How far can Aspies go in learning social skills?

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I'm really curious about this. When I was a child my social skills were terrible. In kindergarten, I'd spend recess on the swing because I didn't understand the play of the other children. It seemed stupid to me. I didn't understand how to make conversation unless I had a specific thing I wanted to talk about. Sometimes kids would want to be my friend, but I'd be so clueless I'd always blow it without even knowing what had happened. Of course, I was teased a lot. In high school, kids would say "Hi" while passing in the hall. I never said anything back because it seemed pointless. Therefore, some people thought I was "stuck up". And, there was lots more.


But I was lonely and I did want friends. One day in high school I made up my mind that my situation was ridiculous. I resolved I would figure out this "small talk" mystery. I began listening to what the other kids were talking about. I quickly realized they were talking about nothing! OK, I figured-- I can do that. All you do is say "How are you?", "Nice dress you're wearing", "Gee it's hot today", and other obvious meaningless stuff, but people like it. So I did it. And it worked, and I did make a few friends and with practice, I was eventually able to hold more extensive conversations.
I also read a lot. I read Dale Carnegie's "How to Win Friends and Influence People". (Every AS person should read Carnegie, IMHO.) I read some books on body language. I read Norman Vincent Peale's "The Power of Positive Thinking", which helped me "buck up" and persist.


I still am not a very social person. I have a fair degree of social anxiety. In any new situation, I am always anxiously scanning, trying to figure out the ground rules. But I don't present as anything stranger than "introverted". And-- oddly-- somewhere along the way I became very good at reading people. It just takes a minute or two for me to accurately ascertain a person's basic character.


I likely would have been pegged as AS as a child, if they'd known about it then. But as an adult, I scored 97/200 AS and 109/200 NT on the online Aspie test-- "half and half". So I believe I trained a lot of the AS out of myself-- if that is possible. I do have other AS traits-- like I love numbers and playing with budgets in my head. I do not have one particular special interest, but if something catches my interest, I research it intensely for a few days or weeks. I do not have any sensory issues aside from being "overloaded" a little more easily than most people. (Half an hour at the mall and I'm completely confused.)


This contrasts with my sister, who is very Aspie and never seemed to try to do anything to adapt to the world as it is. Mostly she seems to want to complain about how mean the world is to her.


I wonder what the difference is? Is it a difference in "degree of AS"-- maybe I wasn't all that different to begin with? Is it a difference in the basic personality overlaying the AS? (I.e, I'm a "fighter" and my sister is not?) A difference in IQ? (Mine is very high, my sister's is average-- maybe that makes me better at learning new skills?)


How far can AS people, in general, go in learning social skills and what limits what they can learn?


I am curious what people think?

Wow, you described most of my life nearly exactly! That's what I like about this site, I still can't believe I'm not the only one like that!

I do find that as I get older, it's easier. Not that anything has changed, but I have a better understanding of how social situations are supposed to work (thanks to many years of trial and error...and error...and error). As I result, I try to make sure I'm in a situation that makes me comfortable, and as a result, I do allright. I'm probably thought of as the quiet guy who makes an odd statement on occasion, or joke that may not be as hilarious to the rest of the crowd as it is to me, but I can live with that.

I don't have close friendships, I'm not sure if I really want them, but it's good to have people I can talk to on occasion, or do some activities with (hiking, go to baseball games, etc.) I guess I'm a "loner" but I'm not anti-social anymore. I've discovered that the key to conversation is to make sure I can understand the subject, and given my memory and the amount of stuff I've read, there aren't too many topics that I don't know anything about. So, I'm doing much better, there's still LOTS of room for improvement, but the fact that I'm advancing means that I have a lot to look forward to. I'll never be able to remove the AS from me (I don't think I'd want to) but I can control the negative effects better.

The key is understanding myself, knowing what I can and can't do, and attempt to maximize the probabilities of being in a situation that's something I can handle.

Socializing like, petty weather conversations? Well, who knows?

Communicating, in general, can be learned. There are ways to better present your ideas. I've a book, how to "influence people and get people to like you" and think like you.

It goes over simple ideas, simple ways of communicating, what has worked for people, what hasn't. I'm sure it would be a valuable tool for anyone who cares to better speak of what they wish to get across to another.

My Uncle is basically THAT book. People respect him and wish to hear what he has to say. I've learned a lot about communicating over the last 6 months, from the book and from my Uncle (who I kind of just met after 24 years, at the time).

Kensho, I think this is a great question you brought up. I am also an adult aspie with a high IQ, undiagnosed as a child, who spent her entire life learning to mimic NT behavior. I call it acting, and I've learned that this "acting" I do is the best way to translate me to everyone else. Since there's more of them than me, I have trained myself to talk their language, so to speak. I also like learning languages, so I guess that's why I relate the two.

I have come to feel that if I want people to understand me, it's my job to translate myself. For example, my normal internally-driven response to a lady saying hi to me would be to either say nothing and not even look at her, or to start talking about whatever was on my mind, such as maps or weather patterns. If I were to talk to her at all it would be because I wanted to socialize, even though I wouldn't know how to acheive that socialization I wanted. However, I learned in elementary school that this response does not garner a continued conversation. It makes people walk away and not say hi to you next time. So, over the course of my 33 years, I've learned what to do instead. When a woman says hi to me, and I feel like socializing (not always, but much of the time) I will stop and put all my focus into watching her mouth to see what she says. I will then use some of my stored reponses to create the "feeling" she was going for, such as "how are you?" or "great weather" or that's a nice shirt (that one goes over well). In my early 20's I found this to be incredibly insulting, and I thought that acting was lying. However, lately, in my older age, I realize that these things are important ways of helping others feel accepted and happy. So I happily adopt the "language" to translate my good feelings of friendship into words that the other person will interpret as "she's nice and she's being nice to me", which is, after all, my goal. Then, when the other person says similar things back to me, I will run it through my "translator" which will tell me that the other person is nice, and that she's trying to be nice to me. After the translation, these things make me very happy. Therefore, communication has been achieved.

Apparently I have practically mastered this plan. I was a complete social outcast for the first 26 or so years of my life. And now, at 33, I've completely fooled everyone I know into thinking I'm not only normal, but very nice and (some people even think) very social. They just don't know how hard I work at it. And that every three days or so I need a major break from humans in order to "recharge" my translator. When I'm wound down, I can't translate at all, which is very difficult for all parties involved, because even though I may feel happy and want to express appreciation for the other person, none comes out. They think I'm mad at them, and they get mad at me, which makes me actually mad. So, when I'm too worn out to translate, it's best to rest from people until I can do it properly again.

Sometimes I impress myself. Yesterday, I socialized at a high level of good translating for a total of 5 hours yesterday, which is incredibly good. Usually, my total is 2 hours a day. The trick is that today I have meetings and such, and it will total about 4 hours of socializing and communicating today, so by tomorrow I'll probably need to stay home with my kids all day and rest from any human who is not my child or my husband. And even then I won't be talking too much. But, if I do that, then by Friday I'll be recharged again and can go run lots of errands and negotiate the traffic and the crowds just fine.

I'm so good at this, that occasionally, when conversation turns to concern about how the neighborhood Aspie children are being treated by their parents as practical invalids, I get so upset about the limits that are being placed on these kids' potentials that, in order to make my point of what an Aspie's potential really is, I go ahead and tell the person that I, too am an Aspie, just like that kid. They NEVER believe me. I have become quite the actress!

So, to answer your question, yes I believe it's possible to "learn" NT behavior. Your question about if it relates to IQ and fight or drive is a good one. I have plenty of both, so all I can do is confirm your theory that those things are helpful or essential to gain this skill.

I have also been wondering about upbringing lately. Like I said, I see many children now who are diagnosed and whose parents are walking on eggshells around them. All the parents talk about is the child's disorders, they don't talk about the child. They tell me (not knowing I'm an Aspie) all the things the child won't be able to do in life -- all things that I have done. And I'm becoming quite enraged about it of late. I was treated like a completely normal child, because there was no diagnosis in those years. Same with all adult Aspies. If I had known I had an excuse, and if I had known how much damn harder it was for me to learn those things compared to others, there's no way I would have worked so hard. It was hard! But I did it because I honestly thought I was normal and that hiding my "tendencies" was essential to the life I wanted to lead. Well, it turns out I was absolutely correct about the latter.

So, I would like to add this question to Kensho's... are psychologists and therefore parents (who obey their doctors) doing younger Aspie's a huge disfavor by allowing them to know they are different and by exempting them from normal social events in life, such as playtime, Cub Scouts, overnight trips with Youth organizations, and the opportunity of being treated like a person with unlimited potential?

Temple Grandin speaks of her childhood in her books. She believes one reason she has been so successful in her life is that her mother had high expectations of her behavior. She was not coddled.


My son has a friend whose sister is AS. The mother acts as if this is a tragedy. I told the mom about my sister. I said it was great that the little girl was getting some therapy to help her with her issues and that with a little help she'd probably end up just fine--- and that wasn't it great they had social therapy for AS kids these days because my sister never had such a thing. The little girl is in a normal school setting and has friends-- she seems to be doing OK at least from what I can see. But the mom shakes her head sadly.

I mean-- gee of course it would be nice if there were no challenges--- but everyone has challenges one way or another in their life! AS is a challenge, but not a tragedy.


Seems to me that AS kids should be "mainstreamed" as much as possible. Yes, give them extra help to cope with social or whatever other issues they might have, but don't treat them like they are disabled. Bump up their self-esteem by giving them enrichment classes in things they are good at. Just give them some "tools" and turn them loose.

Yes, I totally agree Kensho. Looks like we're on the same page about this. Aspie children should be mainstreamed as much as possible. Now, I do homeschool, and I think that's partically because I like to teach and partially because public school was so hard on me. I choose to homeschool before I knew I was an Aspie. I thought everyone hated classrooms and loved to learn from books like me. So, after I was diagnosed, I had to be sure I was homeschooling for the right reasons. We determined that we could do a better job of teaching them than public school could, so that means I still get to homeschool, even though I realize now that my children wouldn't have hated the classroom environment as much as I did. But, now that I believe in mainstreaming socially more than I used to, now that I know all the benefits it actually gave me, that I didn't appreciate at the time, I'm actively keeping my kids involved with other kids. We go to group park days, violin lessons, Cub Scouts, church activities, and have friends who come over to play, such that they are at social events 4-5 days per school week. It's very hard on me, since I don't need that much socialization, but I know it's important and the right thing to do. My kids are NTs, normal, but I know I would treat them the same whether they were Aspies or not. The only difference is that I would be more direct in teaching rules of social behavior if I had an Aspie child. I would expect all of the same high standards. Indeed, if they were like me, I would expect the child to excel highly in one or two subjects as well.

My 7 year old son has an Aspie girlfriend (one of his 2 girlfriends, 7 year olds are so cute!), who seems normal to me (but my husband says it makes sense that I see Aspie's as being normal), and that poor girl's mom will not LET her be normal. They homeschool too, and we met them at a homeschoolers' park day. But that mom told us (again, not knowing I'm an Aspie) that they do 4 hours of therapy a day! And that most days they only do 30 minutes or zero actual homeschooling. This poor girl is actually giving up her education over it!

Another family I know has two Austistic kids. One Aspie and one very low IQ Autist. They won't let those kids do anything. I'm the leader of the large children's organization in our church. There are about 100 kids and adult leaders under me. One organization I'm over is Cub Scouts, and that family won't LET their boys be in Cub Scouts. The mom says "well, they can't keep up physically, so I don't want them to be let down." We keep telling them that their child won't be left behind, that the leaders are very sensitive and that he doesn't even have to keep up with the requirements, he'll have an exception. They won't do it. It's so heartbreaking to me. Especially for the high IQ Aspie boy, because I know his potential! I keep wanting to yell at the top of my lungs: Look! I'm the leader of this entire organization, and I'm an Aspie. Look how much I learned, look how much I can do. I organize people, and take care of them emotionally, I lead meetings, I decide many things to take care of all of those people. Surely your boy can figure out how to attend a Scout Meeting!! !

Then I saw this video on You Tube http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Z_R_CUxr ... ed&search= in which a dad of an Aspie boy, who seems at first to be a nice man, literally lists, for several minutes, all the things his boy will never do. And it's a ridiculous list, beginning around 4:20 in the video, saying he would never have best friends, participate in sports, have girlfriends, fall in love, kiss, have acedemic achievements, graduate from college, get into medical school, get married, or get a job. Made me crazy!! ! I had all those things, well, except medical school, but that was by choice. I could have if I had wanted to. I learned so much about medicine on my own that I voluntarily gave birth to my 2nd son at home, alone, with just my husband and my 1st son here, because I learned everything a person needs to know for every possible birth complication.

For anyone that wants to help me on this Crusade, look at this depressing and pathetic video. They show pictures of their boy, and play pensive music, as if he's dead. It's so sad. After hearing these parents, I can't believe that the boy and I have the same types of brains. I just praise the Lord that I had different parents. My mom just kept teaching me my whole childhood, both things I wanted to learn, like the sciences I was interested in, and things I needed to learn, like social rules. My mom gave me endless support and encouragement. That's what an Aspie child needs, not a parent who's decided early on all the lists of things that the child will never be able to do.

Wow, sorry that's so negative. I'm really in a good mood today, it's just this topic has been developing in my mind this past week and I really needed to get it out. Thanks so much for your posts today, Kensho.

I've been teaching myself coping skills for 25+ years now. Generally I believe I pass as NT, outside of my private domain. I still think people think I'm a bit odd, but on the whole I "get away with it".

In fact, I'm so NT , that someone even pointed out another member of staff to me and said that they were probably AS because of their social interraction (or lack of!). Little do they know ... .

I'm not very sociable at all, but know my limitations now, and where possible avoid the worst situations. It's a bit annoying having to run the gaunlet for the weeks running up to Christmas ("But why won't you come to the Christmas Lunch?!") and on other occasions ("Why won't you play in the Departmental Team?"), but usually I survive. As I have a family now, it is a good excuse to avoid things - when I was single it was definitely much harder to find an excuse.

I'm not sure whether "coping" is necessarily to do with "degree of AS", even if that is quantifiable. As it is a spectrum of symptoms/traits, perhaps some Aspies "personality package" has some coping tools that others don't. I know I have the majority of diagnostic symptoms to a greater or lesser extent, particularly the main ones, but not all of the secondary ones. And there are some traits that aren't mentioned in the "books" which are probably Aspie, but which I thought were unique to me, UNTIL I started reading what people have said on this site.

I think personality must have a lot to do with it.

The more I think about my family, the more I realize that just about everyone on my dad's side is weird and probably has some degree of AS. But all but my sister have had decent careers and functional lives. My mom says my sister's mantra ever since she was a toddler was "I can't". They'd say "C'mon, try, you can do it." Response, "I can't". Everyone else in my family has the attitude, "I can, and I will, and you darn well won't stop me."

Wow, that's sad. Do you ever come out tell people that you are an Aspie? I wonder if it would help.



That's awful. It sounds like the parents are wallowing in their own little victim syndrome; i.e., "Poor, pitiful me-- I have a disabled kid." I have all that stuff their son "could never have"-- except instead of med school it was grad school in a very challenging field. Well, I've never had a lot of friends, but those I have are very good ones.

This morning I read in the paper about how 1 in 150 children is probably autistic. I wondered what their cutoff for defining "autistic" was. Then I started wondering if I was a kid today, and my teacher had noticed me swinging day after day and never playing with the other kids, whether I'd have been yanked out of kindergarten and placed in special ed. That would have been awful. I could have used some kind of "charm school" enrichment, for sure, but anything else would have been detrimental.

I can tell you from experience as a very socially inept person and as a parent to kick these little 'aspies' out there. Their basic personality will never change but they can learn to fake a lot. Yes, it is exhausting for you and him but if you protect the kid you will be very sorry, or rather, the kid will be very sorry. You should expect more rather than less from him. He or she needs constant exposure to the social networks. Never make a call he can make or shrink from tossing him into a difficult social situation. Yes, it sounds cruel but the alternative is worse.

Whilst i agree that the only way for aspies to grow and develop is to be treated like a normal person with just a few complications, i do NOT agree with the idea that the basic personaly of someone will never change. Of COURSE it changes! There is a degree of nature, but there is also a degree of enviromental factors. It's not as if we're devoid of the same emotions as NTs, merely we have to shift to them in manual as apposed to automatic.

When i smile because someone has done well, i smile because i honestly mean it. It may take me a few seconds to realise that they have done well and that it is appropriate for me to smile, but i get there in the end. If someone i care about is upset, or something horrible has happened, i will react in a natural way, although in the case of a person whereby this may be difficult to tell, it may take some questioning and a few moments of realisation for the fact to hit me. Hell, i saw a cat die yesterday, knocked down by a car, and although i had never seen her in my entire life, as she died, i cried for her. That wasn't faked, that was me genuinely mourning the loss of a creature's life. Aspies do NOT have to fake their reactions and their character traits, we just have difficulty in expressing them and understanding ours and other people's reactions and expressions.

Back on topic, aspies DO have the potential to develop a full and comprehensive ability at socialising, understanding and getting on with life. However, we will always have to work just that little bit harder, that little bit longer. And getting there is a long, hard and painful road. That's where the support, encouragement and help comes in; to guide and instruct, not to handhold.

When i was first diagnosed, i had the most fantastic head of special needs in my school EVER. It was also a plus because she was also my class tutor. Instead of chucking me aside and treating me as 'special', she treated me as somebody with just a slight problem. Whenever i was intently staring into my books (big fan of fiction at the time, getting back into it now), she would always encourage me to put it down and try talking to people. Hell, she even explained to my class (the ones i spent the most time with anyway) about my condition, and as such, they understood and they compensated for my faults. In a way, i was accepted and allowed to develop my abilities.

I'm not perfect, but being treated like normal certainly has placed me in a better position that i would of been otherwise.

your story's a bit similar like mine.
in primary school i was very silent and wasn't much of a social person. but when i moved to junior high i became a bit more social. it was then when i was diagnosed, then i also began trying to acquire some social skills, and i got a very few not close friends. high school i got some more connections, and gradually i've developed social skills faster than before. i'm talking only about real life BTW, not relating to cyber friends
conclusion: imho, the issue of how far you can go depends on how much you are exposed to society and try to interact

In my experience, nothing has really helped in the long term. I have the occasional five-minute conversation, I say hi when I come in the morning and so on, but I have no friends and no partner. I have tried hard and have done so for a long time - I have been in a relationship once before and I have had friends, but I couldn't make them last (and both happened under exceptionally favorable conditions that are unlikely to ever repeat). It's not that I dislike the people around me, it's not that they consider me obnoxious, it's not that I want to be alone but that (the hardest part to understand for NTs in my experience) I simply can't do any better.
I cannot do small talk - I've seen how it's done and so forth, but I can't pull it off. I can't keep a conversation going. I can't bring myself to start a conversation with a stranger. If anything, things have gotten harder with time. It has always been very difficult for me to make friends, and impossible to keep them for very long (yes, I made an effort). It's not that I want to be the life of the party (I don't even particularly want to go to parties), I would be perfectly happy with a girlfriend and one close friend or even just a girlfriend. At an intelectual level I understand the basics of socialising, but I can't do it (I also 'understand' running a marathon but I'm not winning any Olympic gold anytime soon).
It has come to the point where I have largely given up, I do basic politeness but I avoid social situations because they only make me feel more alone, as I have learned from many bitter experiences. I am mentally and emotionally exhausted from years of trying, and from so much disappointment and failure I can only conclude that I cannot train myself much beyond my current level. I don't expect I will ever be in a relationship again in my life. Very mild cases might be trainable, but at least in my case, I have tried everything I can think of, and the result is no friends and no girlfriend.

"I am mentally and emotionally exhausted from years of trying, and from so much disappointment and failure I can only conclude that I cannot train myself much beyond my current level".


It is very painful to not be able to attain that connection. It is like a color that everyone can see but you. All my life I have been blamed for my poor social skills as if I never try. Even here, people say how they have arisen above their disabilities and become a much more complete social person. Maybe so, but we all can't and many of us are trying very hard. Would we be so worn out if we were just wallowing in our outcast state?

Lil,

That's a very good point about the being worn out part. It's true, you would be a lot more worn out by trying (even if there aren't a lot of obvious results) than if you weren't trying. I'm glad you and the others mentioned the troubles you're having with this. I would've written the same thing earlier in my life. This should help Kensho get a more accurate answer to her question.

Kensho,

Maybe you should just place a poll on this question. Maybe with various levels learned and unlearnable sociality. Maybe differenciate between "learned" and "can often fake it for short periods of time but still don't understand it", which would be the category I would pick.

Thanks,
Brooke

If you have learned it, you have gained the ability to "fake" it. Unless you do some manner of behavioral modification, you (by that I mean any of us) can't simply "become" more NT. That isn't the point of learning, the point of learning is to understand what is going on, and hopefully why.