Guy's Guide: Communication verbal and non-verbal

“I believe it is most important to have compassion, communication, and commitment in a relationship. While I am very committed to my girlfriend, we tend to lack at the other two. Is there any advice you would give us?”

- Brandon, USA

Last week, I answered the questions of compassion. As compassion is the ability and desire to understand what the other person requires. Yesterday, we learned how important that communication is in a long-distance relationship, with Ally. Communication can be divided into verbal and non-verbal.

Verbal

Words can tell elaborate details of people’s stories.  Words can explain what the other person needs for their caves or physical touch. This is where people with Asperger’s succeed because they cannot lie; but, may explain something until someone else understands what they are saying.

Steve Lowell has a wonderful training area of this. The ‘I’ or what you require is the First-circle, for his public speakers students, that is all about what they require and want. This is hard for other people to listen to, as Toby Keith’s song says “I want to talk about me”. The Third-Circle, for his public speakers students, tells about their personal stories. The most desiring circle is the second circle, for his public speaker students, it allows people to have their own desire to speak and relate (Lowell 2012).

Non-verbal

There has been many studies that show approximately between 80%-95% of communication is based on non-verbal. Non-verbal is tone of pitch, body language, and volume. The ability of non-verbal provides: enforcement of words, replacement of words, and to over-ride words. This is the most difficult to people who have Asperger’s as this seems to be a foreign concept to them. It takes a long time for someone to get motor-focus therefore others may come across as awkward.

Michael John Carley has made two different suggestions of improving your non-verbal skills: acting class and videos. Acting class is an amazing way to understand how important and what you require for non-verbal (Carley 2008). As an actress, myself, I had moved from playing the dog part because of how I did not understand the human non-verbal. After taking several courses where I learned what a simple hand gesture meant I moved to a role where all I had was non-verbal skills.  Video taking is another way to improve your non-verbal skills; by first video tapping yourself and then taking tips from your friends (Carley 2008). For another example, I took my very first video with Ally. After my Toastmaster’s group, my friends made suggestions of how to improve my own non-verbal. Now, I can improve my interview skills.

Bibliography

Carley, Michael John. Asperger's from the Inside Out. New York: Perigee Book, 2008.

Lowell, Steve, interview by Alfonso Caudra. Success By Design (2012).

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