Feeling "out of it" at work and socially?

• Position: Your Life - Non-verbal communication

Adults who have trouble establishing and maintaining good relationships at work and in their personal lives, but can't figure out why, may lack the nonverbal communication skills that are essential to social success, according to psychology professors Marshall Duke and Steve Nowicki Jr., Emory University, Atlanta, Ga., authors of Will I Ever Fit In? The Breakthrough Program for Conquering Adult Dyssemia. Their answer is "Yes, you can." They have developed a proactive program to help certain adults overcome their inability to pick up on social cues many people take for granted, focusing on ways to treat varying forms of adult dyssemia, a term they coined to describe the inability to read or properly project nonverbal messages.

"As adults, we don't comment on or attempt to correct another adult's inappropriate or annoying social behavior as we would with children. It would be an affront to them. It's usually a case of nobody will tell you, but everybody knows," Duke points out. As a result, adults with dyssemia tend to remain clueless about their behavior. One example the psychologists give is the friendly...