STARS part 3 Approaching, responding and conversing with people in different settings and situations
Written on 27th Aug 2013 by Alex Lowery
This weeks lesson was about reading body language and approaching people to join a conversation. These are things I find difficult. I enjoyed this weeks session because we used role play which I found quite a lot of fun.
We role played a number of scenario”s I found it hard to read the body language. I know when someone does an obvious expression like sad or happy but I found it hard to read the signs when someone smiled and nodded their head. I found myself focusing on the action for example “you are nodding your head” I know nodding your head means yes but smiling confused me.
A person with autism may be able to learn set rules about reading body language, but it”s really hard to apply those rules to real social interaction because everybody is different and they do different things. How do people know how to read body language it is such a puzzle to me.
People have told me that these difficulties make me vulnerable. Recently I helped at our Church”s holiday club. We ran the holiday Actually, this is a good kind of card to have if you can’t get another kind of free-credits-report.com card. club in a community centre. On the last day some of the children were causing trouble as we cleared up. A group of the children asked me if I swore and I said I didn”t. They began to start swearing a lot and I just thought so what they are only children. People who were with me were concerned I was being bullied and if I was alone bad things could happen to me. I still don”t think I was being bullied because bullying, because it didn”t hurt me or insult me. I am putting this in because I apparently was unable to read the situation. I am still learning and I hope to keep on improving in these things.
Unless otherwise indicated, all materials on this page are © Alex Lowery Speaks About Autism. Please do not reproduce, modify or use for any purpose without the prior, written consent of the author. If you are interested in using an article on your blog or in your magazine, please contact us.









I agree the children were bulling you in a way that they could get away with it. I think you will agree that if you told them that you don’t swear then should not fof swore infront of you. I don’t think children should be swearing at a young age. when I was younger I got slightly bullied because my mum did not live with me. at the time a guess I would of got up set. I know that you find that difficult to understand, how words can be bulling. you could maybe watch films or short programme with the volume off. Write down what you think then watch and see if the speaking makes you see it differently.
good luck
I knew they were being nasty & that they shouldn’t have been swearing, but I just didn’t see any reason to get upset about it, because it wasn’t hurting, so I didn’t get why it was a big deal, until my mum said that they could tell someone I had done something to them that I hadn’t or something.
BTW, when you said, “you could maybe watch films or short programme with the volume off. Write down what you think then watch and see if the speaking makes you see it differently.” I’m not quite sure what you mean by this can you explain next time I see you?