Why autism education needs to change

Thanks for clarifying Zoe, however I'm having difficulty visualising how these laudable objectives can be achieved, and one of my principle concerns lies with eye contact. From reading and observation eye contact seems to be the big issue, not so much the eye to eye information, but the ability to take in and interpret facial expression, and to reciprocate the required communicative facial expression through practiced interaction.

I'm in the mild/able category and always a bit wary of using myself as an example (though reading back through my posts I'm still habitually drawing on my own experience).  But after nearly twenty years as a lecturer, and as a public speaker, frequent participant in committees etc., I've got better and better since my 30s and since diagnosis in my fifties, at effective formal communication.  I can compensate, anticipate, play-act, and script my way through.

I still socialise badly, and one of the primary problems is eye contact.  I'm told I appear to have good eye contact but its not my own experience. As a teenager and even in my 20s I spoke to my tie, as my parents put it, and mumbled, and was embarrassingly aloof. As an adult I watch people's mouths (which seems pointless as I cannot lip read, but is better than where else my eyes sometimes fix). I don't see faces properly, cannot reliably read facial expression, and certainly from what I'm told often don't have appropriate facial expression for context.

It seems to me that what I would need to adapt to the moment in social expression, is good eye contact, and good facial reading skills. Which is another reason why I cannot fathom social stories, because it makes no odds reading cartoon faces if you cannot replicate reading real faces properly.

The barrier to mastering these social competencies is being able to assimilate the information. So it would perhaps help me comprehend your concept if I knew how you intend to overcome the eye contact deficit.

Thanks for clarifying Zoe, however I'm having difficulty visualising how these laudable objectives can be achieved, and one of my principle concerns lies with eye contact. From reading and observation eye contact seems to be the big issue, not so much the eye to eye information, but the ability to take in and interpret facial expression, and to reciprocate the required communicative facial expression through practiced interaction.

I'm in the mild/able category and always a bit wary of using myself as an example (though reading back through my posts I'm still habitually drawing on my own experience).  But after nearly twenty years as a lecturer, and as a public speaker, frequent participant in committees etc., I've got better and better since my 30s and since diagnosis in my fifties, at effective formal communication.  I can compensate, anticipate, play-act, and script my way through.

I still socialise badly, and one of the primary problems is eye contact.  I'm told I appear to have good eye contact but its not my own experience. As a teenager and even in my 20s I spoke to my tie, as my parents put it, and mumbled, and was embarrassingly aloof. As an adult I watch people's mouths (which seems pointless as I cannot lip read, but is better than where else my eyes sometimes fix). I don't see faces properly, cannot reliably read facial expression, and certainly from what I'm told often don't have appropriate facial expression for context.

It seems to me that what I would need to adapt to the moment in social expression, is good eye contact, and good facial reading skills. Which is another reason why I cannot fathom social stories, because it makes no odds reading cartoon faces if you cannot replicate reading real faces properly.

The barrier to mastering these social competencies is being able to assimilate the information. So it would perhaps help me comprehend your concept if I knew how you intend to overcome the eye contact deficit.