can social skills be taught?

Its not really so much about whether there's an alternative, but whether there is sufficient understanding of the problem.

Teaching people, especially children, how to fake social interaction is one thing. What's generally happening is that teaching them supposedly how to do it is being viewed as a cure. If you are brainwashed into thinking you can do it, apparently that's problem solved.

Until recently (if not still the case) scientific understanding of autism only considered "gaze aversion" conspicuously avoiding eye contact, as a symptom. People who don't avert their gaze apparently don't have autism - people are still being told this. There has been little scientific awareness, it would appear, that poor eye contact, even if concealed, might be a significant factor in the communication aspect of autism.

Almost all research on autism is "top down" focussed on people with marked autism, with the notion that findings could "trickle down" to benefit those with less marked autism. There has been no "bottom up" autism research, studying the experiences of people at the abler end, to see if anything can be learned that would benefit people with more marked autism.

Most science is researched both "top down" and "bottom up"; autism has been exclusively top down.

Consequently no-one has researched whether people with "mild" autism have any common or baseline symptoms. It is just assumed that the autistic spectrum theory applies - symptoms grade down into the general population, there's a cut off point for diagnosis, and those a little above the diagnosis point are only being told so they can self help because "obviously" as its a spectrum, they've really nothing wrong with them.

But no actual research has been carried out to find out if that is actually true. There could well be baseline aspects of autism common to all, and a spectrum over other aspects on top.

Poor eye contact, even if concealed by adulthood, means people miss the visual cues, have to rely on the spoken word, therefore interpret words literally, and misunderstand things. That could be really really important to understanding autism across the whole spectrum. But at this rate we are never going to find out.

So at the moment we bash our kids heads against the wall (figuratively) to persuade them they can achieve social interaction, when in fact they cannot because of something the scientists have missed, by not doing any "bottom up" research at all.

That's why I raised this. Not because that's life and we have to make do, but because there needs to be serious "bottom up" research.

Why should "we either attemot to fit into that world or build a life for ourselves that avoids socializing" just because autism scientists cannot be bothered to carry out vital research?

Do people at the "mild" end have next to nothing wrong with them? Let's at least test that hypothesis scientifically, rather than just assuming the spectrum theory has any relevance to reality.

Intense World wrote ''other times, if a female is very good verbally and very fast cognitively, she can disguise a certain level of lack of social awareness, it doesn't mean it's not there though''. This is true for me, I think - I have a reasonably high verbal IQ but a disproportinately low performance IQ. Due to my ability to learn intellectually how to be social, I can come across as very 'normal', if rather young and naive in my manner. However, inside I just know I am missing many social cues, so I have to fake my way through social encounters, when really I don't have a clue!. My laughs sound fake and constrained, apart from during the rare moments when I really do find something funny, and socialising makes me feel tense and under pressure. Forcing myself to look in someone's direction strains my neck and back (maybe I am looking too hard!), and focusing on eye-contact means I lose track of what is being said. This might explain why I often feel tired and overloaded.

NAS11521 said:

I can confirm some of your observations Darcy, from my own experience, but we probably need a few more respondents with shared insights. I was hoping for more people querying whether you can be taught social skills, whereas most responses think it possible; or at the present rate I'll be on my own on this!

Longman, recognition that females can be on the spectrum is comparatively recent, the reason being that we are much better at learning to acquire social skills than males. 

My partner is undiagnosed but shows all the signs of having AS.  He is extremely intelligent but he's never learned many of the social skills.  He cannot see when he is boring people although I can tell from the glazed look in  their eyes.  If I say to him later that he did go on rather too long he will indignantly reply that they were really interested in what he was saying.  When he was younger if he was attracted to a girl he would persist when it was obvious she wasn't interested.  Equally, if HE wasn't interested it never entered his head that someone fancied him.[/quote]

This varies even amongst females.  I have been very guilty of not knowing when people were bored when listening to me, even outright yawning didn't give me a hint.  There are many ways in which I either take the wrong message from someone's body language, tone of voice or don't pick it up at all.

What I think is different with females, is that our social role is typically much more communicator so we are more exposed to the social norms and we are often better at mimicking.  It doesn't come any more naturally to us than males with ASC and we can be prone to all the same social mistakes.  I think some females may get luckier with perhaps a protective friend(s) who mother them and teach them, or it just gets really drummed in because of social expectations, but that doesn't go for all.

Some females don't have helpful friends, a supportive family or are loners so they stay stagnant at the same level as a male would.  I do think most of it is environment-dependent.

Other times, if a female is very good verbally and very fast cognitively, she can disguise a certain level of lack of social awareness, it doesn't mean it's not there though.

I think there's a distinction to be made though between learning social communication as an actor would, and being naturally attuned to it.

An actor knows his/her lines, by memorising them, and moves according to stage directions. They speak on a pre-determined cue. They aren't having a real conversation, as everyone already knows which bits of dialogue follow. And they know how to pitch a line, whether to be angry or happy, from learning a script.

You can learn to go through the motions of social engagement: - what sort of things you are supposed to say in response to certain cues, when to listen, when to prompt someone else for their opinion. Its about rules, a bit like chess, but learnable.

However you are not really doing it. Primarily, most people on the spectrum aren't paying proper attention. If they are not averting their gaze they are looking at people's mouths, or other points than the eyes, or defocussing or looking beyond. Consequently they are missing out on a lot of social cues, including those which for on-line chat requires emoticons to get the same effect. Also they are not generating the required looks, giving the wrong facial expression or gestures to fit their dialogue, smiling when the shouldn't, looking serious when a smile is crucial etc.

Learning how to act these things out, and how to anticipate isn't real social dialogue, because you are still socially blind. If you predict the situation wrongly, people around you will be puzzled.

Also the concentration needed is tiring, and after a time the act wears thin.

The do-gooder efforts to get kids on the spectrum to be more effective socially overlook the fact that not being able to visually interface properly - both reading and generating cues and inflexions, is not something that can be learned. Its fundamental to the disability.

Also as the Work Capability interviews quickly revealed, the professionals seem to have been unaware that adults still have poor eye contact, because even if they don't still avert their eyes, they don't use their eyes properly.

Interesting too that blind people can compensate to some extent by being more sharply receptive to voice inflexion changes. Also people make allowances for a blind person. The difficulties in visual interfacing for someone on the spectrum are less obvious, and also there seems to be no compensatory recognition of voice inflexion.

A whole raft of measures to help young people overcome social difficulties have overlooked the fact that people on the spectrum rely overmuch on the spoken word as language, and lose a great deal of the other contributing gestures, visual cues and voice inflexions.

Hi, speaking as someone with aspergers myself, now 20 and having been through the education system and all its myriad trials and hells, i'd say that with time,l social skills can be learned, but as was in my case, it was very trial and error and was largely down to personal effort. advice from other people seldom helped and often got irritating, even from such people as parents and support tutors. by the time i was done with secondary school i was alot better than i had been going in, and the same is true when i went through college as well.

i just rememberd one weird thing about me: is it normal to being tempted for a smile when you argue with someone? this happened to me on numerous occassions and it truly is uncontrollable. even when i had an argument with a boss or a mother in the past, i was tempted to smile for no reason. i found nothing funny though. sometimes he brought me to tears, when i did not want to smile, of course. mentally i am aware of the problem and the issue the argument is about, but i just cannot help myself. sometimes, especially when the matter is not touching me deeply so that i do not feel guilt or particularly sorry. of course i am sorry if something bad happens but even in such situation i sometimes feel like smiling when arguing with someone, or rather that someone having some problem with me. crazy woman in me.

yes, i keep forgetting other difficulties i encounter, then i remember them when i read them from others. i have been sun shy since i remember due to sensitive eyes. i cannot understand how people walk on the street on a sunny summer day and not shielding their eyes. i wear the glasses that darken in the presence of the uv light and even that does not help so the baseball hat does the job for me. i enjoy taking tan and after some time i get used to the light intensity, but in general i suffer on sun. i also have autoimmune disease that regularly affects my iris causing very painful inflammation that needs to be treated with corticosteroids. can this be linked? i dont know. but i have been light sensitive much earlier than i got these attacks. 

the phobia on the street you have described that makes you to walk by the walls is not present in me although recently i had recurring spells of dizziness, several times per day, some even one after another within 10 seconds as i walked on oxford street. this happened whether walking or even sitting in front of my computer. it went as it came after few weeks. but i managed to climb snowdon the hard way (via crib goch) with this in july, so i am proud, although i was swearing when i was up there, scared and angry that my friend got me into that situation. my blood pressure is normal and blood glucose either. so i have no explanation except of a suspicion that my immunity may be attacking some centres in the brain or in my ear for balance, similarly as it does in people with type 1 diabetes, that it completely destroys the beta cells producing insulin in their pancreas. the body is a whole universe, too complicated and interconnected, so fascinating - when the diseases happen to somebody else... otherwise it is just a nuisance or even a tragedy. 

i wonder whether other phobias or similar stuff (standing by the wall on the street) is not just a  manifestation of some combined disorders, such as agoraphobia or something like that? could some of these emotional things be treated with hypnosis, for example? but i do not expect that some other traits that occur in autists can be cured this way, such as not being able to read peoples non-verbal signals. this is probably too complex brain activity than just emotions, which could be re-programmed with the right approach. just hypothesizing... 

I can confirm some of your observations Darcy, from my own experience, but we probably need a few more respondents with shared insights. I was hoping for more people querying whether you can be taught social skills, whereas most responses think it possible; or at the present rate I'll be on my own on this!

Background noise for me is devastating to conversation, but I can tolerate it a great deal more otherwise. Sudden loud noise and bright light is a problem, and also the complexity.

I instinctively look at people's mouths - its pointless and distracting. I've been trying to make more use of eyes however not getting anywhere productive.

With competing background, even quite low volume, my comprehension of speech deteriorates, and often it sounds like a foreign language. I'm forever apologising for missing what people are saying, but explaining it as a hearing problem gets me into more trouble, as at other times my hearing is noticeably sharp -"thought you said you had a hearing problem!". Also if I say I have a hearing problem and they enunciate loudly in my ear it makes no odds to understanding. It baffles me that everyone reads hearing problem as deaf.

Some environments cause me distress but rather than volume it seems to be complexity, both auditory and visual that causes the problems. I've mentioned before on postings that I regularly sit and contemplate environments, to work out what hurts and what I need to avoid, but also to try not to be so affected. So I'll deliberately go into uncomfortable environments on my own terms, to see if I can improve my coping when not.

For years I found car headlights at dusk or in wet weather extremely unpleasant, but could not understand why nobody else seemed to have any difficulty or showed any appreciation.

What I have found is that if I'm affected, if I turn and face the sound source for a bit, I can calm down. Walking along a busy road I'll stand back to a wall for a bit.  I stay near the edge of the room in social situations so the sound comes from one direction.

I just wonder how far these issues are understood by health professionals (particularly given their understanding tends to exclude sensory). Again also its further evidence why I don't think social skills can be taught. The people who advocate these "cures" don't understand the sensory aspects.

during the past two days i had a conversation with one of my friend who got annoyed because of my so called insensitive, or even sarcastic posts that she could read on a social medium. many of them were not what she accused me of (at least in my eyes) and she also appears to have some issue with self esteem as she likes her own statuses and affirmates that she loves herself so why not (she used to have psychotherapist consultations in the past). i can be a bit cynical sometimes and i know that some people understand this and appreciate a funny side of it. i am trying not to offend anyone, but this is not 100% avoidable if some people are too self oriented and concious even about things that were not directed to them. i admit that also i am short of certain social skills and i am best on my own, but i also appreciate a company from time to time. i consider myself as clever enough to spot the behaviour pattern that can lead to social conflicts and try to avoiding them but sometimes it just is not possilbe, whether it was my fault of someone`s elses. and there are normal people that sometimes fail to read the signs and take things wrong, too. so where is the border? 

i also have difficulties understanding human speech with a background noises, whether in the phone or face to face. i have noticed that instead into eyes i look everybody on their mouth when they are talking. just to make sure i have missed nothing from what they were saying. this came naturally, i just noticed this happening. on the other hand, i think i have an excellent sense of hearing for sounds and noises or even a music. i might not have an absolute hearing like musicians have but i am deffinitely not on the deaf side. i get annoyed especially by a high pitch or sirens, it makes me feel panicked and i feel my "kidneys shaking" and like going crazy in my head when a car with a siren on passes by me on the road. is this normal?  also concentrating on reading is impossible with somebody talking in the room, relaxing music also does not do me a big favor. 

i am best with written language, i even better remember new words or numbers when they are written. yet i do not possess an extraordinary photographic memory. 

i believe that things can be trained to a certaine extent, depending on the potential and effort of each individual, but i do not think we can completely be cured. if there was some damage done to the brain, despite it is able to repair itself, some damages are far beyond getting to the normal. yet, my ex-classmate suffered a stroke at her late 20s, was completely dependent on help, she needed to be washed, fed, etc. her cerebellum was out of order, but she managed to recover, now walks (although awkwardly a bit), moves freely on the public and on her own and what is very interesting, recently she managed to finish a BSc. degree, i think she got the first class or close to that. almost a miracle. she is about 34 now. she needed a special approach, more time for exams, etc, but she made it. 

longman said:

The assumption we can learn social communication skills needs to be supported by actual study of the problems that can arise.

In my opinion, and for want of finding anything that explains this scientiically, I don't believe this can be taught. There are too many reasons why learning isn't enough.

Maybe some of you who have been "taught"can tell me what I'm not getting.

Knowing when to stop.  It is easy to go on and on about something that interests you beyond the point where it ceases to interest others. I can learn by observation what signs I might look for that other people are no longer interested, but it is not easy to do this, and I've never been sure exactly what it is I'm looking for. I can work out for myself what might be too long. But if I forget to monitor my audience for signs of loss of interest I can well overshoot their tolerance.

This is difficult.  My children tell me they are bored/busy and walk away, in fact my youngest will get angry and tell me I'm waffling.  But NTs don't do that.  I would probably know if someone kept looking a lot at their watch (although this would still confuse me as to why they didn't want to listen) or repeatedly turning right round to look at other things.  If people stand there looking I will assume they are interested.  If they don't say, then they must want to listen.  That's how I think, but then I am aware that there are supposedly signs you should pick up on.

Knowing when someone wants to change the subject, or introduce their own view. I do find it very hard to spot this. To some extent I can try to regulate how long I talk and pause to see if another person wants to interject, but what is the cue I should be looking for.

I don't think there is a cue is there?  I have a lot of problem on the phone, when I hear a pause I think it's my turn to talk and people get annoyed because they say they didn't finish speaking yet.

Knowing what is appropriate at any one point in time. The language of context is hard to follow. I know I ought to look for signals that the conversation is changing from serious to humorous to conciliatory to regretful to witty...... But somehow I didn't get a stock of these cues, and it looks like I never will. So I'm often pitching it wrongly.

I have mistaken sarcasm, and not realised until later that they were being sarcastic.  People seem to be sarcastic a lot.  But it isn't an obvious sarcasm, it's done really deadpan.

Voice pitch. I a;lways seem to get this wrong, too loud or too quiet for the context.

I think I am too loud.

Smiling or looking serious, or looking doubtful - I don't think I do this properly, indeded I'm always being told I don't look right for what I'm saying.

I think I veer between emotionless and over-emoting facially.

Knowing which direction in which to look, or who to look at. Seems important, I can never get it right.

That's really hard.  I can look at people reasonably well when they are talking, but when it's my turn to talk I can't look at all.

Knowing when to interject or start a new thread. I'm really not at all good at this.

Concentration. It is hard work trying to follow what is going on. I get tired quickly and sometimes get accused of looking bored or disinterested in the conversation when I'm not really. Fading/blanking is a big day to day problem, so I drift in and out of conversations so people get irritated I don't seem to have been following. Also the time I spend trying to work out what passed a few minutes ago means I miss important cues.

I do this, I don't think anyone has ever told me I look bored because of it though.

These are just a few issues I've raised at the moment. Now if this is something learnable, is it written down somewhere I can read up and improve my technique?

Or do I have to pay some "coach" a fortune for him to explain it to me, if indeed he can?

And where is it demonstrated that I can easily learn?

The assumption we can learn social communication skills needs to be supported by actual study of the problems that can arise.

In my opinion, and for want of finding anything that explains this scientiically, I don't believe this can be taught. There are too many reasons why learning isn't enough.

Maybe some of you who have been "taught"can tell me what I'm not getting.

Knowing when to stop.  It is easy to go on and on about something that interests you beyond the point where it ceases to interest others. I can learn by observation what signs I might look for that other people are no longer interested, but it is not easy to do this, and I've never been sure exactly what it is I'm looking for. I can work out for myself what might be too long. But if I forget to monitor my audience for signs of loss of interest I can well overshoot their tolerance.

Knowing when someone wants to change the subject, or introduce their own view. I do find it very hard to spot this. To some extent I can try to regulate how long I talk and pause to see if another person wants to interject, but what is the cue I should be looking for.

Knowing what is appropriate at any one point in time. The language of context is hard to follow. I know I ought to look for signals that the conversation is changing from serious to humorous to conciliatory to regretful to witty...... But somehow I didn't get a stock of these cues, and it looks like I never will. So I'm often pitching it wrongly.

Voice pitch. I a;lways seem to get this wrong, too loud or too quiet for the context.

Smiling or looking serious, or looking doubtful - I don't think I do this properly, indeded I'm always being told I don't look right for what I'm saying.

Knowing which direction in which to look, or who to look at. Seems important, I can never get it right.

Knowing when to interject or start a new thread. I'm really not at all good at this.

Concentration. It is hard work trying to follow what is going on. I get tired quickly and sometimes get accused of looking bored or disinterested in the conversation when I'm not really. Fading/blanking is a big day to day problem, so I drift in and out of conversations so people get irritated I don't seem to have been following. Also the time I spend trying to work out what passed a few minutes ago means I miss important cues.

These are just a few issues I've raised at the moment. Now if this is something learnable, is it written down somewhere I can read up and improve my technique?

Or do I have to pay some "coach" a fortune for him to explain it to me, if indeed he can?

And where is it demonstrated that I can easily learn?

longman said:

As to progressing from childhood to adulthood its like a conveyer belt that ends at 18 and goes nowhere anybody knows. Everything is about schoolchildren being helped. When they reach transition they fall over the edge of the abyss. 

The conveyerbelt just addresses children as they are diagnosed and come onto to it. It doesn't seem to matter what happens at the end of the conveyor belt.

So what's the point of the help in childhood if, come what may, they are just being assumed to be cured at transition?

...if they were so cured, why are there an increasing amount of adults coming out the woordwork to ask for assessment now!  Why did the government create the Autism Act and the Autism Strategy!  It's no good having strategies without the support being there though.  I think the government needs to recognise that they need to put funding into place to provide the support they recommend we have.

NAS11521 said:

We can become so skilled that we can "fool most of the people most of the  time" but the effort will always cause stress and some discomfort that we are being - in a sense - dishonest with others.

Yes, and dishonest towards ourselves, and our true nature.  It goes so against the grain and I feel like we are being unfair to ourselves, but are facing an enormous pressure to comply.  It kind of makes my blood boil when I think about it.  We are compromising ourselves.  I want to be able to just ask logical questions of people without all the social niceties, I want to be able to ask what comes into my head without being looked at like a freak, I want not to have to politely smile and say hello and answer inane questions about the weather or things about myself without it being thought of as rude.  Why are things "not the done thing"?  I mean I have come some way since my childhood when I blurted out things which I now realise, were mean, but it was stuff that just came to mind and fell out of my mouth, now I have more of a censor in place, but I just feel very bothered by the fact that if I went about being as forthright, honest, direct and blunt as I naturally want to it would cause flaming arguments and fisticuffs!

NAS11521 said:

It's a no-win situation for adults because the more skilled we are the less likely we are to be able to convince a GP or a diagnostic psychiatrist that we have a problem at all.

Absolutely.  And this is so true particularly for females on the spectrum as we have more pressure to communicate from an early age.

NAS11521 said:

I can understand how parents of children on the spectrum will grasp at any chance of helping them to be "normal" because they're afraid that otherwise they won't lead a happy and fulfilled life but I wonder who many of those children, when  they reach adulthood, regress without the help they received during childhood.

...or just cave in to Aspie Burnout from trying to maintain what has been drummed into them...

As to progressing from childhood to adulthood its like a conveyer belt that ends at 18 and goes nowhere anybody knows. Everything is about schoolchildren being helped. When they reach transition they fall over the edge of the abyss. 

The conveyerbelt just addresses children as they are diagnosed and come onto to it. It doesn't seem to matter what happens at the end of the conveyor belt.

So what's the point of the help in childhood if, come what may, they are just being assumed to be cured at transition?

Well in many other contexts including disability, social background etc there are long term studies that look at people's progress from childhood into adulthood and beyond.

They may review annually or every three of five years, but they look to see whether different circumstances affect people's prospects. It is only by collecting such data that you can determine whether changes in economy or society have impact or whether treatments for a medical condition or disability are effective.

There's one on TV that looks at the progess of children born twenty or thirty years ago that looks every few years at how they are getting on. Many others are carried out using quantitative data rather than film.

Where are these studies in autism? If they exist at all do they stop at 18 or do they go much beyond? Goodness knows the condition has been around long enough to build up a considerable database.

Social coaching is "sold" using testimonials, bit like the way pills used to be sold in the 18th and 19th century. Nowadays most medications are demonstrated by lengthy and rigorous testing. Asperger/Autism cures are being marketed by the dozen, based on little more convincing evidence than those so-called dentists on television reading stiltedly from the autocue which toothpaste dentists recommend. Is that really sufficient aunthentification of "cures" that may not have any lasting or meaningful outcomes beyond someone's wild assertions.

Also because of the myths these claims create, that's certainly a factor in making it hard to explain why so many adults have difficulties.

It really is very long overdue that autism can provide tested valid methods of helping people move forward.

I do believe they can be taught.  However, the level of learning will be dependent on how affected the person is and I would emphasise my belief that it will never be instinctive, it will always be by accessing memory banks of what you are supposed to do in a given situation.  I know a lot of what you are supposed to do, but I hate it and feel very fake, like I am just doing it for everyone else and it's not what I want. 

For me, social skills training is for the benefit of society firstly, and secondly the person with ASC's wellbeing in being able to fit into that society.

It's a band-aid really, but in some ways it is good because hopefully it will mean the individual will suffer less embarrassment at social faux pas and less anxiety at wondering what they are supposed to do.  But balance that with the knowledge that socialising will always cause us a degree of anxiety and the fact that it's a huge cognitive effort to maintain the mask.