conuly | A few days ago somebody online asked if people think I have an accent

This is a fairly common thing for autistics to have, a sort of developmental foreign accent syndrome, and I've got it too. (So, I think, does my mother, but she has an alternate explanation. Well, whatever the origin, she also is afflicted by people asking where she's from.) Interestingly, the further I get from NYC, the less people are likely to hear some strangely unidentifiable foreign accent in my speech.

Anyway, it's been a while since this came up in real life, but what do you know, just yesterday one of the people at the doctor's office asked when I was there with my mother!

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From:

cosmolinguist

This is a fairly common thing for autistics to have, a sort of developmental foreign accent syndrome

Interesting! I wonder if this explains why my husband doesn't sound as much like his family -- he always attributed that to listening to lots of Radio 4. ;) Though that might still have a part to play in it, as his sister's autistic too and has a really...typical accent for her class and upbringing.

I've been interested in the facets of autism that mimic or complement foreignness, ever since I read a review of a book about Paul Dirac -- I don't know if he was diagnosed but certainly seemed to have traits symptomatic of autism -- that mentioned he had a foreign wife, Hungarian I think, and that this is not uncommon because autistic people end up having more in common with immigrants because they share a feeling of not quite sharing the experiences that everyone else has: not getting all the references and not quite feeling like you fit in sometimes. I find it interesting to think about...not least because it turns out all my lasting relationships as an immigrant have been with people who (while they didn't know it when I met them!) have ended up being autistic.

From:

steorra

People occasionally think my sister has an accent. She's not autistic to my knowledge or suspicion. In her case it seems more likely to be that people think she looks foreign/not-exactly-white (a more common perception) and then read that back into her speech.

From:

plicease

People tell me that my parents have aussie accents (by dad's is stronger apparently). But I don't hear it at all. To me they just sound like mum and dad, and nothing like other Australians.

From:

fred_mouse

I recognise that issue with the accent! I just think I have an upper-middle-Australian-of-anglo-celtic-origin accent, but when I worked pubs, I got so many weird questions about 'where are you *really* from'. This is not helped by the fact that I will, unless very careful, start to pick up some of the characteristics of someone else's accent, to the point that people may think that I'm taking the piss.

In recent years, it hasn't been such a thing, but I've also been working in universities in areas with high numbers of international students, where one of the long term workmates was of similar socio-economic background, although 20 years older (and so more like my mum, whose accent I pretty closely mimicked, to the point of being completely trained to always answer the phone by telling people who I am, because I learnt that if I didn't do that people would tell me embarrassing things).

From:

conuly

That is definitely possible :(

It is however also possible that a developmental FAS happens sometimes in non-autistics, or even people who are otherwise NT altogether.

From:

conuly

Interesting! I wonder if this explains why my husband doesn't sound as much like his family -- he always attributed that to listening to lots of Radio 4. ;) Though that might still have a part to play in it, as his sister's autistic too and has a really...typical accent for her class and upbringing.

That's not usually the way children pick up their dialect, though. We'd all think it might be, but... not so much. Without looking it up to confirm, I've always had the vague understanding that this is tied in to having an auditory processing disorder as well. Is that possible with your husband?

I find it interesting to think about...not least because it turns out all my lasting relationships as an immigrant have been with people who (while they didn't know it when I met them!) have ended up being autistic.

LOL!

My mother, for years, had an annoying habit of stating that this or that autistic trait* was "just normal". This is because for her, those traits were normal - she carefully selected her circle of friends, and also her husband, to be people who fit the broader autistic phenotype. Plus, both her parents and her brother fit that same phenotype. And also her. This is something she didn't like hearing until a friend of ours said that if she hadn't met me, she would've thought it was Jenn who was on the spectrum. (And comparatively speaking, my sister is extremely NT, so I actually don't know what M was thinking.)

* Things like playing by sorting or lining up your toys, or not being able to consistently button ones shirt through to the double digits, that sort of thing. She did correctly peg the eye contact, lack of pointing, and sensory defensiveness when I was in infancy, though. It's this which makes her occasional bouts of denial so annoying. I know she knows better!

From:

conuly

I think I may have heard "copying others accents, is this a thing?" among other autistics before, interestingly... but you know how it is. Somebody asks "Does anybody else?" and everybody who does pipes up, and before you know it you're convinced that there's a huge correlation between autism and red hair, or autism and lefthandedness, or whatever. And maybe there is, but that's not exactly scientific!

From:

fairestcat

The accent thing is really interesting. I'm not autistic spectrum, but my whole life people have told me I have an accent, even when I lived in the same place for the first 18 years of my life.

From:

chaos_by_design

I have issues with my voice. A lot of people when I was younger seemed to have a real problem with it; people made fun of it, my college not!boyfriend kept bugging me about it, at one time a girl wanted to beat me up over it because it annoyed her so much.

As far as the accent goes, people seem to universally agree on a New York accent, despite my not having lived in NY for decades.

Also, people totally deny there's anything wrong with my voice now. I'm still self-conscious about it though.

If you're curious, here's a sample from one of my let's plays:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6CNabrhzLLI

From:

conuly

Before I listen, do you want commentary if afterwards I'm thinking "Yeah, I hear what people mean but are unwilling to say now" or "Wow, whoever was commenting before was just being ridiculous"? Or do you want me to keep my opinion to myself no matter what?

As far as the accent goes, people seem to universally agree on a New York accent, despite my not having lived in NY for decades.

People's accents do change, but it's not at the same pace for everybody, and there may be some traits you always retain from the original accent.

From:

oracleofdoom

I'd never heard the accent thing, but that's kinda me? I live in Colorado, and as far as I can tell, the people here, including myself, speak in the "plain" sort of way that most newscasters and such in the U.S. do. But when I hear recordings of my voice, it sounds like I have kind of a twangy accent. I don't get it, and it's kind of embarrassing.

FWIW, I'm not diagnosed autistic... we're doing some testing for my son, but I don't know. I've begun wondering about myself?

From:

asakiyume

That article on climate change, lack of water, and new, chronic, kidney disease is very sobering....

From:

conuly

All people have an accent - even broadcasters. (Theirs is an artificial sociolect, where "sociolect" is like "dialect" except instead of being regional it belongs to a social group.)

It's really, really common for people to realize they're on the spectrum after a child in their family is diagnosed. But I might have said that to you before...?

From:

conuly

Yes.

From:

chaos_by_design

You can give your honest opinion.

From:

conuly

Well, doesn't sound like anything "wrong" with it. Maybe you're a bit nasal, but really, whatevs. Does sound like a Midwest accent laid over a NYC accent - and if you're in the Midwest, my guess is that other people are mostly hearing the differences and not the similarities.

Where you are now, do other people tend to have the cot/caught merger? That is, do they say the words cot and caught as homophones?

From:

oracleofdoom

That's why I put "plain" in quotes. :)

I don't think we've talked about autism? I haven't talked about it with a lot of people outside my family. My sister has a psychology degree and knows a little more than I do. I thought I was fairly educated about it, through virtue of knowing people online who are on the spectrum. Which sounds silly when I actually type it, but online is where I really learned about a lot of social justice-related topics. Anyway, I'm realizing more and more just how little I actually do know.

From:

fred_mouse

I think the copying accents links to something, but I don't think it is autism. But for the life of me I can't remember what it was. Not acting, because I don't act convincingly (except when lying about myself to shop assistants, but that is a defensive mechanism). I know I can do a wider range of 'r' sounds than the average Australian, as well as the eastern european back of the mouth 'l' sound, so maybe it is just that kind of mouth flexibility?

From:

conuly

Anyway, I'm realizing more and more just how little I actually do know.

That's the beginning of wisdom :)

Though to be fair, knowing autistics can give you insider knowledge that a psychology degree probably doesn't. I constantly find that psychology is one or two decades behind what actual autistics already know and talk about widely.

I don't think we've talked about autism?

Then maybe the two of us are just retreading a convo I had with somebody else within the past 10 weeks.

From:

fred_mouse

The being a parent of a person with autism thing - one of my friends has two kids who are on the spectrum, and got quite heavily into the parent community here, including going to conferences on the topic. At one of them, one of the researchers said effectively 'if you have a kid on the spectrum, you will have some or all of the indicators'. She and I then went through a whole pile of indicators, and it was surprising how many of them I trip (I've never investigated diagnosis, and made a deliberate choice not to investigate a diagnosis for Eldest because I could see more negatives than positives in our education system. But the older they get, the more convinced I am that they would be assigned one of the 'high functioning' type diagnoses).

From:

oracleofdoom

The beginning of wisdom, or nearly textbook Dunning-Kruger? Perhaps both. :)

From:

oracleofdoom

This makes sense. I'm hearing a lot of concern about insurance problems with the diagnosis, but I feel like my son really needs it, because he's having a really hard time right now, and if we can get a better understanding to help him, I want to do whatever we can. For me, it doesn't seem that important to have myself diagnosed.

From:

fred_mouse

That makes a lot of sense. Here's hoping you end up with good outcomes for your son, and that he finds his place in the world.

Eldest made it through primary and high school with mostly social problems, although they didn't end up with a university entry score sufficient to get them in to their course of choice, so we are still working on that. Their inability to think sideways is mostly the issue now (they baulk at filling in online forms, because there is invariably a question that doesn't make sense in some simplistic manner, and then they stall and can't finish).