Question:
Did there come a time in your life when your realized it was not socially acceptable to talk to yourself?

My Opinion:
I am a very visual person. I have a great deal of difficulty learning anything unless I can see it. During lectures, I have to take many notes so I can see the information. Also, in situations where I get overloaded, I can tune out the auditory things, and I focus on something that I can see, or I close my eyes altogether. This helps reduce the overload.

I also do talk to myself if I am having trouble with a concept, even if I can see it. I generally have to talk aloud because it is very difficult for me to stay focused on just thoughts. I try to talk through the problem area so I can define it, and then I write the words or draw a picture of what I came up with. This way I can see it. I did learn not to talk to myself in public, altho I don’t know exactly when that was, but definitely it was after age 10, as I can remember certain situations when I was age 10 where I was excluded from social situations because I did talk to myself occasionally.

Your son might be an auditory learner. He might talk to himself because he has a hard time learning things that he sees (opposite of me). Or, when he gets overloaded, he might talk to himself to reduce the over-stimulation of the classroom setting. He also might be frustrated with the situation, or the concepts he is trying to learn, so he talks to himself about things he knows well, to reduce the frustration level or the overload. Perhaps also, the teacher presents the lessons in a manner which is difficult for him to understand, and since he cannot understand, he is bored, and he is trying to engage his mind in other things that he enjoys. This would not only cause difficulty with acceptance by his peers, it would also interfere with his ability to learn new concepts. I think he needs to be reminded by his aide to quiet the talking and attend to the lesson, perhaps with a different way of presenting the lesson so he can understand. Or perhaps be placed in a setting where there is not as much activity going on, to reduce his overload level so he doesn’t feel the need to talk to himself so much.