Read the non-verbal, not just the words
Non-verbal does not mean non-communicating. Since most of communication is tone and body language rather than words, you can read someone through patterns, body language and micro-expressions — observe behaviours and connect them to situations instead of relying on what's said aloud.
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Only a small share of communication is the words themselves — far more is carried by tone and by non-verbal signals — so the absence of speech does not mean the absence of information. A person who isn’t speaking, or can’t in the moment, is still communicating, and the way to receive it is deliberate observation rather than listening alone. Watch the patterns: body language, facial micro-expressions, repetition in how someone eats, reads or dresses, the heaviness of footsteps as a read on mood — and connect each to the situation it appears in, building a picture from behaviour over time. This is the everyday version of the clinical mental-state examination, which is grounded in observation, not just in what the patient says. The practical upshot is twofold: it lets you stay connected to and support someone who has gone non-verbal, and it sharpens your own social reading in settings where the spoken content is the least of what’s actually happening.
