Autism Voice
When I was first diagnosed with autism, one of the most painful parts of reading the lengthy summary of my symptoms was the clinician's description of my voice as "typically monotone." I had never thought of my voice as monotone. I always thought that I spoke quickly and efficiently, that I was good at explaining complex things in a simple way, and that I showed that I was intelligent. I had long since learned not to go on “rants” in social settings, and I literally timed myself to make sure that I took up only the percentage that was allowed, depending on the number of participants. (No, she didn’t ask about me doing this—I was sure everyone who cared about being polite did. I suspect this is far more telling about my autism than my intonation.)
Afterwards, thinking this over, I was reminded of my eighth grade teacher complaining that I read “too quickly” when we did read alouds and that I needed to put in more pauses and some emotion. This felt like nonsense to me at the time. Since she was timing us on how quickly we could finish reading a piece aloud, I was eager to get points for beating everyone else. She was the one who made up the test, not me, after all. But I also truly did not understand what the point of pausing was, or what the point of trying to put emotion into my voice was. I did it dutifully, because she insisted, but for me, reading a text was always just about the words. I thought I understood the emotion just fine through the words (and inference), and making my voice high or squeaky or breathy with fake emotion didn’t help me understand. It was just a weird performance.
Fast forward to the present and when I first tried out audiobooks. For me, the biggest barrier was the “weird” emotional intonation of the actors who read the books. I think I might have preferred a computer voice reading it straight without any fancy “extras.” I didn’t want a performance. I wanted as much as possible to have the information in the book directly implanted into my brain. I especially disliked performances of audiobooks that added musical sections and had multiple voice actors reading the parts. And God, how I hated sound effects! (I still hate overly produced audiobooks and strongly prefer single voice actors, but I can appreciate a good accent like David Tennant and James Marsters).
It feels like this is, once again, one of the parts of autism that makes it so frustrating for the person inside. We don’t see the deficit (if it is a deficit and not just a difference) and while we can try to fake it, it is never actually real for us. It will always feel inauthentic and wrong, to everyone else, as well as to us. I read very quickly and I read with superb comprehension. Just look at my test scores. I even work on the phones these days, where I am forced to perform a specific kind of phone voice with fakely kind intonation and where I try very hard not to talk too long about my special interest topics within finance and try to remember to check in with the other person to see if they’re still listening and understanding me. I don’t think I will ever sound “normal,” but I’ve managed to do it well enough that I get paid for it, so that’s not a bad ending for a kid who kept getting graded down for oral performance in English.
One of the things that has been interesting to me over the last few years as I’ve become more open in my diagnosis has been that I’ve discovered many other autistic people. There are I think two dozen people now who have realized they are autistic, too, in part because of my openness and my unashamed writing about autism from the inside (most of these are women, but not all). With many of them, I notice what I think of now as “autistic voice.” I wouldn’t call it monotone at all, but it’s distinct to autism while also being unique to each person. Some people pause at the end of every word and give it an emphasis. Other people run words together. Some autists might seem to mumble or speak in a high-pitched voice that sounds child-like. And then there are those who are WAY TOO LOUD in all of the times they are supposed to be quiet and weirdly, too quiet when they are supposed to be speaking up.
It isn’t so easy to point at one thing and say “that’s autistic voice,” and yet I have begun to understand what my clinician meant when she said “monotone.” It’s not that I’m uninterested in what I’m saying. I am a passionate speaker in almost every situation. If I have energy to talk, it’s going to fuel something other than comments on the weather. I might well be accused of overwhelming people with my enthusiasm. But for me, so much of my interest in communicating with other humans is about the IDEAS, not about feeling connected to them or trying to get an empathetic response, that I over-emphasize (compared to neurotypical people) the words rather than the connection from human to human. I don’t say this as a criticism of myself. I’ve come to love the way that I am autistic. Which is good, because I’m not going to be anything else. I am who I am, with my autistic voice.