Comprehension

While in Cottbus, we stayed with John's host family. When I had met them a few years ago, neither of the parents spoke any English. Now they speak a little bit of English. For the first couple days, they tried to speak in English to me but we had quite a few miscommunications. Then they just spoke German and John translated every now and then.

During the visit, I tended to "tune out" when John was talking to the family. I watched their facial expressions, gestures, and other non-verbal signs to try to get the general meaning of the conversations. Sometimes I did, sometimes I didn't. When I couldn't get the general meaning or people seemed in deep conversation, I just tuned out, thought my own thoughts, or watched them talk. I was frequently reminded of a study that I frequently quote when giving presentations on the importance of visual information for people with communication difficulties. The study, done in 1998, found that only 7% of meaning is in the actual words said. That means that 93% of meaning is derived from visuals and other factors such as they way things are said (voice volume, tone of voice, prosody, etc).

By the end of the visit, people commented that I seemed to understand their conversations quite well. However, I don't think I did. I just tuned into the 93% of the meaning, laughed when others laughed, and mirrored their facial expressions. That made them think that I understood the actual language said.

This experience made me wonder if this is a part of what my clients/students experience. At first, I felt frustrated and utterly confused at not being able to understand the language. Then I just tuned out. Then I watched for other cues. If we had stayed longer, I probably would have understood more (but I kept thinking in Spanish). But then, I probably would have gotten more frustrated at times as well. And at least I had a translator to explain things to me. It is no wonder that some of my clients display challenging behaviour.

What I found most interesting was that my communication partners highly overestimated my comprehension of German. I also find that happens in disability. People associate overall language comprehension with social skills. If a person is social and able to negotiate a social situation/have a conversation, then they think they understand other things/everything. However, this is not always the case.