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Category: Social Skills

Stages of Social Practice

Stages of Social Practice

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I’ve previously written a post about the need to learn social skills through practice until they become automatic.  I recently had some very interesting conversations with two other autistic graduate students, both of whom research autism, in which I was able to refine some of my thinking about this topic. Furthermore, I’ve realized that my previous post didn’t address the important concern that deliberate attempts to look more neurotypical – to “camouflage” our autistic selves – might adversely affect our…

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Context, Group Size, and Social Demands

Context, Group Size, and Social Demands

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All else being equal, how many other people would you like to interact with at any given time?  Would you rather be in a one-on-one conversation, in a small social group, or in front of a giant hall giving a lecture? I’ve discussed this with a few autistic people, and most of us agree that the group situations are the worst.[1] Not all neurotypicals seem to understand the difficulty of group interactions until it is explicitly pointed out to them,…

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What’s the Point of Social Skills?

What’s the Point of Social Skills?

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Just to be clear, despite the title, I’m not questioning the idea that social skills are real or useful. No, instead I’m asking why social skills are useful.  What is their purpose? It’s not a pointless or stupid question, because I can think of at least a couple of good answers: They are useful for building and maintaining friendships, social connections that are valuable because of their inherent worth; or They are useful for instrumental social interactions: for use in…

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Rational Paranoia

Rational Paranoia

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Dealing with autistic adults and adolescents can sometimes be difficult.  I know many of us can be quick to take offense, even where none was intended – which is rather curious when you think about it, because autistic children tend to start out being socially naïve.  At some point, these naïve children can become nervous, reactive adults.  Why is that?  It seems kind of like a transformation from one extreme to the opposite extreme. Well, the problem with naïveté is…

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Social Skills and Practice

Social Skills and Practice

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How do we learn social skills?  Practice. Let’s think about what is involved in a social interaction.  You have to make countless, split-second decisions.  You have to formulate and deliver conversational responses instantly.  While you do this decision-making, you have to pay constant attention to your body’s position, your facial expressions, and you are expected to make eye contact with the other person.  You have to attend to their expressions and nonverbal cues.  You have to think about their intentions…

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Theatre and Autism

Theatre and Autism

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For a long time, I was part of a theatre group for autistic people.  I joined when I was 13 and I remained part of the group in some capacity or other for a total of ten years (although for the final year I was only irregularly attending meetings as a substitute instructor).  I suppose it’s fairly obvious I wouldn’t have stayed for such a long period – indeed, from the beginning of my teenage years until I was finishing…

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The Limits of Laboratory Control

The Limits of Laboratory Control

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Controlled laboratory environments are great, don’t get me wrong.  I hate the messy real world, with its confusing morass of different measurable and unmeasurable variables, just as much as the next researcher.  I realize why we often want to take people away from that messy quagmire and into a nice room where we can shove them in front of a computer and show them pictures and stuff, while we track their eye gaze or while we have them push little…

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Social Learning in Mainstream Schools

Social Learning in Mainstream Schools

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In previous posts, I have argued that the mainstream school can be – rather than an inclusive environment – a place where autistic children are victimized and isolated.  It isn’t always, but it often is. However, we often hear the idea that autistic people should be mainstreamed because exposure to neurotypical peers can improve their social skills (e.g., Lynch & Irvine, 2009, p. 848, Roberts & Simpson, 2016, p. 1086; Sansosti & Sansosti, 2012, p. 924).  In theory, because neurotypical…

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