Verbosity

[Outdated]

Being verbose is a well known and well documented autistic trait. Sometimes it can be funny.

My government has started doing a study in to what to do about autism and and what strategies we need to evolve in the future to better integrate autistic people in to mainstream society. They quite cleverly decided that the best answers for this would come from autistic people themselves.

So they organised a series of live seminars across the country, interviewing groups of 20 autistic people at a time. The seminars were strictly for autistic people only, carers and parents were disallowed to speak. The seminars were overwhelmingly attended by high functioning ASD2s like myself, most of whom as it turned out were employed in public service.

Each seminar session only lasted 90 minutes, and quite rightly the organisers knew that this wouldn’t be enough time for 20 autistic people to say everything they wanted to say. This was certainly true of the group I was in, we all went to the pub together afterwards and talked for another couple of hours. To counter this issue the government set up a website where we could send in our written submissions.

They gave this website address to several thousand high function ASD2s that make a living out of sitting in front of a computer and writing. I think a whole heap of bureaucrats are about to find out what the term Info Dumping means.

And for those of you that are curious here’s the web address, but submissions will only be accepted from Australian citizens.

https://engage.dss.gov.au/developing-the-national-autism-strategy/

 

[Tom]

And for those of you that are curious here’s the web address, but submissions will only be accepted from Australian citizens.

Typical NT thinking for you. I tend to believe autism is it's own type of citizenship. Maybe we should have dual passports.

 

[Gerontius]

Typical NT thinking for you. I tend to believe autism is it's own type of citizenship. Maybe we should have dual passports.

Perhaps it is; I, however, am still waiting for astronomers to discover which planet we originally blasted off from!

 

[Neonatal RRT]

Perhaps it is; I, however, am still waiting for astronomers to discover which planet we originally blasted off from!

Probably another lost tribe of Vulcan.

 

[Neonatal RRT]

Being verbose is a well known and well documented autistic trait. Sometimes it can be funny.

I think a whole heap of bureaucrats are about to find out what the term Info Dumping means.

Truth!

I can remember being in school and whenever we had to answer an essay question, write a report, or do an essay exam, I would be the only one in the class who would quietly say "Yes!", as if I was guaranteed and "A". Everyone else would moan and complain. "What? Write a paragraph? Just a paragraph?" That was a challenge. Give me 4 or 5 pages, well, that was more my comfort level.

I struggle with my lecture time as an instructor. My poor students. I can go on and on and on like the Energizer bunny. I really have to watch my audience and my clock or else they start dropping like dead flies.

Of course, even here on the forums, I can't let anything go without taking up half a screen of narrative. YES, I know. It's hard for me not to.

 

[Judge]

Why say something in ten words when you can do it with 347.932471 ?

 

[Outdated]

I can remember being in school and whenever we had to answer an essay question, write a report, or do an essay exam, I would be the only one in the class who would quietly say "Yes!", as if I was guaranteed and "A".

I was bullied and beaten up because I loved tests and I always knew without any doubts that I was going to get an A.

There's another similar project I'm involved with at the moment too, trying to find strategies for autistic people to remain in employment. At the moment they're just in a consultation mode, trying to find out what questions they need to ask. So I'm involved in the creation of a survey that they're going to send out to autistic people about employment and barriers. It's been a really interesting process.

Our different governments are being really proactive on the whole autism thing, my state parliament even has a Minister of Autism now.

[Edit] Just thought I might save some people a little confusion here. In our system of government different departments are called Ministries, it has nothing to do with religion. Instead of a president we have a Prime Minister, and beneath that minister is the Minister of Foreign Affairs, Minister of Health, Minister of Trade and Industry, etc. Now we also have a Minister of Autism.

 

[elgat0verde]

 

[MildredHubble]

I try very hard, but brevity is certainly not my strong suit. I am hyper aware that I can talk the hind legs off of a donkey and not even notice.

When I post here, I will go through several iterations quite often before I get my posts down to what I perceive as a reasonable length lol!

Before I gained a deeper understanding of how ASD presents, I would often apologize during conversations and say, "I'm sorry, I tend to be a bit on the verbose side."

The thing I learned back then was, your average Joe or Jane has no idea what "Verbose" actually means.

Once I was told by someone "You look quite slim to me?"

 

[Misery]

for me it depends on the nature of it. Online I can ramble on, but irl I barely speak, and never infodump. Nobody is interesteed, so why bother?

And school? Honestly the very idea of getting excited for a test was out of the question.

 

[TBRS1]

That is such a hilarious story.

And then giving everybody time to think about it and write some more, without a predefined end date!

Well, DUH!

What did they imagine was going to happen?

 

[SusanLR]

My companion is always saying: "Why do you have to go all around the world to give an answer that two words would do?"

Maybe I like to travel?

I've been called the walking encyclopedia of useless knowledge.
Oh, well. At least its knowledge!

 

[Mr. Stevens]

My companion is always saying: "Why do you have to go all around the world to give an answer that two words would do?"

I could say this of many non-Autistic people

 

[Progster]

I can remember being in school and whenever we had to answer an essay question, write a report, or do an essay exam, I would be the only one in the class who would quietly say "Yes!", as if I was guaranteed and "A". Everyone else would moan and complain. "What? Write a paragraph? Just a paragraph?" That was a challenge. Give me 4 or 5 pages, well, that was more my comfort level.

When I was at school, I didn't know how to write essays. I thought that the more information, the more facts you gave, the better the essay, so my essays were just long lists of facts. I got a lot of Ds.

 

[kriss72]

My companion is always saying: "Why do you have to go all around the world to give an answer that two words would do?"

Oh, yes, I hear this often too - especially from my spouse - like, "Kriss, I just wanted a yes/no answer!!!" and "You know, I just let your words flow in one ear and out the other..."

 

[Jumpinbare]

Sometimes there isn't a yes/no answer, or the answer depends on other factors. Simply saying yes or no often isn't adequate as it can give the impression that this is always or the only answer. By giving the REASON behind the yes or no, you equip the hearer with the ability to determine the answer in the future on their own. I find it very frustrating and downright mind-boggling that people would blithely discard such knowledge and insist on yes or no.

 

[kriss72]

Sometimes there isn't a yes/no answer, or the answer depends on other factors. Simply saying yes or no often isn't adequate as it can give the impression that this is always or the only answer. By giving the REASON behind the yes or no, you equip the hearer with the ability to determine the answer in the future on their own. I find it very frustrating and downright mind-boggling that people would blithely discard such knowledge and insist on yes or no.

Exactly!, it is not always possible to give a simple yes/no answer, come to think of it, didn't we learn in school to always give a reason behind our answers? - but must admit that sometimes, I might forget the question midway through and go down a different path, but that is a different story

 

[Ken]

I've been called the walking encyclopedia of useless knowledge.
Oh, well. At least its knowledge!

Useless knowledge???!!

I think "useless knowledge" is an oxymoron.

I do find that most people think, observe, read, etc. on a "skim" level. I find this very annoying. Others, find it annoying that I do not "skim". If I'm to understand anything, I have to understand it in it's entirety.

 

[Jumpinbare]

I think "useless knowledge" is an oxymoron.

I

I have made that exact statement to a friend of mine who is on the spectrum. His response was that he if he wasn't interested it's useless.

ARRRRGGGGGHHHHHH!!!

 

[Mr. Stevens]

Useless knowledge???!!

I think "useless knowledge" is an oxymoron.

I do find that most people think, observe, read, etc. on a "skim" level. I find this very annoying. Others, find it annoying that I do not "skim". If I'm to understand anything, I have to understand it in it's entirety.

Like Susan, I've been told I know a lot of useless knowledge. And I agree, Ken, I hate the phrase. Better to know too much than too little. And the imagination can find parallels and deeper meaning in all kinds of things. Just because it doesn't relate directly to work, or won't save your life, doesn't make knowledge useless.

I can't say, in my experience, this phrase was ever used by people who read widely or were very open-minded. Though they may have had nice educations.