Dyssemia
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Dyssemia is a difficulty with receptive and/or expressive
Dyssemic adults
The social interactions of dyssemic adults tend to be immature and complex, even though their non-relational reasoning ranges from normal to gifted. Dyssemic individuals exhibit varying degrees of social awkwardness and various types of nonverbal communication difficulties. Some might only have trouble with reception or expression alone, while others struggle with both. Severity fluctuates among individuals; difficulty does not necessarily equate to total inability, nor occur in all situations. Occasionally, expressive difficulty may only be a delay between the emotion and the facial muscles. Socially awkward adults with nonverbal shortcomings often report feeling "a little out of it socially" or feeling "left out."[2]
Dyssemic adults frequently experience success in temporary or accidental situations, but their sense of success can be short-lived, returning to an often common pattern of disappointment and self-reproach. Many times dyssemic individuals may say something in a way they had not intended and worry about the consequences. Dyssemic adults may sometimes struggle with interpreting the feelings or social interests of new acquaintances, causing potential resentment and/or rejection. They also may have difficulty with subtler aspects of social interaction, for example, timing and opportunity. This may aggravate the situation, baffling acquaintances, coworkers, and even relatives. Dyssemic individuals may also become targets of adult bullies. If dyssemic adults are in an environment or situation with adequate verbal input or other cues, however, they have a frame for understanding or constructing appropriate responses, and these problems can be greatly reduced.
There is presently little research on adults with dyssemia/
A difference rather than a disability
Dyssemia is considered a difference rather than a disability; as such, it is not classified as a standard medical condition. Many times dyssemia springs from cultural differences; other times, dyssemia constitutes an offshoot of
See also
References
- Duke, M.P., Martin, E.A., & Nowicki, S. (1996). Teaching Your Child the Language of Social Success. Atlanta, GA: Peachtree Publishers.
- Feldman, R.S. & Rimé, B., Editors. (1991, 2000). Fundamentals of Nonverbal Behavior: Studies in Emotion and Social Interaction. New York: Cambridge University Press.
- Manoach, D. S., Weintraub, S., Daffner, K. R., & Scinto, L. F. M. (1997). Deficient antisaccades in the social-emotional processing disorder. NeuroReport, 8(4) pp. 901–905 (24 ref.) ISSN 0959-4965. Hagerstown, MD: Lippincott Williams and Wilkins Publishers.
- Phillips, M. (2004). "Facial processing deficits and social dysfunction: How are they related?", Brain 127(8) pp. 1691–1692.