Measuring social maturity?

Post Reply New Topic

Does anyone have a good idea how to measure social maturity? It's been said that autism is associated with social immaturity, and I'm kind of curious if there's any way to measure this or get a good idea of what 'age' your social maturity is at.

I'm guessing if there was a hypothetical chat room with 12 year olds, another chat room with 13 year olds, and so on... you could probably narrow your age of social maturity to a certain age band by seeing which one you "fit in the most". I have no idea how to completely measure *that*, though.

Any ideas? I'm guessing my social maturity is somewhere around 15-16 since I seem to get along with teenagers the most and I do things and build things that 15-16 year olds find pretty cool. (Of course, so do kids, heh. heh.) And, I suppose the maturity of my language usage is somewhere around 15-16, or something about the semantic complexity that implies it's somewhere around there.

Oh, I also get asked plenty of times in forums with adults what my age is, as if they doubt I'm an adult. HAHA.

It's really hard to do, find that maturity. I feel I'm half my physical age as I have trouble making friends and the like. The only thing I ever get better with is faking it.

I'd fit in best in a chat room filled with nerdy 75-year-olds.

Autistic social development is not just a slowed-down version of NT social development. It's simply... different.

Its very hard, Im sure theirs clinical ways to do it, measuring various criteria. Its hard to be conclusive. We can approximate a certain maturity of immaturity but it would be hard to pin our maturity to a certain age.

For me there are things that 12 yr olds do that I find very hard to do. Meanwhile, there are things that people in their early 20s do that Im capable of. So if someone were to measure my social maturity on a line graph, the line would be very jagged and wide ranging.

My best guess is that I would fit best with people around 18-21. But thats only cause I didnt start socializing until I was 18 so 99% of my social experience is with people in that age range. Im 22 now.

It depends on my mood really. Whenever I'm calm I act like I'm much older. But if something gets under my skin, I may as well be a 12 year old.

There a lot of situations where I can associate with people (blog-like situations, mostly) with people that could be 3 times older than me, when I was 14, 15 because my knowledge in certain areas of interest were so better than my peers. There are other situations to where I feel like I'm 10, 11 years old. But I can't seem to act the age of my peer group, at least for a long periods of time.....

I feel like I live like an old lady, actually. As far as "group" stuff goes, though, I think I'm stuck somewhere back in middle school.

It's been done

http://www.socialthinking.com/what-is-s ... on-profile

I fall neatly into the ESC category. You are likely WISC or NT.

Socially, I fit in with my parents generation. I still have the emotional maturity of a teenager who has a mad crush on The Kinks.

That informal "Aspies have 2/3 the social age of their real age" thing proves true for me.

I wasn't diagnosed till 23 and didn't even know about Asperger's really before then, certainly didn't suspect I had it, but when I turned 19 was telling everyone I was turning 12.

I am only now reaching the dating milestones now that the average 16/17-year-old is reaching and I'm 25.

So yeah.

I have always been best with people who are not in my peer group. I've always been good with old people, now I'm good with little kids (my nephews seem to adore me). I am both very mature (in choice of words and ability to be silent and listen) and very immature (ooh, shiny).

Way back in the mists of time when I was a teenager I always felt much older than my peers. This continued into my twenties when I still found many people my own age rather childish. Now I'm older I find myself feeling mentally much younger than others and have trouble identifying with my age group. 'Tis a funny old world.

Somebody once said on this forum that all people on the spectrum have the social mind of a newborn baby, and that a 7-month-old is more able to read body language than an adult with AS. Technically, I don't think that's true. Yes, babies and even animals pick up on things what people do, but it still doesn't mean a baby or an animal knows better than an adult with AS. I am more socially aware of people and their intentions than what a small child is aswell. But anyway - enough with that. I feel I have the social maturity of a person over 50, because they talk about much more interesting stuff, rather than all the mainstream boring stuff people go on about. Most of my friends are well older than me, and I got along with them so well, and they understand me more than people at my age do, and I can relate more to older people than I can with people of my age.

I think NTs can be socially immature too. I know a 28-year-old woman who hangs about with 15-year-olds, and joins in their bitchiness about other people on facebook. She must be quite immature to like to hang out with school-aged teenagers and being nasty about other people on facebook. Even I'm more grown-up compared to her (and 15-year-old girls).