How pace, pauses and communication choices can help autistic people feel heard
A person looks away while you speak. There is a long pause before they answer. You wonder whether the question has reached them, whether they are interested or whether you should try asking it differently.
You ask again, perhaps using different words. Then you add an example to make it clearer.
Your intention is to help. You may also have given them more to process before they have finished considering the first question.
We can become uncomfortable with silence surprisingly quickly. In that discomfort, it is easy to assume that something has gone wrong. Yet a pause tells us very little on its own. The person may be thinking, finding words or deciding what they want to share. They may need the question made clearer. They may prefer not to answer.
We need to leave enough room to find out.
Looking attentive and being able to listen
We learn to recognise listening through familiar signs: eye contact, a nod, a quick response. Those signs can be reassuring to the speaker. They do not necessarily tell us how well the other person is following.
An autistic teenager or adult may listen more comfortably while looking elsewhere. They may move while thinking or find it easier to respond in writing. Asking them to change those things can add another task to the conversation.
The question becomes practical: what helps this person understand and respond?
We can ask about that directly. Someone may prefer questions in advance. Another person may find advance questions burdensome and want to work things out in conversation. A written summary may help, provided it captures what they meant and gives them a way to correct it.
These preferences need to be discovered with the person.
Leaving time for an answer
“Take your time” is useful only if our pace allows it.
If we offer time and then fill the pause with another question, the person still has to manage the conversation at our speed. Waiting may require us to tolerate our own uncertainty about what is happening.
We can offer a simple choice:
“Would you like me to wait, put the question in writing or come back to it?”
Then we need to allow a response. The options should remain open, including the option to leave the question unanswered.
In coaching, a considered answer may arrive later in the session or afterwards in a message. Where possible, we can agree how to make room for that. The first answer does not have to become the final account simply because it was the one available in the moment.
Checking what we think we heard
Listening also involves noticing when our interpretation has become more certain than the person’s own words.
“You were angry because the plan changed” may sound understanding. It may also name an emotion they have not identified and a connection they do not recognise.
We can make our understanding easier to correct:
“Have I understood that the change made things harder, or was it something else?”
The correction matters. If someone tells us that our explanation does not fit, we need to use that information rather than keep guiding them back towards it.
There may be times when they cannot explain further. We can still acknowledge what they have told us without completing the story on their behalf.
Making the conversation manageable
The setting belongs in this discussion too. Someone may have plenty to say but struggle to follow a conversation over background noise. They may need fewer questions, a clearer purpose or an agreed finish time.
At the end of a session, we can ask about the experience of the conversation:
“Was the pace manageable?”
“Did I move on before you had finished thinking?”
“Would you like anything to happen differently next time?”
Being listened to includes having some influence over how the conversation happens. It includes being able to ask for time, choose another way to communicate and say that we have misunderstood.
We may leave the conversation with fewer answers than we expected. The answers we do have may be a more accurate reflection of the person.
A companion sheet for reflection
The accompanying A4 sheet, Being listened to, offers prompts for exploring communication preferences, allowing time and checking understanding.
You can use it for your own reflection or work through it with someone you support. There is no requirement to answer every prompt. Writing, typing or talking it through are all options.
A useful starting point is one question:
“What would make it easier for you to say what you mean?”