Why Long Words and Long Sentences Can Feel Like a Linguistic Jungle Gym
Let’s be honest—some sentences are just trying way too hard. You know the ones. They’re packed with big, brainy words like individualization or unpredictability and strung together in a sentence so long you forget how it started before you get to the end. For many people—especially those with autism, auditory processing differences, or language-based learning challenges—this kind of language doesn’t just make things harder. It makes comprehension feel like decoding a foreign language… underwater… while juggling.
Big Words, Big Load
Long words (we’re looking at you, four-syllable monsters) are like heavy luggage in a sentence. One or two? Manageable. But cram in five or six, and suddenly your brain is dragging a whole suitcase carousel through a crowded airport of ideas. For someone with processing challenges, just hearing those words—let alone making sense of them in context—can feel like being asked to sprint with a backpack full of bowling balls.
Twisty Sentences: Where Meaning Goes to Hide
Now take those big words and tuck them into sentences with multiple clauses, parentheticals, and maybe a fancy semicolon or two. Congratulations—you’ve built a linguistic obstacle course! Even if the words themselves are familiar, trying to hold the entire sentence in your head long enough to figure out what it means can be downright exhausting.
Hearing vs. Reading: No Escape
Hearing these sentences out loud is no picnic either. You can’t rewind a conversation (unless you’re secretly a time traveler), so if the meaning doesn’t click the first time, it might never land. And while reading gives you the option to re-read, who wants to re-read the same sentence three times just to figure out what the subject was?
What This Looks Like in Real Life
- In class: “Wait… what did the teacher just say?”
- At home: “This letter from school says… uh… something about ‘contextualized social-emotional scaffolding’?”
- In real-time conversation: [blank stare] followed by a polite laugh and a silent prayer no one asks for a response.
The Takeaway
It’s not that people with processing differences aren’t intelligent. Far from it. It’s that their brains are often wired to need a little more time, clarity, or simplicity to fully engage with complex language. When we slow down, break things up, and swap the 20-dollar words for five-dollar ones, we open the door to understanding—and that’s something worth smiling about.
