Interpersonal communication is a communication from one individual to another and one in which the form and content of the communication reflect the personal characteristics of the individuals (Solomon & Theiss, 2013). I recently had a conversation with an autistic teen that changed the way I communicate. The conversation began with a simple greeting to which the teen responded calmly. After getting to know the teen, I asked of the toys she prefers. She responded that she no longer engages with toys but would not mind kicking some ball. She turned the conversation on me, asking what I was doing and the school I had attended. The teen repeated herself from time to time and made mistakes in the words she used. From the conversation with the autistic teen, I learned that though she had difficulty speaking, she understood part of the conversation.
By sharing information about myself the teen became more interested in the conversation. This communication style is in agreement with the self-disclosure theory which requires we provide information about ourselves so that the other party can understand you (Littlejohn & Foss, 2008). I also learned that like most people I began the conversation talking down on her partly because she was drooling and the obvious bias towards autistic persons. The bias is captured by the implicit personality theory which describes the effect we develop when we look at somebody for the first time and pick up some characteristics about them. The teen reacted sensitively to touch when I patted her. This is not in agreement with Ray Birdswhistell’s theory of kinesics which asserts that use of body language will be imitated by others (Disyembre, 2011).
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From my interaction with the teen, I learned to avoid forming constructs about other people prior to engaging them. I hope to correct the mistake and form better communication style.
References
Disyembre, M. (2011). Theories of Non-Verbal Communication:. Retrieved from http://theoriesofnon-verbalcommunication.blogspot.com/
Littlejohn, S. W., & Foss, K. A. (2008). Theories of Human Communication . Boston, MA: Cengage Learning.
Solomon, D., & Theiss, J. (2013). Interpersonal Communication: Putting Theory Into Practice . London, England: Routledge.
