Inflections in voice

[ilovetochat87]

I was very very excited to start watching the new show on ABC called The Good Doctor because it is about a guy that has autism/aspergers and we all wish there was a main character like us. The closest thing there is is Sheldon on The Big Bang Theory but he's not specifically diagnosed but we all know that he has traits. But that's as close as we have and I was really excited that there was finally a main character in a TV show with it because that makes us feel like we're finally getting excepted fish .

Well the PCA that comes to my house (personal care assistant) who helps me with paying my bills and going grocery shopping she was interested in watching this show to and she didn't like it as much as I did she said the main character played by Freddy Highmore did not have inflections in his voice like she knows everybody on the spectrum does have to some degree. She said it doesn't matter who the person is or who they think they are or who anybody else thinks they are every single person on the spectrum has inflections in their voice to some degree and this character does not and he just does not put off as a very good portrayal of autism.

I said that I related to some of his behaviors of not getting sarcasm and not getting jokes and taking everything literal and his fears and the way that he was raised by his younger sibling. But I don't get the whole inflection thing. Like what is that mean to have a voice inflection? From what I'm understanding it means that we don't know how to have normal ups and downs in her tone of voice and that we talk kind of monotone. I don't talk monotone like most people but I do notice that when I read out loud to a crowd I sometimes don't sound happy when I'm reading I sound kind of flat I don't know if that would be considered monotone .
Can someone explain that to me what that inflections means and how do I know if I'm hearing it or not hearing it ?

 

[The Midge]

Can someone explain that to me what that inflections means and how do I know if I'm hearing it or not hearing it ?​

If we could do that then maybe we would be NT. I failed that part of the assessment test, along with the eye pictures (shudder). The trouble with things like inflections is that they vary with context and even differ with accents (if you can pick them up in the first place).

 

[Streetwise]

the Collins dictionary said modulation of the voice. I looked up inflection the root word is flectere- to bend(latin)
what should be thought of is intonation how the voice rises and falls usually well known in singing practice !.
what i really got is what they think your voice should sound like .
great not , another time to be assertive .

 

[Ambi]

I was very very excited to start watching the new show on ABC called the good doctor because it is about a guy that has autism/aspergers and we all wish there was a main character like us. The closest thing there is is Sheldon on the Big Bang theory but he's not specifically diagnosed but we all know that he has traits. But that's as close as we have and I was really excited that there was finally a main character in a TV show with it because that makes us feel like we're finally getting excepted fish . Well the PCA that comes to my house (personal care assistant) who helps me with paying my bills and going grocery shopping she was interested in watching this show to and she didn't like it as much as I did she said the main character played by Freddy Highmore did not have inflections in his voice like she knows everybody on the spectrum does have to some degree. she said it doesn't matter who the person is or who they think they are or who anybody else thinks they are every single person on the spectrum has inflections in their voice to some degree and this character does not and he just does not put off as a very good portrayal of autism. I said that I related to some of his behaviors of not getting sarcasm and not getting jokes and taking everything literal and his fears and the way that he was raised by his younger sibling. but I don't get the whole inflection thing like what is that mean to have a voice inflection from what I'm understanding it means that we don't know how to have normal ups and downs in her tone of voice and that we talk kind and monotone. I don't talk monotone like most people but I do notice that when I read out loud to a crowd I sometimes don't sound happy when I'm reading I sound kind of flat I don't know if that would be considered monotone . Can someone explain that to me what that inflections means and how do I know if I'm hearing it or not hearing it ?

Imho she is full of BS. You cannot say, ALL people with ASD have inflection this or that or the other. If I ever had this, no one ever made me aware of it, and moreover I have worked for years on improving the impression I make. This PCA is too full of black and white textbook thinking to see real life in color.

EDIT: When I am trying to make a point, I can become very emphatic and loud. But that is only in one particular situation, and most people who encounter me don't get to see that (since I limit communication with most).

 

[Katleya]

While I feel that I can modulate my voice very well, people around me would beg to differ.
Now, don't get me wrong, I can handle most of the inflections and variations, but I do have frequent slip-ups. I also have issues with volume control, apparently (that, I really don't notice unless I'm told).
One thing, however, is that people have always told me I speak with a very slight accent, but not a single person has ever been able to place said accent (is it an accent that betrays regional origin, social origin? No one knows). I feel that this might be the inflection-thing at play.

That being said, to anyone with a musical ear paying super close attention, everybody has a way of speaking (regardless ASD), so maybe she is generalizing, but maybe she actually has picked up on something with a level of precision that most people don't have. I wouldn't go as far as saying that lacking just this part means that the actor has missed the mark, though. Still haven't been able to see the show to offer a more specific opinion

 

[Ambi]

While I feel that I can modulate my voice very well, people around me would beg to differ.
Now, don't get me wrong, I can handle most of the inflections and variations, but I do have frequent slip-ups. I also have issues with volume control, apparently (that, I really don't notice unless I'm told).
One thing, however, is that people have always told me I speak with a very slight accent, but not a single person has ever been able to place said accent (is it an accent that betrays regional origin, social origin? No one knows). I feel that this might be the inflection-thing at play.

That being said, to anyone with a musical ear paying super close attention, everybody has a way of speaking (regardless ASD), so maybe she is generalizing, but maybe she actually has picked up on something with a level of precision that most people don't have. I wouldn't go as far as saying that lacking just this part means that the actor has missed the mark, though. Still haven't been able to see the show to offer a more specific opinion

That's interesting - people have said things about my "accent" sometimes. But it depends on the word. It think I have picked up accents from the places I have lived, but it depends on the words. I don't do it on purpose.

 

[Katleya]

That's interesting - people have said things about my "accent" sometimes. But it depends on the word. It think I have picked up accents from the places I have lived, but it depends on the words. I don't do it on purpose.

I strongly believe in accent mashups. When I'm really tired, you can hear all of the places I spent time in as a child/teenager, which gets really confusing for some people.

But here's a funny thing: my parents have different mother tongues, and I speak both with the same proficiency. For some reason, I have never picked up either one of their accents.
The best analysis I ever got on this "personal accent" was from a friend who sang opera for years, and her theory was that there was something just sliiiiightly off in the pace at which I spoke, and stress on non-usually stressed words/lack of stress on usially stressed words.

However, I think we have to consider some form of bias, too: sometimes, certain people are expected to have a different speech pattern (can be because of ASD, of the color of their skin, the neighborhood they hail from... whatever), and I suspect that sometimes because of that expectation, the people they are talking to will "hear" an accent or weird intonation because they are looking for one so hard that they will convince themselves they heard one.

 

[Ambi]

I strongly believe in accent mashups. When I'm really tired, you can hear all of the places I spent time in as a child/teenager, which gets really confusing for some people.

But here's a funny thing: my parents have different mother tongues, and I speak both with the same proficiency. For some reason, I have never picked up either one of their accents.
The best analysis I ever got on this "personal accent" was from a friend who sang opera for years, and her theory was that there was something just sliiiiightly off in the pace at which I spoke, and stress on non-usually stressed words/lack of stress on usially stressed words.

However, I think we have to consider some form of bias, too: sometimes, certain people are expected to have a different speech pattern (can be because of ASD, of the color of their skin, the neighborhood they hail from... whatever), and I suspect that sometimes because of that expectation, the people they are talking to will "hear" an accent or weird intonation because they are looking for one so hard that they will convince themselves they heard one.

Very true! People do have expectations. When I have worn Indian clothes, someone once expressed shock that I didn't speak with an Indian accent. When I was very small and learned my English from my parents, I suppose, I had a thick Indian accent...but then I lost it very quickly. Only to slightly regain it, not from my parents, but from being around immigrants later - even my word order is like a foreign speaker's sometimes. Then I lived England for a year and picked up some pronunciations from there, though it was still very strange for me to see Indians speaking with English accents. Then I lived in the deep South of the US, and picked up some things there - though it was still strange for me to see an Indian with the heaviest drawl I have ever heard. To me, Temple Grandin has a very unique accent - I'm not sure if that is reflective of where she is from, or if it's all her own.

 

[Katleya]

Maybe all of her own and a reflection of where she is from?
I wouldn't be surprised if most of use had a finer ear, and picked up various influences better than most. Or sometimes had a word structure that better reflects the logical order in our head.

 

[ilovetochat87]

Perhaps this might help:

That video makes things a lot clearer for me and the way he explains it is perfect because when I tell a story I do not always tell the story with correct inflections. even that I'm high functioning and I'm on the higher side of high functioning my inflections are not that far off from an NT because my mom has listened to me read something off of eight computer screen or off of the phone or out of a book and she says I sound normal to her and I said well do I sound monotone on any level? And she says no you sound fine to me I don't know what the problem is. But I do notice slightly when I'm hearing other people as they tell a story and then I go and read the same story right after them that I don't sound the same but I'm not far off. Like a kid comes up and says "will you read me a story?" and I say "Jan already read that to you." They say "well I wanted her to read it again but she's going somewhere else. Will you read it?" and as I sit down to read the story I'm remembering the inflections in Jan's voice as she was reading the same story because I watched her read it and I paid attention. So I try to mimic that so that I can read it correctly but my inflections are a little off but not much and they're not very noticeably off because it's really close to being normal . But I notice it to myself . But I didn't know it was called inflection but now that the guy in the video explained it I realize what it is and that that's what I am talking about. And even though I know that I do that I'm not really sure how to make it sound better . And I don't know if there's a way for someone with aspergers or autism to be able to change their inflections to be more normal because they don't always know that they're doing it and sometimes they can't even hear it or anything. so I don't know if there would be a way to train yourself to have more normal inflections like a neurotypical person or not.