Subscribe Via RSSMaking Peace With The Phone
(photo: William Hook)
Ring ring. It’s the telephone! (Actually, they don’t sound much like that anymore.) I had a fun conversation with another Aspie recently about how much we detest talking on the phone. Apparently this is a known trait in both children and adults on the spectrum.
Did anyone watch Peanuts? Remember Charlie Brown’s teacher? That’s pretty much what I hear when I answer the phone. It’s actually what I hear when many people talk in person, but seeing moving lips helps to break it up a bit. On the phone I am completely helpless. When in doubt, I take a few seconds to run it through my head a few times and then make a semi-sympathetic “oh” sound. If their tone sounded like they were trying to be funny, I ramp it up to an amused “oh”. On the bright side, my cell phone gets so little use that I’ve been able to drastically downgrade my plan.
Some tactics I’ve learned:
- Before calling about something specific like making an appointment, I organize all of the information (dates, referral numbers) visually and keep it in front of me. If it’s a phone number on a website, I highlight the text beforehand, because know I can’t scan a page while trying to process speech.
- Keep a list of local websites for ordering food. It sounds lazy but Aspies hate ordering food over the phone! Plus, checking off a list on a website is the easiest way to make sure the instructions are accurate. (I think you know what happens when we Aspies get food made the wrong way.)
- Jott, YouMail, and MessageSling offer services that transcribe your incoming voicemails to texts or emails. This is something I might try if I had to use voicemail more often; Lifehacker compares two of the services and their accuracy here.
- Focus my eyes on a fixed point free of distraction because I need to concentrate 100% on auditory input. This is something kids can learn to make a habit. And definitely, absolutely no driving!
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4 Responses
Interesting, my son hates the phone, except answering it. But then he puts down the receiver and walks away. Or if someone, like his grandparents, is talking to him, he’ll just abruptly dismiss them and give the phone to someone else. I guess I won’t expect that to change much when he gets older!
My Autism Insights’s last blog post..Thankfulness Thursday
Hopefully by then he’ll have learned that even phone conversations have a structure and always end with “bye”…even if you can’t see the person!
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I totally can associate on how you describe people’s voices over the phone! I think for me it’s a combination of lack of visual feedback and the fact that certain low and high frequencies are simply filtered out because of the limitations of the phone system.
I’ve found the CapTel service to be somewhat useful for making calls, but it has its limitations: sometimes things get horribly mistranscribed, there’s a bit of a delay while the transcription catches up, it’s only usable when you’re at a computer, and taking incoming calls through it is just awkward. Still helpful, though.
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