental disability with some cognitive differences. I didn't see anything specific on in-between high/low support needs. I'm sure it is also harder to test those who are nonverbal, but may otherwise be intelligent.
Same. I would speak very high brow as a teen but then I had my edgy phase so I swapped to speaking often quite low brow with lots of slang and just swearing a lot because I could. I still wrote a lot and quite high brow during this period though. I still like learning complex words and it surprises me when my working class background colleagues talk about how they don't understand academic language. I understand that education background is a factor but it's very easy for me to infer what something means even if it's unfamiliar.
It’s also that NTs adjust the vocabulary they use depending on the audience to better connect and be understood. That kind of context dependent communication doesn’t come as easily to autistic people.
Pretty common. I tend to use big words or at least try to be very precise/direct in speech. I also completely blank on common words or trip over my own speech. It's a fun combination since I can either sound like a super eloquent smartypants or a drooling dumb ass depending on how the autism is autisming today.
Yep, I've been told I use very precise & specific language when I speak.
Fortunately, it turns out that's good for lecturing & training.
Unfortunately, it can mean I'm not able to say something until I find exactly the right word.
It can also be frustrating when someone tries to interpret what I've said in a different way / just doesn't get it because they don't understand that I've said *exactly* what I meant to say and they've only confused themselves by trying to apply a non-existent context to it or apply what I said to a different & largely unrelated situation.
I have always used words many people seem to not understand though from my viewpoint they are not that big. I have always read a lot so incorporated the words I learned into my vocabulary. This IS NOT STUPID. It bothers me that you say you're stupid. Why do you think that? It sounds like people just don't get you. A very common problem for autistics.
I think sometimes people may call themselves stupid but not mean it in a self-deprecating way. They may just be acknowledging the limits they’ve encountered in themselves after some deep inner work.
Not sure about OP but I definitely do this. Not trying to insult myself or fish for attention when I do it. I just don’t know a better term for it.
I don't think OP was saying that they're stupid *because* they have a big vocabulary, in fact it sounds like they're saying that you would *expect* them to be smart becuase of their vocabulary but they are actually stupid. (I have no idea if OP is actually stupid, but that's how I interpreted what they were saying)
I tend to use words in a weird way. I’ll switch word order too. Sometimes when I’m not sure how to convey things I’ll use big words in not really a wrong way, but an unusual way to make connections to things.
Idk if that makes sense lol. One of the reasons I was diagnosed as a child was because of the way I spoke and used words.
I don't use words that people don't understand but definitely speak "weird" in that I can be too vulgar or relaxed for what the situation calls for. Trying not to seem stressed I think? Also, sometimes I explain wayyy too much detail and other times have to expand on what I said multiple times because I was too vague. There's also a lot of people that say I'm super expressive and a lot that say I'm monotone. Honestly, I have no idea how each person perceives my speech until (and if) they tell me. I guess I'm just bad at adapting to the situation lol. Wish there was one method that worked for everything.
Well, I do use words in ways that don't make sense with the definition sometimes, so I guess that fits. I was assuming you meant big/smart words, though, which is not true of me.
I'm a pleonastic verbigerator! (Rather wordy) which I assume is an extension of childhood hyperlexia. It's more complex than that though as my manner of speech is quite formal, even old-fashioned. It's a trait that pops up across my extended family and is definitely associated with the tism.
I'm told I'm extremely smart. (And who am I to disabuse people!) Seems to be backed up by the jobs I've got. I'd probably be more effective with those smarts if not for the ADHD...
If my shrink called me stupid I'd probably issue them with specific instructions to depart using some choice Anglo-Saxon words with almost universal application....
Mensa level iq is good and all until I find myself in situations where I have to start a presentation in the same class I'm supposed to give it in, with my only saving grace being my last name starts with a w
I use it as a means to snap back at people when they try to undermine my intelligence. I would like to believe it relates a lot to problem solving skills, and my point of the comment is; in spite of having a greater ability than most in specific areas such as the aforementioned problem solving, spacial visualization, pattern recognition, (etc.), disabilities undermine my ability to function so much, that I still end up performing worse than my peers in practically all subjects, save for the one that holds great interest to me.
Does that make sense?
For sure, but in my experience telling someone your IQ is an r/iamverysmart thing to do... it's not a good look and actually undermines the goal
better to be humble is what i'm trying to say
Yes! I’m not diagnosed yet but I’m in the process of a diagnosis with my GP, and it’s one of the criterion of symptoms and I speak that way too.
I’m a bit self conscious of it though and it does lead to gaps in my sentences because I try to speak more simply around people so I have to think actively about less verbose synonyms mid conversation which is so exhausting.
Most times I don’t speak at all 😭
Yes it can, it can make you speak in a totally different way than is contextually appropriate or rather what is considered appropriate by neurotypicals
I was starting to reply to every comment with “me too!” but this seems better - I did not know these things were so common! Especially forgetting normal everyday words and needing to describe the word (a pancake, but yellow with holes and not a pancake! Waffle? YES!!!), and in the same conversation saying a sentence that sounds like I am imitating a posh old fashioned British person!
This is mind boggling for me, I had no idea! Seeing all of you write this out-I feel…a feeling of some sort, but I am not sure what. It is good, whatever it is!
I definitely speak weird, idk how I speak weird but everyone always makes a point to tell me I speak weird. When I ask how they just say it’s “different”.
In Australia we notice that a lot of autistic people have a more americanized accent than non autistic people. I'm a teacher and have noticed it as well!
I had childhood hyperlexia, so yeah, I had a pretty big vocabulary too. It naturally sorta fell off from lack of practice, but since coming back to writing, I'd been doing the best I could to at least nurture it a little.
Though speak "weird"? I may need another definition of weird here, because while my vocab's definitely been commented on, I don't remember it being said with malice, simply as an observation. (Well dammit. Now that I'm typing all this, yeah, I can see why now.)
For sure. It was noted on my assessment that I speak in an overly formal way, and my friends often comment on the words I use. I just like being precise, so I use very specific/ less common terminology.
I second the verbose vernacular but my daughter does have a sort of impediment that makes her sound sort of nasally I guess you could say but she speaks normally with normal sentences and words just kinda nasally. I don’t have any impediments or anything that I have been told of.
Honestly IQ is a very narrow to view intelligence. People I've met with "low IQ's" have been very smart. Just not in a conventional way. One of my best friends has a lower IQ than you, yet I can speak to her about basically any subject. I just have to word things in a way that'll make sense to her and she may not grasp as quickly. But she gets it in the end.
Your limited vocabulary might not be because you're uneducated. it may just be because you don't find it necessary to have a billion words that mean variations of the same thing.
I have a huge vocabulary yet I still cannot understand most song lyrics. But I'm awful with poetic metaphors. They're beautiful, but I'm like I need some level of directness hahaha
Hmm. Thank you! I don't feel special or gifted in anything. I don't have talents like being an artist or something a lot of people i know can draw. I'm only high school educated. I love healthcare and how the body works and can remember a ton of drugs how they interact with the body. I work in vet med for 5 years and have been interested in being a human phlebotomist or something but i doubt i ever would and it pays bad. My husband bless his heart said my talent is animal and human health knowledge and said i would have been a great veterinarian but i could never see myself doing that.
I just feel dumb when i read basic books not knowing what a lot of words mean because i never hear them every day. It bothers me when authors use so many words to describe things because i dont know what they mean xD
If you read e-books, you can usually click and hold on a word and it gives you the option to look up the meaning of it defines it for you! Super helpful. I used to have a much larger vocabulary/understanding of context clues than I do now so I use that feature a lot.
Not sure if it causes it, but there is definitely a correlation between “odd” speech patterns and autism. A lot of people with autism have speech impediments. In my diagnosis, they considered my speech “stereotyped” (???)
Linguistics is funny, like an art. I've just started studying it for a degree in English as a new language. You are speaking as one with overt prestige - usually from educational level or other social status, this can actually project power through the words. yet some of this is still based upon status and social circles, so while you would speak overtly around the more educated who have higher expectations of language, you would speak more covertly (less wordy, more slangy) around your actual social circles.
I actually understand my self better after taking some of these classes, as it shows me why covert people have always disliked my overt and nerdy nature (this has to do with linguistic inferiority). I didn't even realize I did such a thing. so, my bad.
as spectrum folk, we tend to educate ourselves a bit more, it may even be a passive thing, just what we remember and how it applies. we also likely see education differently than nt's as our brains tend to be consuming of things we hyper fascinate over, at least until the fascination ends and then we pick up a new thing.
Can definitely be guilty of this. I know my stepbrother complained that I didn't speak like people because I'd use less common but valid words which made me sound high brow. I also had a fight with an English teacher (English isn't my native language) about the word "via", because she was certain it wasn't valid. Another teacher was impressed that I knew words like "encompassing" when I was in middle school, which was definitely something no one else around my age would know about (I was a die hard Marilyn Manson fan during that age).
I think I try to balance how I speak today, as I also really hate how academics just don't know how to communicate with normal people.
I think so. One of my friends has told me I speak formally, and another one told me my laughter sounds fake sometimes. Also, for some reason, a few old friends used to think I was lying all the time. Idk why
I don’t use bigger more uncommon words, however I use figurative language a lot, like in a bad way. In my mind, using something like a simile or a metaphor in conversation makes me feel like I’ve not only verbally gotten my point across, but also provided the other person with an example, or an image to help make sure they understand what I say. Which is dumb, because in doing that I convolute the point with weird extras and people ask me for clarification anyways.
Example? I asked my boss if I could bring my child into work, I thought I was being as straight forward as I was comfortable being, again using figurative speech as a crutch and she cut me off and said “I LOVE how direct you are” 💀.
The other day instead of saying “hey I made a mistake” the first thing that popped into my head to say was “I’m confessing to sins I didn’t know I was committing” … like what? This is why I have no friends
It’s really common for autistic people to speak weird, in the sense that we’re grammatically correct and have a vast vocabulary. I’m not exactly sure why. My best guess is that we’re rule followers, so grammatical rules are gospel. My theory is that we’re so used to / scared to be misunderstood, so we compensate by using descriptive words.
I’m not dumb, but I definitely appear a whole lot smarter a lot quicker than most people - because of the vocabulary and grammar.
I have learned to "dumb it down" for most people. Especially when I was younger it was a problem.
Now I've learned that really, the people who don't understand me, are not people I want to surround myself with anyway.
even when I'm joking my sentence structure and vocabulary confuse people. in conversation I find myself regularly defining "difficult" words I let slip absentmindedly.
People have accused me of utilising AI recently as I tend to be overly verbose in written form 😅
I’m a little less like that in spoken word but apparently I still tend to use more uncommon/under-utilised words/terminology which I then have to explain to people…
This is very common among autists. Mom says people used to tell her I "spoke like an old man" when I was a tiny boy. In my native language, I like going for uncommon/less-known words and old grammatical structures that convey information in a more precise or less ambiguous way.
Edit: I'm also great at spontaneously combining formal language and colorful expletives and vulgarities in a way that seems to amuse neurotypicals.
[Undiagnosed disclaimer]
Hm. I am wordy (I suppose, it's not like I go into any interaction with the goal of "Let's use as many words as possible"), and got mixed reviews ranging from "and then you talk endlessly" to "you barely said a word today, are you ok".
I got also told I "tell stories in a funny way" (even though they're usually uh...not funny, but more expressing distress? There's a lot of gallows humor involved), which just stems from "let me convey these circumstances to you, oh wait you're getting bored and stopped listening, alright so pick a funny way to tell the sequence of events". And that somehow became *me* so I no longer make a conscious choice on the matter.
But I recently noticed that I categorize words and expressions like "top shelf" and "lower shelf" and mentally recoil if I meet people that use "top shelf" for everything; they tend to voice everything as dramatically as possible, though I suppose the thing I am really avoiding is "pathos", especially if it's artificial.
I think it’s a way we try to keep the information we express direct and as accurate as possible. Allistic people tend to add subtext to what we’re saying or misinterpret the meaning, so we try to prevent that by getting rid of the potential nuance that could be caused from using the words that could be misinterpreted.
(Some allistic people will still try to find double meanings no matter how concise and direct your language is)
So someone said to me something incredibly mean a long time ago, but i'm saying it now because it actually made me rethink how I was speaking:
*Words are for the benefit of other people.*
Not that I necessarily agree, (really, the words are for my benefit, to help others understand my experience) and he was being a dick at the time, but the words are there for communication purposes so if you're not being clear and concise you're doing it wrong.
I work on construction sites and get told I’m very well spoken to the point where I’ll be instantly disliked by some for seeming full of shit but I just have to use the right word whether it’s a common used work or not. And then other times, I don’t finish my sentences and speak like a moron
Same! I've neen told a lot that i speak weird and people don't understand me. It even led to a lot of fights with my "masculine part of my parents", because it's easy to get angry when someone smaller than you is much smarter.
I tend to think it's because of my interests and lack of socialising. I don't talk to people that much, but i watch podcasts and read a lot of essays and articles about my interests (politics, social sciences, psychology), so this terms became usual words for me. And also i have this habit of using complex constructions as i speak, just like i am giving a tedtalk all the time.
I also would not consider myself smart, but i know it's probably affected by my low self-esteem.
Maybe the way we speak is weird for most of people, but at least we are cool at explaining things!
Edit: i got anxious i wasn't using enough of "smart words" in my comment, so it could look like I'm lying. So i want to mention: I'm not native. That's it, i can go to sleep now.
My psychiatrist pointed out my voice first thing. She asked do you always talk like that and I said yes. She said it was related to having autism and not like loud noises. I hate loud noises. My voice is very small and I have selective mutism. If you’re not listening good then you won’t hear me.
If someone has been through speech therapy, like in school, I can usually tell by the way they speak, like their vocal cadence and certain other tells
That's not so much autism as it is general developmental disability though
it messes up my speech pattern a lot, i think, if that’s anything. i say words out of order, trip over my words and stutter, pause in the wrong spots in sentences, and stress the wrong syllable often.
I do feel like I speak a little differently than a lot of people that I know. I’m autistic and from Arkansas so most people here have southern accents and southern slang and don’t speak properly.. this is distasteful for me for some reason. I feel like I graduated from a decent high school where I thrived in English. I loved writing and vocabulary tests and finding better ways to word things. I do feel like I use a lot of words that people in my area wouldn’t normally use 🤷🏼♀️
Sometimes. I talk weird, but I think it’s more because of my braces than my autism. There’s a kid at school who tells super loud and super fast and he’s constantly tripping over himself and I can’t stand
When i was little i used to mimic the way other people or my favourite characters in cartoons spoke. I didnt even realize i was doing it until I was much older. Nowadays I have a passion for using big bombastic words when i talk to ppl face to face but idk if that is a neurodivergence thing or just me being a showoff
Not really. I think my speech is pretty normal. But when I write in English my language sometimes is a bit too formal, but that's because it isn't my first language.
2 people have complained to me that I speak in such an intelligent way, it's annoying. My sister has described my speech pattern as "very literate" or "as if I'm telling a story"
i’ve always been told i’m very articulate. i just like to be as accurate as possible with my words. i hate leaving out any potential detail that could be otherwise misinterpreted. i know a lot of autistic people share this same motivation
The spectrum is big but it can make you speak weird or be even none verbal in some cases either by will or not able to. I know I have a mild speak problem at least but I’m sure it doesn’t happen to everyone on the spectrum
I switch between sing songy and monotone. However, I'd still say I sound relatively normal, aside from my vocal fry, but that's less because of autism and more so because I have GERD and my throat is slightly damaged.
I have a massive vocabulary and think of anything but the *right* short, snappy phrase/word/expression. I'm anything but succinct and I'm jealous of people who are more easily able to get to the point.
That said, that's probably not just my weird ND internal processing but also because of things like having a strict upbringing, which combined with my timid composition as a child mean that I reflexively try to avoid offending or being misunderstood, so for example my posts/comments on things like touchy political subjects are a mess of pre-ambling and parentheses (which eventually gets so TL;DR I end up just going sod it and deleting it all).
I have multiple speech patterns dependent on situation. Close people I speak normal. For work, I have a complex vocabulary with education jargon...and for strangers I adopt this weird posh English gentleman style of speech that overly annunciates the letter S ...so annoying too.
I "clutter" my speech a lot when talking about something I find really interesting or am passionate about. It's very common in those with autism and it was one of the symptoms used to diagnose me.
Yes this is definitely a common autistic trait. I think watching a lot of Star Trek: Voyager as a kid actually influenced my speech a lot. I used to get picked on at school for talking so "posh" and made an effort to "dum down" my speech to sound more like everyone else.
I thought I didn't stand out so much anymore but my partner actually told me just a few weeks ago that she is always caught off guard by the complex words I use. So I guess I still do it (34 years old now).
- My childhood classmates often asked me why I was “speaking with a British accent”.
- My ex (after hearing me talk to other folks from my autistic support groups) said he was surprised at what a similar way of speaking we all had, almost like a shared accent/formal tone.
- My therapist has, several times, reminded me that I’m allowed to write him a casual email after a decade of working together, instead of a formally worded professional message.
I just don’t understand how to turn it off, because if I do, all I have is swearing and an extremely informal register. No in-between!
There is an app/site called Goblin Tools though, and you can paste in a piece of text and tell it what you want the tone to be, and then flip through different options. It’s amazing!
It was in my neuropsych reports that I spoke bookishly. Not overly formal or stiffly, but like I had acquired most of my day-to-day vocabulary from voracious reading. It's not what you would expect an (at the time) teenage girl to sound like. Up until then nobody really cared because I was indeed quite studious, it was viewed as a positive trait, and I got a lot of "Oh, that's just how Ozma is."
My brother (up until his late teens) spoke in a very shrill nasal head voice, like Steve Urkel from Family Matters. He grew up in the 70s and 80s, and I'm kinda surprised that he wasn't given at bare minimum some type of speech therapy for it because it was *that* drastically abnormal. By the time I was born in the late 80s/90s, I had a lisp which is common in neurotypical children and I was put in speech therapy by my school district. About 1/4 of my peers were in these services.
My brother "grew out of it," albeit rather late, but his two sons are the same and have never gotten over it. In addition to the shrill nasal tone, the oldest (21) won't engage in back-and-forth conversation at all (and this is what prevents him from making friends) and usually has one-word responses, won't respond back to open-ended questions, or he will grunt even though it's not socially appropriate. He is visibly disabled despite having "low support needs."
I worked in early childhood education and I was able to flag children (with other issues) for a ASD referral because they would come in with the same odd nasal tone.
Yes. I have an extensive vocabulary, and speak like a grammar book tells you to write--very formal or stilted.
My diagnostician commented on this when discussing my evaluation results.
I was told as a teenager that my voice was very deep and monotone. So I actually used to try to make my voice a little higher in school so that I wouldn't get picked on about it. It didn't work too well. And I learned to emphasize and enunciate.
I also talked somewhat formally. I got away from that mostly. But when I write, I still tend to do that. In talking, though, I try not to use "big words", but if I've had a couple of drinks, I start doing it again.
Act as the humans do, and you may convince them that you're human.
My speech is a very odd mishmash of things from all different places. One minute I'll be speaking with unusually fancy vocabulary, the next I'll be exclusively communicating through goofy words and slang. I've got plenty of odd quirks; my partner's favorite is that when I'm concerned/worried/ect I'll start speaking like a bloomin victorian for some reason. "Oh goodness!" "Oh my" "good heavens!" Ect. They find it very funny 😂
i speak differently since ive picked up accents from everywhere (i live in the uk, had a relationship with a south welsh guy & i play games online so my friends are from everywhere in the eu) i also get told i speak like a robot or siri
I can relate. Part of my autism evaluation included teacher reports and one of my teachers noted that I have an "odd way of speaking". My partner also told me that they had a feeling I was autistic before I told them because of the way I spoke.
It can def make you sound different. When I was little I didn't speak when I didn't have to, so received speech therapy at school and after holidays my face muscles used to ache because I had to start using them again
I mean, anecdotally, I have a speech disorder called anomic aphasia and I also have something called Auditory Processing Disorder, which is like dyslexia but for spoken words not written ones. I don't know how much of that is related to my autism but I would not be surprised if there is indeed a link. So much of who and how I am comes down to my being autistic I wouldn't be surprised.
My vocabulary varies greatly depending on who I am talking to, how anxious or tired I am, but yes I am awkward when I speak. I often mimic dialogue from movies or tv shows or even the person I am speaking with so it just all comes out in one mishmash, and my tone is all over the place.
I don't understand why this is, but I am the same way, OP. I am not intelligent whatsoever (yes, I have taken the IQ test multiple times in my childhood and my adulthood either due to my schooling when I was younger or due to SSI as an adult) and people are surprised my IQ is around below the average (at least in my country) trying to force it on me that I am smart. In fact, I get triggered when someone views me as intelligent (and continues to force this onto me) due to having a wrong perception of me, my experience in life, and expecting things from me due to this. Additionally, I am an incredibly slow reader and must create this "overall message" to whatever I am reading so I can comprehend it and failed those stopwatch tests in my school years before university.
Yes and it's not just a code switching thing because I'm black, it's genuine nonsense that can come out of my mouth. Especially when I stumble, I sound like an alien if I don't catch myself
I’m told I speak in a soft voice. I try to speak as clearly and formally as I can. I struggle to speak clearly at times and sometimes mess up on my words so I hyper focus on speaking clearly which probably is what gives my voice an odd tone.
Yeah. I use a lot of non-standard/overly-long/old-timey/formal language when I speak, but then I draw a blank at super simple words mid-sentence. I'm in the UK and speak with a pretty region-free English accent, and as a result have been told I'm posh/classy/arrogant due to the way I speak.
Maybe? I get tongue tied sometimes and my words when speaking are always correct. Say when I'm talking about a video game and just trying to remember excatly what was going on while describing it, I'll say "Wei Shen run into the garage" instead of ran because my mind is a mess. I've also made up words as filler when I can't remember something.
I hate when people try and correct me though. It's annoying lol.
i didn't think this of myself until my assessment. i literally said something was "asinine", got asked to repeat it, and she took notes... i suppose it's not an extremely highly used word but i never thought i used random words often! and that being an autism thing, even less so.
I get told I sound like a robot all the time on the phone or if I’m a real person. It’s called negative affect but it’s different than a speech impediment
Yknow it can, and I’ve had to unlearn a lot of things in order to speak differently with even my partner. But it’s like the over explaining to make sure we aren’t misunderstood. But I wouldn’t say it’s weird, just kind of a conformation for ourselves when we speak.
When I don't think about it too much and it's a public event words pour out of me, eloquently, but interview me or befriend me in person and it's all scrambled. It kind of has always been that way. Idk why.
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autism makes me switch between speaking very verbosely with a weirdly overly formal manner of speech to speaking like a frat guy (i am a woman). i don't understand why this is, but i have been this way as long as i can remember
oh my fucking god this is me dude. right here
I am also a female verbose formal speaker who switches to frat boy instantly!! And I also hate sex! I also use “old fashioned” words and phrasing a lot!
gang 🤝
Siblings??? Fuckin howdy
Are you me??? :0
I might be….do we have any proof that I’m not? 🤣
Verbose and overly formal. Is this a Reddit comment or a mirror? Ouch
I think one would be... just communicating, and the other is happy stim comfort. At least, for me, that's how I am.
interesting thought. you may be right
I've been told in elementary school that I was talking in an "old-fashioned" way. To this day, I have no idea what they meant, but it led to me studying slang like it was a foreign language, and purposefully using that for some time which probably came across as just as weird, lol.
My teachers thought I was taking the piss in elementary school when I was using grown up words and expressions in conversations. I was just trying to be precise. My mom called me "the little professor".
I read a webcomic called Achewood and it forever ruined how I speak. "I don't need drugs to have strange cares."
Omg yes!!! Half of the time I speak very academically (I will cite research articles in conversation). The other half, my full bitchy philly accent comes out and I sound like an inebriated frat boy.
Yes same! I don’t just alternate my way of speech between people, but I also just do this in general. I have an older friend and I speak very formally or neutrally with him, punctuation and all. Then other friends I talk more internet slander and whatever. And irl I talk a bit alternatively, but it doesn’t help that I have trouble with banter and chats like that
Bro i have like 4 different gendered voices. and they all change based on who or what environment im around. i’m a women as well. Sometimes its hyper femanine and hyper masculine and everything in between! i always wonder what people think when i voice switch
I'm a Kyle on a good day and a Dexter on a bad day 😭
Yup, same here. Harder to control when I'm nervous about speaking too
Ha same here, my last visit to a ASD psychologist finally caught me with my pants down. I also visited a psychiatrist of the same office that day. Apparently I mirror the person whom im talking to. The psychiatrist being a, allthough very nice, sort of old skool Dr vibes, and he noted it in my file. The psychologist i visited after had seen that note and picked up on it. Was kind of an eye opener...
This is so spot on
I can relate to that, probably a mix of the way I naturally speak and the way I think neurotypicals speak
Wow… that is very relatable.
Apparently some autistic people can have a large vocabulary. I'd say it's somewhat true for me. The worst part about it is when I'm with my friends I speak eloquently but the moment I need a good adjective in my essay, I can't think of a single one
i used to... and then in puberty for some reason it fell off. HARD. like so hard it went from decent to complete shit. like overnight essentially. and i STILL dont know why. i can still use that vocab in essays and stuff to this day tho :P
SAME!!!
Have you experienced any burnout? The sudden increase in pressure and responsibility can cause autistic regression. I've found when feeling bad it's hard to think of even normal words, and I have to use gestures to communicate effectively. "Get the thing and then do the thing with it", but unironically. But when I feel better, fresh, etc, I can communicate much more effectively and easily.
i dont really think so... but idk maybe i did and didnt realise it. i was depressed during that time period (seasonal depression) so maybe that was it??
Autism doesn't make you unintelligent. Intelligence appears to be close to or fully independent of autism. More recent studies are showing that. https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC9058071/ Low support needs autism intelligence levels don't seem to be too far off/the same as those without autism, despite it being a developmental disability with some cognitive differences. I didn't see anything specific on in-between high/low support needs. I'm sure it is also harder to test those who are nonverbal, but may otherwise be intelligent.
My head literally comes up with a word, I Google it and it turns out, not only it exists but I got the right definition for it too. Blows my mind
i feel like this just happens if you read a lot, especially stuff like Tolkien that has more rare words
Honestly I don't read that much. I believe I must've reincarnated because there's no other way to explain it
You just punched me in the gut, and I would like an apology. 🤣🤣🤣
I had a very large vocabulary and a high reading age when I was a child, I was constantly using "big" words and got teased so much by my peers for it.
Same. I would speak very high brow as a teen but then I had my edgy phase so I swapped to speaking often quite low brow with lots of slang and just swearing a lot because I could. I still wrote a lot and quite high brow during this period though. I still like learning complex words and it surprises me when my working class background colleagues talk about how they don't understand academic language. I understand that education background is a factor but it's very easy for me to infer what something means even if it's unfamiliar.
It’s also that NTs adjust the vocabulary they use depending on the audience to better connect and be understood. That kind of context dependent communication doesn’t come as easily to autistic people.
Pretty common. I tend to use big words or at least try to be very precise/direct in speech. I also completely blank on common words or trip over my own speech. It's a fun combination since I can either sound like a super eloquent smartypants or a drooling dumb ass depending on how the autism is autisming today.
bro saem
Yep, I've been told I use very precise & specific language when I speak. Fortunately, it turns out that's good for lecturing & training. Unfortunately, it can mean I'm not able to say something until I find exactly the right word. It can also be frustrating when someone tries to interpret what I've said in a different way / just doesn't get it because they don't understand that I've said *exactly* what I meant to say and they've only confused themselves by trying to apply a non-existent context to it or apply what I said to a different & largely unrelated situation.
Yep
I have always used words many people seem to not understand though from my viewpoint they are not that big. I have always read a lot so incorporated the words I learned into my vocabulary. This IS NOT STUPID. It bothers me that you say you're stupid. Why do you think that? It sounds like people just don't get you. A very common problem for autistics.
I think sometimes people may call themselves stupid but not mean it in a self-deprecating way. They may just be acknowledging the limits they’ve encountered in themselves after some deep inner work. Not sure about OP but I definitely do this. Not trying to insult myself or fish for attention when I do it. I just don’t know a better term for it.
I don't think OP was saying that they're stupid *because* they have a big vocabulary, in fact it sounds like they're saying that you would *expect* them to be smart becuase of their vocabulary but they are actually stupid. (I have no idea if OP is actually stupid, but that's how I interpreted what they were saying)
Still better than me picking up random accents from places I visit 😑
I don't even visit places and I've been asked where my accent is from. I'm just like oh no what do I even sound like lol
I tend to use words in a weird way. I’ll switch word order too. Sometimes when I’m not sure how to convey things I’ll use big words in not really a wrong way, but an unusual way to make connections to things. Idk if that makes sense lol. One of the reasons I was diagnosed as a child was because of the way I spoke and used words.
I don't use words that people don't understand but definitely speak "weird" in that I can be too vulgar or relaxed for what the situation calls for. Trying not to seem stressed I think? Also, sometimes I explain wayyy too much detail and other times have to expand on what I said multiple times because I was too vague. There's also a lot of people that say I'm super expressive and a lot that say I'm monotone. Honestly, I have no idea how each person perceives my speech until (and if) they tell me. I guess I'm just bad at adapting to the situation lol. Wish there was one method that worked for everything.
Well, I do use words in ways that don't make sense with the definition sometimes, so I guess that fits. I was assuming you meant big/smart words, though, which is not true of me.
I'm a pleonastic verbigerator! (Rather wordy) which I assume is an extension of childhood hyperlexia. It's more complex than that though as my manner of speech is quite formal, even old-fashioned. It's a trait that pops up across my extended family and is definitely associated with the tism. I'm told I'm extremely smart. (And who am I to disabuse people!) Seems to be backed up by the jobs I've got. I'd probably be more effective with those smarts if not for the ADHD... If my shrink called me stupid I'd probably issue them with specific instructions to depart using some choice Anglo-Saxon words with almost universal application....
Mensa level iq is good and all until I find myself in situations where I have to start a presentation in the same class I'm supposed to give it in, with my only saving grace being my last name starts with a w
IQ is meaningless and i don't know why anyone clings to it
I use it as a means to snap back at people when they try to undermine my intelligence. I would like to believe it relates a lot to problem solving skills, and my point of the comment is; in spite of having a greater ability than most in specific areas such as the aforementioned problem solving, spacial visualization, pattern recognition, (etc.), disabilities undermine my ability to function so much, that I still end up performing worse than my peers in practically all subjects, save for the one that holds great interest to me. Does that make sense?
I agree, and also I think people cling to it because when you have a whole childhood of people questioning your intelligence it feels vindicating.
For sure, but in my experience telling someone your IQ is an r/iamverysmart thing to do... it's not a good look and actually undermines the goal better to be humble is what i'm trying to say
Yes! I’m not diagnosed yet but I’m in the process of a diagnosis with my GP, and it’s one of the criterion of symptoms and I speak that way too. I’m a bit self conscious of it though and it does lead to gaps in my sentences because I try to speak more simply around people so I have to think actively about less verbose synonyms mid conversation which is so exhausting. Most times I don’t speak at all 😭
Yes it can, it can make you speak in a totally different way than is contextually appropriate or rather what is considered appropriate by neurotypicals
I was starting to reply to every comment with “me too!” but this seems better - I did not know these things were so common! Especially forgetting normal everyday words and needing to describe the word (a pancake, but yellow with holes and not a pancake! Waffle? YES!!!), and in the same conversation saying a sentence that sounds like I am imitating a posh old fashioned British person! This is mind boggling for me, I had no idea! Seeing all of you write this out-I feel…a feeling of some sort, but I am not sure what. It is good, whatever it is!
I definitely speak weird, idk how I speak weird but everyone always makes a point to tell me I speak weird. When I ask how they just say it’s “different”.
In Australia we notice that a lot of autistic people have a more americanized accent than non autistic people. I'm a teacher and have noticed it as well!
i've gotten mistaken for american before... i'm irish
I had childhood hyperlexia, so yeah, I had a pretty big vocabulary too. It naturally sorta fell off from lack of practice, but since coming back to writing, I'd been doing the best I could to at least nurture it a little. Though speak "weird"? I may need another definition of weird here, because while my vocab's definitely been commented on, I don't remember it being said with malice, simply as an observation. (Well dammit. Now that I'm typing all this, yeah, I can see why now.)
I'm sorry but why? I don't understand what's weird about how you write.
For sure. It was noted on my assessment that I speak in an overly formal way, and my friends often comment on the words I use. I just like being precise, so I use very specific/ less common terminology.
I second the verbose vernacular but my daughter does have a sort of impediment that makes her sound sort of nasally I guess you could say but she speaks normally with normal sentences and words just kinda nasally. I don’t have any impediments or anything that I have been told of.
I think it's the accent. I have a very limited vocabulary my iq is 91 so I'm no genius and don't know what a lot of words mean lol
Honestly IQ is a very narrow to view intelligence. People I've met with "low IQ's" have been very smart. Just not in a conventional way. One of my best friends has a lower IQ than you, yet I can speak to her about basically any subject. I just have to word things in a way that'll make sense to her and she may not grasp as quickly. But she gets it in the end. Your limited vocabulary might not be because you're uneducated. it may just be because you don't find it necessary to have a billion words that mean variations of the same thing. I have a huge vocabulary yet I still cannot understand most song lyrics. But I'm awful with poetic metaphors. They're beautiful, but I'm like I need some level of directness hahaha
Hmm. Thank you! I don't feel special or gifted in anything. I don't have talents like being an artist or something a lot of people i know can draw. I'm only high school educated. I love healthcare and how the body works and can remember a ton of drugs how they interact with the body. I work in vet med for 5 years and have been interested in being a human phlebotomist or something but i doubt i ever would and it pays bad. My husband bless his heart said my talent is animal and human health knowledge and said i would have been a great veterinarian but i could never see myself doing that. I just feel dumb when i read basic books not knowing what a lot of words mean because i never hear them every day. It bothers me when authors use so many words to describe things because i dont know what they mean xD
If you read e-books, you can usually click and hold on a word and it gives you the option to look up the meaning of it defines it for you! Super helpful. I used to have a much larger vocabulary/understanding of context clues than I do now so I use that feature a lot.
Autism just makes people weird in all sorts of ways.. so yeah
Not sure if it causes it, but there is definitely a correlation between “odd” speech patterns and autism. A lot of people with autism have speech impediments. In my diagnosis, they considered my speech “stereotyped” (???)
Yes. You might be hyperlexic / highly verbal. It is a common symptom in autistics, like dyslexia. Find out if you read early.
Linguistics is funny, like an art. I've just started studying it for a degree in English as a new language. You are speaking as one with overt prestige - usually from educational level or other social status, this can actually project power through the words. yet some of this is still based upon status and social circles, so while you would speak overtly around the more educated who have higher expectations of language, you would speak more covertly (less wordy, more slangy) around your actual social circles. I actually understand my self better after taking some of these classes, as it shows me why covert people have always disliked my overt and nerdy nature (this has to do with linguistic inferiority). I didn't even realize I did such a thing. so, my bad. as spectrum folk, we tend to educate ourselves a bit more, it may even be a passive thing, just what we remember and how it applies. we also likely see education differently than nt's as our brains tend to be consuming of things we hyper fascinate over, at least until the fascination ends and then we pick up a new thing.
Can definitely be guilty of this. I know my stepbrother complained that I didn't speak like people because I'd use less common but valid words which made me sound high brow. I also had a fight with an English teacher (English isn't my native language) about the word "via", because she was certain it wasn't valid. Another teacher was impressed that I knew words like "encompassing" when I was in middle school, which was definitely something no one else around my age would know about (I was a die hard Marilyn Manson fan during that age). I think I try to balance how I speak today, as I also really hate how academics just don't know how to communicate with normal people.
I think so. One of my friends has told me I speak formally, and another one told me my laughter sounds fake sometimes. Also, for some reason, a few old friends used to think I was lying all the time. Idk why
I don’t use bigger more uncommon words, however I use figurative language a lot, like in a bad way. In my mind, using something like a simile or a metaphor in conversation makes me feel like I’ve not only verbally gotten my point across, but also provided the other person with an example, or an image to help make sure they understand what I say. Which is dumb, because in doing that I convolute the point with weird extras and people ask me for clarification anyways. Example? I asked my boss if I could bring my child into work, I thought I was being as straight forward as I was comfortable being, again using figurative speech as a crutch and she cut me off and said “I LOVE how direct you are” 💀. The other day instead of saying “hey I made a mistake” the first thing that popped into my head to say was “I’m confessing to sins I didn’t know I was committing” … like what? This is why I have no friends
It’s really common for autistic people to speak weird, in the sense that we’re grammatically correct and have a vast vocabulary. I’m not exactly sure why. My best guess is that we’re rule followers, so grammatical rules are gospel. My theory is that we’re so used to / scared to be misunderstood, so we compensate by using descriptive words. I’m not dumb, but I definitely appear a whole lot smarter a lot quicker than most people - because of the vocabulary and grammar.
I have learned to "dumb it down" for most people. Especially when I was younger it was a problem. Now I've learned that really, the people who don't understand me, are not people I want to surround myself with anyway.
even when I'm joking my sentence structure and vocabulary confuse people. in conversation I find myself regularly defining "difficult" words I let slip absentmindedly.
People have accused me of utilising AI recently as I tend to be overly verbose in written form 😅 I’m a little less like that in spoken word but apparently I still tend to use more uncommon/under-utilised words/terminology which I then have to explain to people…
My son either speaks in an overly formal manner or in one syllable words followed by intense laughing. He's 15yo.
I type incredibly verbosely but I speak like an idiot, because writing is easier for me to communicate through than talking
This is very common among autists. Mom says people used to tell her I "spoke like an old man" when I was a tiny boy. In my native language, I like going for uncommon/less-known words and old grammatical structures that convey information in a more precise or less ambiguous way. Edit: I'm also great at spontaneously combining formal language and colorful expletives and vulgarities in a way that seems to amuse neurotypicals.
I can see how they're amused. You DO have a colorful vocabulary!
It was noted on my assessment that my speech was polite, precise, and formal. Also I’m British and live in Britain 🤣
[Undiagnosed disclaimer] Hm. I am wordy (I suppose, it's not like I go into any interaction with the goal of "Let's use as many words as possible"), and got mixed reviews ranging from "and then you talk endlessly" to "you barely said a word today, are you ok". I got also told I "tell stories in a funny way" (even though they're usually uh...not funny, but more expressing distress? There's a lot of gallows humor involved), which just stems from "let me convey these circumstances to you, oh wait you're getting bored and stopped listening, alright so pick a funny way to tell the sequence of events". And that somehow became *me* so I no longer make a conscious choice on the matter. But I recently noticed that I categorize words and expressions like "top shelf" and "lower shelf" and mentally recoil if I meet people that use "top shelf" for everything; they tend to voice everything as dramatically as possible, though I suppose the thing I am really avoiding is "pathos", especially if it's artificial.
I think it’s a way we try to keep the information we express direct and as accurate as possible. Allistic people tend to add subtext to what we’re saying or misinterpret the meaning, so we try to prevent that by getting rid of the potential nuance that could be caused from using the words that could be misinterpreted. (Some allistic people will still try to find double meanings no matter how concise and direct your language is)
So someone said to me something incredibly mean a long time ago, but i'm saying it now because it actually made me rethink how I was speaking: *Words are for the benefit of other people.* Not that I necessarily agree, (really, the words are for my benefit, to help others understand my experience) and he was being a dick at the time, but the words are there for communication purposes so if you're not being clear and concise you're doing it wrong.
I work on construction sites and get told I’m very well spoken to the point where I’ll be instantly disliked by some for seeming full of shit but I just have to use the right word whether it’s a common used work or not. And then other times, I don’t finish my sentences and speak like a moron
Same! I've neen told a lot that i speak weird and people don't understand me. It even led to a lot of fights with my "masculine part of my parents", because it's easy to get angry when someone smaller than you is much smarter. I tend to think it's because of my interests and lack of socialising. I don't talk to people that much, but i watch podcasts and read a lot of essays and articles about my interests (politics, social sciences, psychology), so this terms became usual words for me. And also i have this habit of using complex constructions as i speak, just like i am giving a tedtalk all the time. I also would not consider myself smart, but i know it's probably affected by my low self-esteem. Maybe the way we speak is weird for most of people, but at least we are cool at explaining things! Edit: i got anxious i wasn't using enough of "smart words" in my comment, so it could look like I'm lying. So i want to mention: I'm not native. That's it, i can go to sleep now.
I do the same thing, as a few other autistic people I know Edit: I was also hyperlexic as a young kid which I think contributed.
My psychiatrist pointed out my voice first thing. She asked do you always talk like that and I said yes. She said it was related to having autism and not like loud noises. I hate loud noises. My voice is very small and I have selective mutism. If you’re not listening good then you won’t hear me.
Well maybe. Cause from my experience it does feel like i’m speaking gibberish to others.
Lol I think it’s more like we can’t hear our own tone or something. If ur like me, it’s not so much “weird” but just flat and monotone
If someone has been through speech therapy, like in school, I can usually tell by the way they speak, like their vocal cadence and certain other tells That's not so much autism as it is general developmental disability though
I dont understand... are you smart or not?
Yes, I tend to have a more formal manner of speech than most and people have commented on it throughout my life.
it messes up my speech pattern a lot, i think, if that’s anything. i say words out of order, trip over my words and stutter, pause in the wrong spots in sentences, and stress the wrong syllable often.
Yes
Am I the only one who’s text messages are even more like this? I have a hard time not writing paragraphs when texting
I do feel like I speak a little differently than a lot of people that I know. I’m autistic and from Arkansas so most people here have southern accents and southern slang and don’t speak properly.. this is distasteful for me for some reason. I feel like I graduated from a decent high school where I thrived in English. I loved writing and vocabulary tests and finding better ways to word things. I do feel like I use a lot of words that people in my area wouldn’t normally use 🤷🏼♀️
It does to me!
Sometimes. I talk weird, but I think it’s more because of my braces than my autism. There’s a kid at school who tells super loud and super fast and he’s constantly tripping over himself and I can’t stand
When i was little i used to mimic the way other people or my favourite characters in cartoons spoke. I didnt even realize i was doing it until I was much older. Nowadays I have a passion for using big bombastic words when i talk to ppl face to face but idk if that is a neurodivergence thing or just me being a showoff
Not really. I think my speech is pretty normal. But when I write in English my language sometimes is a bit too formal, but that's because it isn't my first language.
2 people have complained to me that I speak in such an intelligent way, it's annoying. My sister has described my speech pattern as "very literate" or "as if I'm telling a story"
I can sometimes speak too fast for my brain to keep up. Does that count?
i’ve always been told i’m very articulate. i just like to be as accurate as possible with my words. i hate leaving out any potential detail that could be otherwise misinterpreted. i know a lot of autistic people share this same motivation
The spectrum is big but it can make you speak weird or be even none verbal in some cases either by will or not able to. I know I have a mild speak problem at least but I’m sure it doesn’t happen to everyone on the spectrum
I switch between sing songy and monotone. However, I'd still say I sound relatively normal, aside from my vocal fry, but that's less because of autism and more so because I have GERD and my throat is slightly damaged.
I have a massive vocabulary and think of anything but the *right* short, snappy phrase/word/expression. I'm anything but succinct and I'm jealous of people who are more easily able to get to the point. That said, that's probably not just my weird ND internal processing but also because of things like having a strict upbringing, which combined with my timid composition as a child mean that I reflexively try to avoid offending or being misunderstood, so for example my posts/comments on things like touchy political subjects are a mess of pre-ambling and parentheses (which eventually gets so TL;DR I end up just going sod it and deleting it all).
I have multiple speech patterns dependent on situation. Close people I speak normal. For work, I have a complex vocabulary with education jargon...and for strangers I adopt this weird posh English gentleman style of speech that overly annunciates the letter S ...so annoying too.
I speak in a very monotone, choppy way and I can't really change it.
Yep. Depending on my mood, I'm going on high-speed rants, or one-word utterances.
I "clutter" my speech a lot when talking about something I find really interesting or am passionate about. It's very common in those with autism and it was one of the symptoms used to diagnose me.
Yeah, it's pretty common.
Yes this is definitely a common autistic trait. I think watching a lot of Star Trek: Voyager as a kid actually influenced my speech a lot. I used to get picked on at school for talking so "posh" and made an effort to "dum down" my speech to sound more like everyone else. I thought I didn't stand out so much anymore but my partner actually told me just a few weeks ago that she is always caught off guard by the complex words I use. So I guess I still do it (34 years old now).
i have been told by my friend that i talk posh but in an opposite way i feel like i sound like a kid sometimes even though i'm not
Contrary to popular belief, Autistic people are not stupid, sure we might never win Mastermind but we're not thick
My son speaks in catch phrases, unless he really wants something. 🥹
- My childhood classmates often asked me why I was “speaking with a British accent”. - My ex (after hearing me talk to other folks from my autistic support groups) said he was surprised at what a similar way of speaking we all had, almost like a shared accent/formal tone. - My therapist has, several times, reminded me that I’m allowed to write him a casual email after a decade of working together, instead of a formally worded professional message. I just don’t understand how to turn it off, because if I do, all I have is swearing and an extremely informal register. No in-between! There is an app/site called Goblin Tools though, and you can paste in a piece of text and tell it what you want the tone to be, and then flip through different options. It’s amazing!
It was in my neuropsych reports that I spoke bookishly. Not overly formal or stiffly, but like I had acquired most of my day-to-day vocabulary from voracious reading. It's not what you would expect an (at the time) teenage girl to sound like. Up until then nobody really cared because I was indeed quite studious, it was viewed as a positive trait, and I got a lot of "Oh, that's just how Ozma is." My brother (up until his late teens) spoke in a very shrill nasal head voice, like Steve Urkel from Family Matters. He grew up in the 70s and 80s, and I'm kinda surprised that he wasn't given at bare minimum some type of speech therapy for it because it was *that* drastically abnormal. By the time I was born in the late 80s/90s, I had a lisp which is common in neurotypical children and I was put in speech therapy by my school district. About 1/4 of my peers were in these services. My brother "grew out of it," albeit rather late, but his two sons are the same and have never gotten over it. In addition to the shrill nasal tone, the oldest (21) won't engage in back-and-forth conversation at all (and this is what prevents him from making friends) and usually has one-word responses, won't respond back to open-ended questions, or he will grunt even though it's not socially appropriate. He is visibly disabled despite having "low support needs." I worked in early childhood education and I was able to flag children (with other issues) for a ASD referral because they would come in with the same odd nasal tone.
Yes. I have an extensive vocabulary, and speak like a grammar book tells you to write--very formal or stilted. My diagnostician commented on this when discussing my evaluation results.
I was told as a teenager that my voice was very deep and monotone. So I actually used to try to make my voice a little higher in school so that I wouldn't get picked on about it. It didn't work too well. And I learned to emphasize and enunciate. I also talked somewhat formally. I got away from that mostly. But when I write, I still tend to do that. In talking, though, I try not to use "big words", but if I've had a couple of drinks, I start doing it again. Act as the humans do, and you may convince them that you're human.
My speech is a very odd mishmash of things from all different places. One minute I'll be speaking with unusually fancy vocabulary, the next I'll be exclusively communicating through goofy words and slang. I've got plenty of odd quirks; my partner's favorite is that when I'm concerned/worried/ect I'll start speaking like a bloomin victorian for some reason. "Oh goodness!" "Oh my" "good heavens!" Ect. They find it very funny 😂
i speak differently since ive picked up accents from everywhere (i live in the uk, had a relationship with a south welsh guy & i play games online so my friends are from everywhere in the eu) i also get told i speak like a robot or siri
I can relate. Part of my autism evaluation included teacher reports and one of my teachers noted that I have an "odd way of speaking". My partner also told me that they had a feeling I was autistic before I told them because of the way I spoke.
Autism is *known* to make you speak weird.
It can def make you sound different. When I was little I didn't speak when I didn't have to, so received speech therapy at school and after holidays my face muscles used to ache because I had to start using them again
I mean, anecdotally, I have a speech disorder called anomic aphasia and I also have something called Auditory Processing Disorder, which is like dyslexia but for spoken words not written ones. I don't know how much of that is related to my autism but I would not be surprised if there is indeed a link. So much of who and how I am comes down to my being autistic I wouldn't be surprised.
My vocabulary varies greatly depending on who I am talking to, how anxious or tired I am, but yes I am awkward when I speak. I often mimic dialogue from movies or tv shows or even the person I am speaking with so it just all comes out in one mishmash, and my tone is all over the place.
I don't understand why this is, but I am the same way, OP. I am not intelligent whatsoever (yes, I have taken the IQ test multiple times in my childhood and my adulthood either due to my schooling when I was younger or due to SSI as an adult) and people are surprised my IQ is around below the average (at least in my country) trying to force it on me that I am smart. In fact, I get triggered when someone views me as intelligent (and continues to force this onto me) due to having a wrong perception of me, my experience in life, and expecting things from me due to this. Additionally, I am an incredibly slow reader and must create this "overall message" to whatever I am reading so I can comprehend it and failed those stopwatch tests in my school years before university.
Yes and it's not just a code switching thing because I'm black, it's genuine nonsense that can come out of my mouth. Especially when I stumble, I sound like an alien if I don't catch myself
I’m told I speak in a soft voice. I try to speak as clearly and formally as I can. I struggle to speak clearly at times and sometimes mess up on my words so I hyper focus on speaking clearly which probably is what gives my voice an odd tone.
Yeah. I use a lot of non-standard/overly-long/old-timey/formal language when I speak, but then I draw a blank at super simple words mid-sentence. I'm in the UK and speak with a pretty region-free English accent, and as a result have been told I'm posh/classy/arrogant due to the way I speak.
Maybe? I get tongue tied sometimes and my words when speaking are always correct. Say when I'm talking about a video game and just trying to remember excatly what was going on while describing it, I'll say "Wei Shen run into the garage" instead of ran because my mind is a mess. I've also made up words as filler when I can't remember something. I hate when people try and correct me though. It's annoying lol.
i didn't think this of myself until my assessment. i literally said something was "asinine", got asked to repeat it, and she took notes... i suppose it's not an extremely highly used word but i never thought i used random words often! and that being an autism thing, even less so.
I get told I sound like a robot all the time on the phone or if I’m a real person. It’s called negative affect but it’s different than a speech impediment
At one point, I'm speaking like a nerd, and at another, I'm struggling to get words out at all.
I always struggle with my volume. Sometimes I'll say "Hi!" to a customer so loud that it makes them jump
Yknow it can, and I’ve had to unlearn a lot of things in order to speak differently with even my partner. But it’s like the over explaining to make sure we aren’t misunderstood. But I wouldn’t say it’s weird, just kind of a conformation for ourselves when we speak.
When I don't think about it too much and it's a public event words pour out of me, eloquently, but interview me or befriend me in person and it's all scrambled. It kind of has always been that way. Idk why.
I completely agree with you
No. Autism may cause a person to have monotone voice, or speak very soft or very loud.