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Social Communication

SunshineDrive

Where do people personally feel they sit on a line of understanding social communication (not what they are supposed to be like according to science) 

  1. I can’t figure out what people expect of me and often end up lost or staying quiet.
  2. I get social communication wrong more often than I get it right.
  3. I get some things wrong, but I get a lot right too.
  4. I think I understand social communication as well as, or better than, most people

It would be interesting, even if none of these fit your description, to discuss as a starting point. This is very much an ad hoc topic.

What I’m interested in is how autistic people actually experience their own social understanding.

Many discussions start from the assumption that autistic people have social deficits, but lived experience is often much more nuanced than that. Some people may feel completely lost in social situations, some may feel they understand people well but communicate differently, and others may feel they have developed strengths in areas such as pattern recognition, honesty, empathy, or reading behaviour.

I’m interested in where people feel they sit personally, how they arrived there, and whether their experience matches or differs from what they have been told to expect about autism.

There are no right or wrong answers. The options are simply a starting point for exploration and discussion.

Parents

  • I think that the major difference between autistic and allistic people (here I am talking about autistic people with no co-occurring intellectual disability) is how social skills are acquired and used. Allistic people absorb them without conscious effort and then use them with equal lack of effort. Autistic people employ much more conscious effort in acquiring and then subsequently using social skills. In general I get by with social skills quite well, I reached 59 years of age without anyone twigging that I was autistic. However, socialising requires effort and that effort can be tiring and sometimes exhausting.

    Specific problems I have include not being able to follow conversations if there is a lot of background noise - especially if this is other people talking or a radio/TV with talking is on - and timing my own contributions in group conversations. With people I know well I have held my hand up to indicate that I wanted to say something.

    The main problem I had was in converting acquaintanceships with the opposite sex into romantic relationships. It took me many years to figure out where I was going wrong. Essentially, I had no idea if a woman found me attractive or not, so never made any move towards them, they inevitably thought that I had no interest in them. I researched the nuances of non-verbal communication quite extensively and at least ended up with a theoretical grasp on these elusive signals.

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  • I think that the major difference between autistic and allistic people (here I am talking about autistic people with no co-occurring intellectual disability) is how social skills are acquired and used. Allistic people absorb them without conscious effort and then use them with equal lack of effort. Autistic people employ much more conscious effort in acquiring and then subsequently using social skills. In general I get by with social skills quite well, I reached 59 years of age without anyone twigging that I was autistic. However, socialising requires effort and that effort can be tiring and sometimes exhausting.

    Specific problems I have include not being able to follow conversations if there is a lot of background noise - especially if this is other people talking or a radio/TV with talking is on - and timing my own contributions in group conversations. With people I know well I have held my hand up to indicate that I wanted to say something.

    The main problem I had was in converting acquaintanceships with the opposite sex into romantic relationships. It took me many years to figure out where I was going wrong. Essentially, I had no idea if a woman found me attractive or not, so never made any move towards them, they inevitably thought that I had no interest in them. I researched the nuances of non-verbal communication quite extensively and at least ended up with a theoretical grasp on these elusive signals.

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