"How to Have a Conversation" - Helpful or not?

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I am wondering what others think of the "How to Have a Conversation" lists like this that are often provided to people on the spectrum. Has anyone actually found these tips helpful? I've always found them rather condescending myself.

They tend to say things like:
Maintain appropriate eye contact. [Obvious. But I need to look away to listen.]
Have good body posture. [Yes, but it's also good to relax.]
Ask the speaker questions about their topic. [Obviously. But what if I can't think of questions?]
Always search for the other person's "hot button." [Huh?]
Take time to be cordial with your co-workers and neighbors. [Blatantly obvious, but not necessarily the most productive strategy, and what is "being cordial" anyway, other than saying hello?]

What about the SOFTEN acronym?
Smile
Open Posture
Forward Lean.
Touch
Eye Contact.
Nod.

Again, this is all obvious; the problem is knowing how much is too much or too little, and to process what's being said while doing all these things.

What is your reaction to tips like these?

garbage

My impression is that it's designed for kids, and intended only to teach the most basic surface-level stuff. Sort of like instructions for properly putting on ice skates, but nothing about actually skating.

And also it makes the mistake that there is simply a lack of knowledge. It's like thinking that dyslexia is caused by a lack of knowledge of the alphabet. So, the stuff like not being able to listen and make eye contact at the same time (I also have that one big time) isn't going to be addressed.

^

While tips like that are not bad, they're not really helpful. It's like saying "If you want to be good at golf, try to get the ball in the whole with as few strokes as possible." That advice is true, but there's nothing there you could actually use to improve your golf game.

There is some advice out there that I've found pretty applicable, however. Leil Lowndes wrote a book called "How to Talk to Anyone" which I found helpful, because it gives you lots of conversation tips with explanations for why they're useful and how to apply them. So instead of bland advice, you can read through the tips one at a time and then if you find one you think would be useful, try to apply that specifically in your conversations.

For a group with a tendency to take things very literally, this is very bad advice. Follow those instructions literally and you'll come across as quite odd, and perhaps even threatening. The actual body language is so much more nuanced. People don't smile and maintain eye contact continuously, for instance.

I came across this term once and the writer gave Bill Clinton as an example of someone who is really good at the technique, but, if you look at some interview footage of him, you can see quite clearly he doesn't maintain eye contact for more than a few seconds at a time. He looks off in the distance, or at his hands (makes alot of gestures with his hands), after just 1-3 seconds, and he spends more time not in eye contact than in it. But I did notice - his gaze doesn't go too far from the axis of eye contact for very long. He does look at his feet or way off to the left or right, but only for a fraction of a second. Most of the time he is looking somewhere near the axis, when he breaks contact.

Also, the more insistent he is, the more he's confronting, the longer the eye contact is. When he's just being casual, it's shorter. But even at his most confrontational it's not constant.

Thanks for the responses. I'm glad it's not just me. The link in my post is to a handout I was actually given at an Aspie group some time ago. I didn't go back to the group.

Still, clinicians, parents, and supposed "experts" continue to push this on us as good advice. I wish I could cite an alternative that really does work.

Perhaps this is a topic for me for a future cartoon.