Social Skills Training for Adults

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I have more to say but want to specifically say this RE Temple Grandin. He NEVER made the reference. Everyone else does though. He only said the he knows Michelle Winner places Temple in the ESC bucket as an outlier. He said that I am in the ESC bucket as an outlier too. The outlier part is about how both she and I managed to beat the prognosis by so much for our functioning level.

THAT is the only tie he made. This is the thing that makes people freak out over me right now and the thing that I am having such a hard time wrapping my head around. I am so socially severely disabled yet doing so amazingly well. Most of the people in the ESC bucket are not living independently let alone wildly so.

I am TERRIBLE at this. If you want to know what I did on my vacation, you'll get about 3 sentences of description per week of time away. Ask my wife if you really want to know.



I have no problem with sci fi or fantasy, but relationship driven story lines are dead to me. I am terrible at inventing stories of any kind.

Ha! Yep. I know zactly how you feel on all these points. LOL! But I think your complaint addresses why we hate small talk more than narrative talk. Read about this specifically starting on the bottom of page 18.

My grandmother practically lived on narrative talk. She'd do narrative sequence after narrative sequence and I just did not care.

If I try to relate that kind of information to other people it becomes a complex beast because I include as many details as possible, and why talk about eating an amazing pulled pork sandwich unless I want to get someone else to go there with me? What is the purpose of just relating such information?

To create social ties. That's about it.

I'm rather lucky in that one of my longest running special interests is animals. I'm currently reading a book on dog training and it mainly focuses on how our ingrained primate behaviors infuence our ability to effectively relate to canines. One of the points covered is how humans have a deeply ingrained instinct for "talking," so much so that it can muddle our interactions with dogs when we "talk" at them expecting them to understand human speech when dogs pay much more attention to visual cues than verbal ones. It's been said that humans across all cultures are wired for language acquisition and it's one of the primary features that distinguish us from other animals. No one else matches us in terms of language use and complexity.

The point: chimpanzees use a variety of rituals to create social bonds and maintain cohesiveness; having to keep track of social rules is why social animals have the biggest brains. Chimps do a lot of "grooming" to make friends. Humans utilize "small talk." By relating random information, I can get a sense of who you are and what you like, and, based on that, I can decide if I want to be friends with you.

Observe:

Verandi: I ate a pulled pork sandwich today at lunch it was really good, but I dropped sauce on my pants.

XFilesGeek: That sucks. Hey, where'd you get that sandwich. I like good barbeque!

Verandi: That new place on the corner of Main and Center Street. Kinda hard to see the sign from the road, but it's worth it.

XfilesGeek: Cool. Say, if you're not busy tomorrow, why don't we go there together? I'd love to try it.

Verandi: Sure!

See what just happened? Going by your "sandwich information," I was able to offer a friendship invitation. It doesn't make "small talk" any more interesting, I'm sorry to say, but it is necessary.

One of the best posts EVER on why NTs do small talk and how we can learn from it. Thanks for typing all of that out. VERY insightful!! !

I am coming back to post in this thread as I have time.... Promise....

Interesting. I mostly talk to animals (cats and dogs) to just make noise, and I prefer words to not-words, although I also imitate the noises they make. I don't recall thinking they understand the words I use, but the words help me sometimes when trying to deal with them. Mostly I try to use posture and gestures to interact. It's kind of funny, as my niece got frustrated that I was able to pick up a cat that she couldn't - that grew up around her and barely knew me - and my sister told her I had catlike body language.

When I talk to people, it's usually for a purpose. I do know that this is not fully sufficient for social purposes.



Oh, see, I've made most of my friends via mutual hobbies or political interests (sometimes both) while communicating online. I don't do very well with meeting people before making friends with them.



Thank you for this explanation.

I have been told by one or maybe more of the Drs that I am "male" thinker. And in a BIG way too. I have always been so. I present very "textbook" aspergers or so I am told.



Taking the "long way around" in my sessions is NOT permitted with the 2-4 total sentence rule... I think we ALL tend to take the long way around if the subject is interesting and refuse to talk much at all otherwise. LOL!



I think most of the people who post on here are WISC. At least their posts seem to make me think that of them.



I can neither do gossip nor rumour mill type stuff. It just plain doesn't make sense to me. I could NEVER have maintained interest in that sort of conversation. Even under the premise of learning what made people do the things they do. People are (and have always been) weird to me.




My progress is HORRIBLE actually. I am curious why you think it is quick? I seem to be not much further along today than when I first started. The EFFORT has been HUGE for the tiny bits of progress that seems to be coming from this. At least that is how it feels to me right now. Perhaps you can help me see the light a bit? I am pretty NOT okay with this right now.



LOL! I'd say it speaks VOLUMES!

Oh and quick update on Advocacy work...

Gave a 2 hour presentation/session with the Psychologist who discovered me and is going to tour with me. She was VERY excited about the material I came up with and asked me quite a few questions. I told her I think I am ready to roll. She is contacting major Autism specialists at OHSU (she interned there I believe) and also another major Autism clinic in town (forget the agenda). The point is that she is going to present me at these smaller events. This will give me a chance to get comfortable doing these and give them a chance to talk to me more personally. She thinks I am a 1-100,000 "type" and she keeps referring to me as this amazing "statistical anomaly" I still am not quite getting what she and other people are seeing but I have material that several of them have acted quite excited about. So HERE I go....

Also went to my "Little's" proposed school next year. Got to watch a class with Autistic kids being taught Social Skills. It was VERY sad. (More later as I can find words)

That's where I'd put myself. I suspect I'm towards the more socially able end of it. ESC definitely involves far more difficulty than I have. And I'm not very socially anxious, so SASC doesn't fit.

I wonder if that model deserves a thread of its own if it doesn't already have one.

Ask and you shall receive:

http://www.wrongplanet.net/postt155488.html

That thread was started two and a half months ago.

I got stuck in it because I looked at each thing and how I had history that fit WISC, ESC and even CSC and it took me longer than it probably should have to work out that I was supposed to generalize where I mostly fit rather than perfectly fit (although I never thought I fit CSC). The main thing I fit in WISC was experiencing a lot of bullying, and I kind of wonder about the references to bullying at ESC, CSC and SCSC levels as a generalization, because it seems like a lot of autistic people do get bullied, regardless of where they are. But maybe the writers have data that shows a pattern that is not apparent from anecdotes. Anyway, I think I fit ESC (strong emerging, perhaps) better than anything else in that paper.

I find it interesting now because it lists so many traits and severity levels, and it's informative and provides some insight into my own experiences.



They probably think you're amazing because:

* You are explaining how your brain works fairly clearly - something I think a lot of autistic people can do, but don't get the platform to really express it the way you are now (and to a greater extent just from sheer time spent at it, Temple Grandin has) to neurotypicals.

And they probably take this seriously from you because:

* You are extremely successful as far as expected prognosis for autistic people, especially someone whose symptoms are as severe as yours are.

You're in a rather unique position, which is probably a good thing in the long term.



I have read and seen some harrowing things about this sort of thing. And I do not mean the extreme examples such as Judge Rotenberg Center. I can only imagine what that class was like.

You seem to have gone from not even being able to recognise the basic dysfunction to being able to actually see where your skills were lacking. That, in and of itself is THE huge step. THAT is the lightbulb. There can be no progress without realization. I had my lightbulb moments in my 20's, that moment when you realized WOW - other people don't think like me - I'm thinking WAY different about this stuff compared to most everyone else. That was when I development my interest in body language and peoples motivations and in learning what I was doing differently. Basically - it was when I learned being 'me' was the problem. I'm not suggesting you will go down that same road, after all you have help. Trying to figure this out on your own is a whole other beast. With lots and lots of room for error. It doesn't help that there isn't a 'right' way or a 'correct' way either. Kind of like trying to hit a moving target in the dark.

You seem to be coming to a boatload of new realizations. The actual 'progress' with the social skills can only come once the playfield is leveled, ya know? Give yourself some slack! you have alot of learning going on in a short period of time. Progress will come.



I'm afraid to read this update. My daughter is in social skills too. I've been very clear with them what I do and do not want to happen. I really do need to see a class but her school year is over in one week. I'm kind of afraid what goes on. I look for the signs - they know my daughters self esteem is sacrosanct and they know my feeling on her stims. She actually seems to enjoy her social skills class so far but she can't really tell me what they do. It sounds like alot of social stories and mediated interactive play like boardgames and such. My daughter is also in with kids around her functioning level so one or two other AS boys and mostly ADHD kids. They are using a goal oriented reward system for 'appropriate behaviors' - sort of ABA in the general classroom. This got my hackles up and I am going to address this for a final report before school ends. They have only tried this for a few weeks and my daughter has never mentioned it so I need to get nosy.

I should post some of the material they have sent home to get some opinions on it.

Thanks for the link. I'm not surprised that anbuend had some strong critiques of the model; I have a lot of respect for her perspective, and I think her concerns about it lumping together aspects that don't necessarily go together make sense.

The bullying aspect of WISC is actually one of the things I identify with less from it. I received a bit of bullying, but it wasn't pervasive. And it wasn't obviously related to lack of social skills.

Well, I can think of other reasons than being autistic that I caught bullying, but definitely.

I do not disagree with anbuend's criticisms, but I also find it informative.

I'm lost about what "but definitely" refers to.

Sorry, I hit send without finishing my sentence.

I am not sure what it means now, it's possible I dropped that line of thought and didn't erase it all.