Transcriber: Diana Alvarado Reviewer: Michael Nystrom 11 million people across the UK and Ireland are neurodiverse. That is nearly 15% of our population, or 1 in 7 people. Meaning that in this room at this time, there is a potential of having 17 people with a neurodiverse diagnosis, and how they communicate is very, very different.
I want to share with you my experiences of living in a neurodiverse family, in the hope that you take something away from it and put it into your own family to improve and to make it easier for you. I want to introduce you to my family. Pretty normal.
Pretty standard family. However, we have a secret. We are really competitive.
And when we heard the statistic of 1 in 7, we thought, we can beat that. We can beat that. We are 5 out of 6 with a neurodiverse diagnosis.
Now, that creates lots of challenges. But I know what you are sitting, thinking, who's the odd one out? (Laughter) I knew that.
Well, I’ll let you try and work it out for yourselves. The biggest challenge that we have as a neurodiverse family is around communication. Not just the delivery of communication, but also the receiving of communication.
Think about your own life for a moment. Is there times when you have communicated or at least thought you communicated, and you really haven't? William White famously said, “The meaning of communication is in the response you get.
” And that’s huge, because how you communicate will change everything. I want to introduce you to my son Ben, 19 years of age, studying to be a cameraman on movie sets. But he's autistic, has ADHD, dyslexia and dyscalculia.
Back in the late 60s, there was research carried out into how we emotionally communicate, and the findings were that 55% of what we emotionally communicate can be seen through our body language and in particular, our facial expressions. This is where Ben has his challenge. This is Ben angry.
This is Ben sad. This is Ben happy. It's easy to work out, isn't it?
There are slight nuances in how Ben communicates with this facial expression. And if you didn’t know Ben, you wouldn’t know any of these little nuances. If Ben ever decides that he wants to change career and become a poker player, I think he’d be very, very successful.
He has that poker face. But for everyday communication, it is an absolute nightmare to have to try and communicate with Ben, both through delivery and receiving of his communication. I want to introduce you to my daughter Abigail, 16 years of age.
This is her going to her first formal. Just finished her exams. I only have one daughter, but she's my favorite daughter.
(Laughter) But she's also autistic. And as we've already established, 55% of how we communicate our emotions is through our body language and in particular our facial expressions, leaving the remainder 45% through what we say and how we say it. This is where Abigail has her challenge.
Now, if we ever went to war and she was ever captured as a spy, don’t worry, your state secrets will be safe with her. She has this amazing, unique ability never to answer a question directly. Now, I hear you laugh.
And I think that's just a teenage girl. That’s a father-daughter relationship, I would agree, but she's always been like this. Let me give you an example just to illustrate this.
Last week I asked her, “Abigail, what would you like for your dinner? ” “Are we going to Granny’s? Who's going to be home for dinner?
And where did we go on holidays last year? ” Obviously. Very clear.
Yeah. She wants a fish. Yeah.
You worked it out from there. Okay, well, let me explain. We went to Greece last year, had this beautiful fish dish.
However, it was really strong in smell, which put off one of her brothers who has a sensitivity to smell. Her grandmother also has that sensitivity to smell. So if we were going to her grandmother’s, she didn’t want to eat fish and have that smell on her.
She's very considerate, but really difficult to communicate with. What I learned from being part of a neurodiverse family is that it is hard to communicate at a level of understanding. We have already established that the response you get is the important part of the communication.
Let me put it a different way. If you and I were having a conversation and I give you an instruction and you were unsure of what to do, that's not on you, that's on me. The understanding lies firmly at my feet.
If I didn't check that you understood what I wanted, you went away and done something completely different. That’s my fault. Once I realized that responsibility, understood this principle of communication, I sat down for a moment to think.
This must work for wider than just my own family. And I sat down and created a framework that I called the ACC of communication. It's a very simple framework, although I really would have liked to call it the ABC of Communication.
But I’m dyslexic and Bs caused me some challenge. Have you worked that out yet? Okay.
So the ACC of Communication stands for assume nothing, clarify everything and check for understanding. Assume nothing, clarify everything and check for understanding. How many times have you personally sat in a meeting or at a conversation you're having with a friend or a family member and left feeling like you knew less?
Left feeling like you didn't know what you just talked about or what you needed to complete. Lots of nodding heads, I see. Well, if you can implement this very simple three-step process - assume nothing, clarify everything and check for understanding - you will remove a lot of stress, a lot of anxiety.
Also, while improving relationships, efficiency and productivity. What I’ve learned from being part of a neurodiverse family is how to communicate with absolute impact. Take for a moment and think about yourselves.
Think about how assuming nothing in your communication, speaking with absolute clarity and checking for understanding, how much better would your relationships be. Dare to change how you communicate, because how you communicate will change everything. Thank you.
