I read the whole thread and I feel I kinda understand how the OP feels. :/
The one thing is that it's impossible to "see" anyone's intent, ASD or not.
As a parent (or a teacher, or group leader like the OP is), I guess some of us fear that if we don't correct a wrong (or bad) behavior immediately, it will be the same as encouraging the behavior to happen again. I have to admit that I have been making mistakes on guessing my stepson's (who's also HF ASD) intents, same as his dad.
Now that I have lived with him long enough at least I can sometimes sense that I was making wrong assumptions and get my SS to talk about it and sort out the misunderstanding. To be honest though, I really don't know how many more times I wasn't able to catch them.
I guess what I want to say is:
Asking an NT to think like an ASD is just as unnatural as asking an ASD to think like an NT.
It took me quite a while to learn to do the stop and check :/