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can social skills be taught?

longman

I keep coming across claims that people with Asperger's Syndrome or HFASD can be taught or shown how to overcome social/communication difficulties. 

This seems to be what underpins help given to people on the spectrum in special schools or learning disability support in mainstream. Or all these consultants who offer training in social skills to school age children (for a fee) because what they achieve by a long arduous process that sorts socialising at school will somehow magically resolve socialising as an adult in an adult world.

It also seems to underlie the assumption that you grow out of it. Hence transition isn't a big issue for abler children who will magicly transform into social butterflies by 18 or 21.

Which is again why so little has been done to better understand the needs of adults. Adults with socialising problems it seems were children who didn't learn their social skills lessons at school and are now paying the price for their indolence and ingratitude. Once "taught" how to conquer social interaction its all your fault if you don't magically get over the rest.

I just wonder what research underpins the confidence that this kind of social coaching in school years has any long term value. Because surely for all the claims made, there has to be evidence. If this was medication or cosmetics there would have to be a substantial body of evidence. Where is the substantial body of evidence that people on the spectrum can be taught social skills for life?

I personally, at the abler end, without a diagnosis (as diagnosed late in life) found ways round formal social interaction by finding out why I got into trouble, finding people who were understanding enough to help me, and then learning the right things to say on cue, which took me decades. But it is still hard work and I still make mistakes.

Even so I still lose credibility if there's background noise, where I lose coherence, or there are two many cross-overs in the dialogue, or I'm unwell or flagging, or I blank out.

And that's only with formal conversation. As it gets less formal, less language based more gestures, nods and inflexions based I lose out rapidly. OK I was self-taught, maybe if I had been "coached" when younger I might have been better at it. But I cannot find published evidence that "coaching" of social skills works long term. It might produce short term benefits for young people in their immediate social contexts, but the root causes haven't been resolved, and there needs to be research that substantiates claims it works long term.

As I have already said, if this was medication or cosmetics there would have to be a substantial body of proof. I don't see why autistic spectrum "cures" don't seem to need a body of proof. At the moment there's just a lot of uncorroborated quackery going on.

I do feel NAS has a duty to pursue (or at least demand) scientific evidence for autism "cures".

No-one should be permitted to claim they can coach social skills unless they can provide proof of long term benefit, into adulthood. The impression that someone can be egged on to manage in a few short-lived social settings is not scientific corroboration of efficacy.

I just think it is time we had some science to this, and science we could see.

Parents

  • 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.

Reply

  • 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.

Children
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