The Autistic Yogi Reflects on Speech Tempo & Other Speech Factors

Sometimes I prefer a yoga class where the teacher speaks very little and sometimes I like a long narrative. More so the former versus the latter. And how quickly or how slowly the narrative is delivered will affect me as well.
Generally quicker speaking comes across as anxiety or an attempt at putting in too many cues at once and can be overloading, especially to the newer student that is really trying to pay attention to the teacher.

What are the different things that affect our communication?

• What emotion are you carrying as either the speaker or the listener and how does that affect your ability to navigate the narrative? Anxiety, fear, depression, happiness, excitement, normal state: How do these factors change your rate of speaking or listening?
• How quickly is the person speaking? It appears that on average we articulate 120-170 words a minute (depending on the many sources that quote this, it's safe to assume that 100 words a minute is very slow speaking and 200 words is very quick speaking).
• What biases does the person speaking have about the narrative content?  Just look through this list of cognitive biases and imagine how they can affect the tempo and narrative of your communication https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_cognitive_biases
• Who are you around? And how do these people affect you? Does being around your mother make you speak slower or quicker or sharper or gentler? What about an abused person around their abuser or them speaking to the police or a crisis intervention worker versus their best friend? How does it change when your in a group of likeminded people? As an atheist I have a different sort of speech tempo when speaking with a known new age believer versus another atheist (although I consider myself a gentle atheist and one whom does not deny spiritual experiences, I just don't believe that a deity/God exists, but do believe time travel is completely feasible)
• Environment and reason for being in that environment will be factors that change the communication temp and narrative too. How much noise is in the environment? If you have been here before is their new stimulus that is unfamiliar?

There are a ton of factors that go into the way that we take in another's communication or that we communicate to others. I believe there is some truly good merit for yoga teachers and practitioners to learn a bit about the factors that will affect them and others.
Giving a class is not just as simple as putting together a script and taking people through that script. And being a student isn't just about going through the script that a teacher is guiding us through.