Social abilities learning process

[Sara3]

Hello. As part of my ASD therapy I was supposed to improve some social aspects by doing simple things such as giving compliments and working with other people. As I can't attend to therapy sesions I just did what I thought was right. It was OK as I could reconnect with people I was not talking to. But I'm curious about what other gestures or interactions are useful. Have you ever worked on social abilities on therapy? What did you have to improve or learn? How did you feel?

 

[disconnected]

Hi, I typically smile, make eye contact and say hello and hope they don’t say anything back.

 

[china autie]

Therapy for me was an attempt to have me conform to social ideals. It did not work.

I learned more about social interactions from talking with older people.

The eye contact thing doesn't happen much for me. My default is [apparently] a stare and I have not been able to train myself out of it.
I learned the basic please and thank you as a child.

One boss took me around at a work party years ago. We went to each knot of people, he told the same three jokes, and then we moved on. He said that people in each group usually don't compare notes.

From another boss, I learned how to ask questions. From my dad, I learned that people adore talking about themselves. From two older friends, I learned that the proper response to a compliment is "Thank you".
From living life, I learned that I will never completely fit in.

Those are some things that I found to be useful.

 

[Pats]

One of the best ways to make someone feel like you're interested in what they are doing or saying is by asking questions. I remember the exact moment I learned this. What people like the most is to talk about themselves - questions provide the opportunity. (But you do need to learn what questions to ask and avoid asking the wrong ones.)

 

[Shamar]

Hello. As part of my ASD therapy I was supposed to improve some social aspects by doing simple things such as giving compliments and working with other people. As I can't attend to therapy sesions I just did what I thought was right. It was OK as I could reconnect with people I was not talking to. But I'm curious about what other gestures or interactions are useful. Have you ever worked on social abilities on therapy? What did you have to improve or learn? How did you feel?

A long time ago (before I was diagnosed), a therapist said my problem was that I was lacking in social skills (true, but totally missed WHY I lacked social skills). She suggested dancing, so I took up ballroom dancing in an attempt to learn social skills. I acquired lots of trophies, but no social skills.

 

[Fino]

1. Smiling and saying hello.
2. Asking "how are you" or responding to "how are you" with "how are you" instead of just leaving it.
3. Eye contact.
4. Asking questions.
5. Not correcting people! That one helped the most! HA!

 

[the_tortoise]

Have you ever worked on social abilities on therapy?

Yes.

Have you ever worked on social abilities on therapy? What did you have to improve or learn? How did you feel?

It's all been situation specific.....mainly I think I've been helped to see how others might be perceiving me or perceiving situations, helped to understand how typical people think/process things, and helped with scripting.

How did you feel?

About/in response to what?

 

[Autistamatic]

Never had any therapy or training in this area. I just had my brain and a library (then eventually the internet - huzzah!).
Nonetheless I have a mental social rulebook full of Boolean operators (ifs, thens, ands, ors, etc...) the size of a telephone directory if it were written down!

 

[Judge]

I try to be "superficially social" with my most common social interaction. -Retail clerks. Before coming to terms with my own autism I used to be a man of few words when it came to social interactions with complete strangers.

Just so in real life I don't feel or appear to be totally cut off from humanity. I just consider it as "practice" and try to be spontaneous without a scripted response.

No harm, no foul.

 

[Shamar]

Never had any therapy or training in this area. I just had my brain and a library (then eventually the internet - huzzah!).
Nonetheless I have a mental social rulebook full of Boolean operators (ifs, thens, ands, ors, etc...) the size of a telephone directory if it were written down!

Yes, there are lots of rules that everyone but me seems to know. The problem is that they always seem to be changing. Mark Twain described my efforts to learn social interaction best in his essay about learning German.

"Surely there is not another language that is so slipshod and systemless, and so slippery and elusive to the grasp. One is washed about in it, hither and thither, in the most helpless way; and when at last he thinks he has captured a rule which offers firm ground to take a rest on amid the general rage and turmoil of the ten parts of speech, he turns over the page and reads, 'Let the pupil make careful note of the following exceptions.' He runs his eye down and finds that there are more exceptions to the rule than instances of it. So overboard he goes again, to hunt for another Ararat and find another quicksand."

 

[tducey]

Never did much in the way of therapy. Still for me eye contact and asking ? would be helpful in any conversation.

 

[Autistamatic]

Yes, there are lots of rules that everyone but me seems to know. The problem is that they always seem to be changing. Mark Twain described my efforts to learn social interaction best in his essay about learning German.

"Surely there is not another language that is so slipshod and systemless, and so slippery and elusive to the grasp. One is washed about in it, hither and thither, in the most helpless way; and when at last he thinks he has captured a rule which offers firm ground to take a rest on amid the general rage and turmoil of the ten parts of speech, he turns over the page and reads, 'Let the pupil make careful note of the following exceptions.' He runs his eye down and finds that there are more exceptions to the rule than instances of it. So overboard he goes again, to hunt for another Ararat and find another quicksand."

Couldn't agree with you more, hence why my mental manual has grown so much over the years. Social attitudes are always changing and subdividing so there are more and more "ifs & buts" to consider. For example, Brexit has polarised opinions in this country so much and caused so much strong feeling that a whole new subset of social rules has had to be incorporated. Joining this forum has introduced new rules because I have never in my life been exposed to such a concentration of people with strongly held religious beliefs, so another set of protocols has been added.
The manual is added to and amended constantly and sometimes I have to embarrass myself first before I learn the new rule.

 

[HidinginPlainSight]

Hello. As part of my ASD therapy I was supposed to improve some social aspects by doing simple things such as giving compliments and working with other people. As I can't attend to therapy sesions I just did what I thought was right. It was OK as I could reconnect with people I was not talking to. But I'm curious about what other gestures or interactions are useful. Have you ever worked on social abilities on therapy? What did you have to improve or learn? How did you feel?

People love to talk about themselves. If you engage in a conversation and simply keep it about the person you are talking to, most will talk pretty endlessly about themselves. The drawback is that this may prove rather uninteresting after the first couples minutes (seconds?), still it's a pretty sure way to keep someone talking. Many won't even ask a single question about you.

 

[Sara3]

Thank you so much for your replies. Yes, asking questions works quite well but sometimes they just don't stop talking for a long time . They also raise their voice even when I can clearly listen to them.

 

[Sara3]

Not correcting people! That one helped the most! HA!

Mmm It is hard not to do it sometimes!

 

[Sara3]

Therapy for me was an attempt to have me conform to social ideals. It did not work.

I still don't conform to them. Most of all, I'm trying to get along with people that are truly valuable. And I don't like the idea of being "everyone's friends".

 

[Stardust Parade]

Therapy for me was an attempt to have me conform to social ideals. It did not work.

I learned more about social interactions from talking with older people.

The eye contact thing doesn't happen much for me. My default is [apparently] a stare and I have not been able to train myself out of it.
I learned the basic please and thank you as a child.

One boss took me around at a work party years ago. We went to each knot of people, he told the same three jokes, and then we moved on. He said that people in each group usually don't compare notes.

From another boss, I learned how to ask questions. From my dad, I learned that people adore talking about themselves. From two older friends, I learned that the proper response to a compliment is "Thank you".
From living life, I learned that I will never completely fit in.

Those are some things that I found to be useful.

Those are really good suggestions! Sounds like you had some awesome bosses!

 

[Adolonius Ganz]

Therapy also never got me a better knowledge about social interactions. Most of my skills I learnt by doing wrong. As a teenager I withdrew myself from risky situations and blamed myself often for mistakes, but today I got some confidence to see how useful it is to make mistakes. It also helps the people in my closer environment to understand certain expressions etc. not as mistakes but as another perspective to look at things. I realized that to learn social skills or to fit in, doesn‘t mean just that I have to do the whole work on this „problems“, which are actually not really problems at all, if it is handled cooperatively. That‘s why I think learning in direct contact with with the people close by is very useful in the long run. Even it's a dance on eggs sometimes - like a friend of mine would say.

 

[Sara3]

Therapy also never got me a better knowledge about social interactions. Most of my skills I learnt by doing wrong. As a teenager I withdrew myself from risky situations and blamed myself often for mistakes, but today I got some confidence to see how useful it is to make mistakes. It also helps the people in my closer environment to understand certain expressions etc. not as mistakes but as another perspective to look at things. I realized that to learn social skills or to fit in, doesn‘t mean just that I have to do the whole work on this „problems“, which are actually not really problems at all, if it is handled cooperatively. That‘s why I think learning in direct contact with with the people close by is very useful in the long run. Even it's a dance on eggs sometimes - like a friend of mine would say.

Wow, you're right. Thanks for giving your opinion.

 

[Adolonius Ganz]

Wow, you're right. Thanks for giving your opinion.

You are welcome.