Neurodivergent conversations… to the outside observer they sound… messy.
But inside, they’re not!
False starts everywhere. Sentences that trail off. Words that repeat before the thought lands. I transcribed an interview recently for a study and got a genuine shock — the person I’d been listening to, who sounded sounded clear, measured, grounded to me? The transcript told a completely different story.
These disruptions have a name: linguistic mazes. And what’s even more surprising is what your brain does with them.
I get a bit research-geeky and dig into what the literature says about linguistic mazes — especially in neurodivergent speech — and why this might completely change how we think about verbal disfluencies.
I talk about:
* The transcription moment that started all of this
* What “linguistic mazes” actually are (and why they happen)
* How autistic and ADHD speakers produce them differently
* The difference between speaker-focused and listener-focused disfluencies
* Why “um” is apparently more acceptable
* A question: Might we neurodivergent people actually filter these out when listening to each other?
* Why pathologising these patterns might be costing us a lot
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00:00 The transcription shock
00:50 What are linguistic mazes?
01:40 How they show up in neurodivergent speech
02:30 What if we’re filtering them out?
03:00 Speaker-focused vs listener-focused disfluencies
04:45 Why “um” is apparently “more acceptable”
05:30 The problem with pathologising
06:45 What if the world was different?
Alex Owen-Hill is a profession voice coach and voice researcher exploring how we use our voices, why it matters, and how to communicate with authenticity. I help performers, professionals, and neurodivergent individuals find a voice that feels like theirs.
References:
Bangert, Katherine J., and Lizbeth H. Finestack. ‘Linguistic Maze Production by Children and Adolescents With Attention-Deficit/Hyperactivity Disorder’. Journal of Speech, Language, and Hearing Research 63, no. 1 (2020): 274–85. https://doi.org/10.1044/2019_JSLHR-19-00187.
MacFarlane, Heather, Kyle Gorman, Rosemary Ingham, et al. ‘Quantitative Analysis of Disfluency in Children with Autism Spectrum Disorder or Language Impairment’. PLOS ONE 12, no. 3 (2017): e0173936. https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0173936.
#voice #neurodivergent #adhd #autism #communication #linguisticmazes #verbaldisfluency #voicecoach #vocalresearch #masking
