Autism and foreign languages

[tobee]

My dd is a mfl graduate and diagnosed with autism after graduating.

My late mil was also good at languages and I think was probably also autistic.

The two people I knew at secondary school who were brilliant linguists I think, looking back, could also have been autistic.

Just intrigued if posters have comments or thoughts on this.

(Fwiw my dd always complains that people assume if you are autistic you are interested in IT. )

I tried to learn French recently and couldn't pick it up at all. I'm shit at learning. It's great that you know many people good at languages but I don't think it's remotely related to being autistic because we are not all academic geniuses

Interesting. I am autistic and did 2 languages at A-level. My autistic teenager gets very good grades in the two languages she does at school.

Could it have anything to do with English being a really random and confusing language where as most European languages are much more logical which would make sense for many people with ASD?

My DS2 is autistic and had to drop French as he couldn't cope with it, but then he was very late to get the hang of reading and writing English (ended up winning the school English prize in 6th Year though!). He's about to have to learn Latin for a Masters so well see if hes improved (not that that's an mfl).

My autistic 19 year old taught himself Swedish as a young teen. He is excellent at learning languages.

I am autistic and speak kiSwahili, chiShona, isiZulu and Latin, the first three because I have friends for whom these are their first languages and I like to be able to converse with them in their own tongue. Granted, all three have many similarities, all being Bantu languages in origin and I found them relatively easy to learn, although I do not claim to be fluent in any of them.
Likewise, the Latin, easy to learn, and useful as a keen amateur botanist and naturalist.

I am not naturally academic, but do have a very good memory and ability to assimilate information about things which interest me and tend to be singleminded and focused on certain topics when they capture my imagination.

ermmm... my autistic 2 year old kid taught themself sign language (makaton) from something special... does that count?

Yeah I appreciate that.

I was wondering partly because my dd is good at German and her brain seems to have excelled at remembering the grammar and vocabulary especially. But struggled with the literature at higher levels.

I think I'm asking largely because, as I say, she gets fed up with the assumption that she should be wanting to go into IT. Or maybe stem. She's currently never had a job and is nearly 27.

The other people I mention is because I was wondering if there might be a "connection" that I've never seen mentioned before.

I don't see why makaton would not count.

I’m good at picking up random languages (reading, rather than speaking!) - I think because I see patterns in words. So it could be related to autism / neurodiversity.

I did French and German at GCSE and was pretty good at them but severely lacking confidence at speaking them aloud. But then I was crippled by anxiety and selective mutism even in English and so that's probably hardly surprising.

In many ways, IT is very similar to languages, especially on the coding / software side and languages like German, Russian, etc where there are strict logical rules. So although she may be frustrated with people always suggesting IT, i actually think there are lots of transferable skills between the two.

Yes that makes senses.

Thanks for all the replies.

Actual strange you should say this...my friends son is crazy about languages...talks in French all the time at home then japanese this week she said.

He has aspergers

I'm autistic and can speak several language (including klingon) but being dyslexic can't read or write in anything except English and short hand mandarin (but can't speak it or any tonal language).
Thr thing with asd is we all have our specific interests and dificulties so for some its languages and others it's IT or time travel (my ds) and these interests can act like coping strategies.

I really desperately wanted to be good at languages but I just have never understood them, as a child I got excused from having to do a language gcse at my school and as an adult I've tried lots but it's never stuck and the rules around grammar etc confuse me, I suck at programming too for same reason, can't remember and the various rules are confusing again despite many attempts at it.

I grew up speaking Gaelic as my first language, so I am bilingual anyway.

My undergraduate degree was in linguistics and, as an adult, I speak French fluently, German and Spanish at tourist level and have a 'good ear' for languages - I lived in Japan and South Korea for a while and got by well enough.

I also taught myself to code (Python, R, SQL, PANDAS) and work as an IT/IS professional, because to me, coding is basically a language.

I'm learning Russian at the moment, just for fun.

I don't know if any of that is related to my ND brain, but I've always found learning languages easy.

French learning was my special interest at one point.

I suppose one would have to study a large set of people to see if there is any statistical difference or whether those who are good are just because of natural variability (or bloody hard work)

Can't say the same for DS (14). He is barely scraping by in Y9 French this year. He has a horrible working memory so languages just don't stick in his brain very well. I dread what GCSE level French will bring us.

Me! I love learning languages… can do bits in French, Afrikaans, Korean and had whole conversations with my dad in Morse Code as a kid 😂 Love it

My DH is autistic and when I met him he was fluent in Russian, Polish and German. He "got by" in French, Spanish, Swedish, Italian, Suomi, Mandarin, Arabic and Gaelic.

He also played piano at a concert level, and 8 other instruments but did not manage the well with the cello, fiddle, oboe or trumpet.

My pet theory is that he lives a binary life - things are either right or wrong. He works in finance - the sums at the end of the spread sheet are either right or there's a mistake to be found. That's why he liked the piano, the note is either right and in the right place or not. He wanted all the notes to be in the right place and kept practicing until they were. I THOUGHT he was expressing himself through music, but he wasn't seeing music in the way I was hearing it at all, for him it was a technical enterprise and he enjoys watching a orchestra jigsaw the notes together as a team - I'm probably expressing that clumsily.

Same with languages - his accent was "as good as a native speaker" or it was not, and so he kept going until it was. He lived and worked in Russia as a new graduate until he felt he "passed" as a native - then moved to Poland, then Germany, and I suspect he'd have kept travelling on only I met him and we settled down!

He says he's no longer fluent (it's 30 years since he lived in Russia) but he's handy for keeping up with the news from Ukraine as he still has an ear for a thick Russian accent.

He's the smartest person I've ever met - but is often totally bemusing/bemused as he can't "read" emotions as they are not binary, well, not in me.

I'm ADHD. It's not a boring marriage...

Thanks for these interesting replies.

Interestingly, my ds, not diagnosed with autism, but has a very poor working memory, found languages impossible and, like pp dc, was specifically allowed to give up mfl early on at secondary school. I often say my dc are like Jack Sprat and his wife!