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Training for Social Skills

Antonio

Well-Known Member
Hi,
I was diagnosed with aspergers in my mid-thirties and I've found that there isn't much support out there for adults with aspergers. I would like to take courses to practice and learn social skills. Surely there must be something like that somewhere for people with aspergers? Has anyone found such a thing and was it helpful?
Regards,
Antonio
 
You know, society actually provides people that are payed to exercise good interpersonal skills with you! They are called customer service staff. If you think about it: it takes good interpersonal skills to be a successful waitress or waiter. The same is the case for telemarketers. In their jobs, these people put up with a large amount of arrogance, apathy and rudeness. Checkout operators at supermarkets are usually quite bored and chances to engage in small talk (and if they take a liking to you, even a little bit of flirtation) will make their shifts happier and faster. Treat these people with decency, respect, and keep in mind they are doing their job (which is to make your customer experience enjoyable so you will return and give their employer more money) and they will happily engage in conversation with you! (just keep in mind that they might get in trouble if you detain them for too long).

You know those Jehovah Witnesses that come knocking at your door? they are people who have come to talk to you! You already know their interest (their religion), use them to practice introducing yourself, asking their names, asking questions about their interest, practice open body language and facial expressions, try to derail them into talking about community matters, the weather, the upcoming election, their professional lives, their family! Additionally, they are trying to sell you their product (their religion) and are used to dealing with aggressive people, take the time to observe how they approach you and how they try to make you feel comfortable in their presence.

You can also go sit in a pub for an evening... just sit there, you don't need to feel pressured to talk to others, just watch how the regulars approach each other. after a few weeks of doing this (when you are ready) you a whole room full of people who are in a relaxed social mood. Go introduce yourself!

Personally I have improved my conversation skills quite a bit from taking advantage of these situations. People like it when you are nice to them!
 
You know, society actually provides people that are payed to exercise good interpersonal skills with you! They are called customer service staff. If you think about it: it takes good interpersonal skills to be a successful waitress or waiter. The same is the case for telemarketers. In their jobs, these people put up with a large amount of arrogance, apathy and rudeness. Checkout operators at supermarkets are usually quite bored and chances to engage in small talk (and if they take a liking to you, even a little bit of flirtation) will make their shifts happier and faster. Treat these people with decency, respect, and keep in mind they are doing their job (which is to make your customer experience enjoyable so you will return and give their employer more money) and they will happily engage in conversation with you! (just keep in mind that they might get in trouble if you detain them for too long).

A lot of people don't like small talk. I can't see how meaning or a bonding can be made by small talk. But if the purpose is to train social skills, it's great!

You can also go sit in a pub for an evening... just sit there, you don't need to feel pressured to talk to others, just watch how the regulars approach each other. after a few weeks of doing this (when you are ready) you a whole room full of people who are in a relaxed social mood. Go introduce yourself!

Personally I have improved my conversation skills quite a bit from taking advantage of these situations. People like it when you are nice to them!

I always wanted to do that. I love the night. But I never got the courage to go out alone. But just sit there, enjoy myself, enjoy the night, observe how others act (it might be funny) sounds great! Problem is I don't drink, I have a pretty weak stomach.

Thank you.
 
It's not for Aspeger's specifically, but I'm taking a course on interpersonal communication and finding it enlightening. You can probably find one at a local community college.
 
A lot of people don't like small talk. I can't see how meaning or a bonding can be made by small talk. But if the purpose is to train social skills, it's great!



I always wanted to do that. I love the night. But I never got the courage to go out alone. But just sit there, enjoy myself, enjoy the night, observe how others act (it might be funny) sounds great! Problem is I don't drink, I have a pretty weak stomach.

Thank you.


Take it from my experience (and what a horrible experience it was), most people (about 99.99% of the world) LOVE small talk. They really do not want to know about your deeper thoughts and obsessions. volunteering your private thoughts and information is just asking for trouble. Keep that for later... much later! after years of being good friends with a person (and even then, base your trust on the track record of that person... people WILL take what you give them and use it to deal terrible damage to you if they have a reason to).
Yes, small talk seems pointless to you (I feel the same... I cannot see a reason to talk about such pointless things to people, but society demands that I HAVE TO do this).
For most people, conversation is a kind of game. the topic is irrelevant, the fun is derided from the fact you are interacting with each other.
Small talk is merely those things both people can relate to immediately (the weather, the work you are both doing, the food you are consuming, interesting elements of the room you are both standing in, etc.). It is non-confrontational and all participants in a conversation use it to feel their way towards more engaging mutually interesting topics.
Small talk slowly transitions to big talk! ultimately, if the person finds you interesting to talk to, you will end up talking about deep and meaningful things anyways! you just have to work your way up to those complex topics.
Remember also that people have a memory and will remember you... If you only gleaned the name of that waitress from her name tag, introduced yourself to her, and engaged her in a three minute conversation about what a beautiful day it was (during which she mentioned that her favourite flower is the rose) while she took your order... next time you visit that caf? and you are served by her, you now know the persons name (and they likely remember your name) and you know she likes roses. This time you can skip the introduction by referring to the worker by their name (which they will appreciate... it is better than being called "you there!" or "hey you!"), add something interesting you have learnt about roses, engage in some different small talk (and through learn some more personal interests and opinions of the worker). Over time, you will learn quite a bit about that worker, inside jokes will develop, and you will become a "regular customer" (you will be known on a first name basis, they will ask questions about your life, they will know where you sit, what you will eat and what other dishes you might be interested in. if you were to encounter these people away from their workplace, they will likely even converse with you on the spot because they are familiar with you).

Do this enough and you will gain many social skills. Small talk, though stupid, really is the key you are missing.


The pub? you have to go alone! how else are you going to minimise your distraction? you don't have to talk to nobody, just walk in, get yourself a drink (they serve orange juice, coke, pub squash, and other drinks at pubs you know?) and take a table in a shadowy corner. People will leave you alone (usually they are talking with friends or watching sports TV), so you will have the freedom to observe as much as you wish.
 
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Since I'm a teacher, I sometimes find myself in a situation wherein I may be stuck having an impromptu conversation with a student's parent (like tonight when a parent & a kid from my class came by trick or treating). What really helps me are 3 things: cultivating a pleasant Mona Lisa smile you can turn on like a light switch, allowing the other person to do virtually all of the talking (nod & look interested & interject with the odd meaningless random sound, be aware of current events in the news (I'm not saying that you have to give a crap about said tidbits). People often use info from news reports to start a small talk-ish conversation: "Terrible about that _________ in _________." YOU: "Gosh, yes! I saw it on the news. Thank goodness the red cross was able to get in so quickly." Try not to launch into a monologue or bombard the other person with a flood of statistics, obscurantist facts, or argue with them. If you get cornered & they ask you something like, "Hey there: What do you think about _______'s proposal to___________?" (add controversial politician to line 1, add controversial political proposal to line 2). You may say something like, "I heard about that, but I really haven't had time to think it through: what do you think about it?"

Often times when someone does this, they really don't care about what you think: they are looking for a chance to carry on about their own opinions.

Unless their opinion is truly bat-$#!T crazy, you can look interested, ask a question or 2 to keep them wind-bagging & then say," That's a fascinating perspective! I never would have thought of it in that way. Say: What do you think about ________________?" (some crap from the news). After a while, you get better at these kind of formulaic conversations because you will have an arsenal of easy & convenient replies to draw upon. they appear in my head in neat categories that I can use like a drop-down list on a computer. So long as I don't have to keep it up for too long, I can do it quite convincingly well.

Tonight, when that parent showed up with her son & began talking, I ended it politely after a few short (endless!) minutes by saying, "It really is getting late. You guys had better get a move on before the competition gets all the best candies!See you in class tomorrow! BYYYEEEEE!!! Happy Halloween!!!"
 
All these advices are gold! I had tried most of them.

I tried going to a pub and observe. That place is intimidating. You got one place where people have "authorization" to be sexual; women with little clothes (i'm not complaining :P) and saying loud things, men also are able to do their moves (I didn't pay too much atention on men:spin:). Our society shamed SO much sexuality, that people are only able to express who they are when they're wasted and drunk.

I also realised that I take social interactions too serious, and most people don't. They usually forget what was spoken, the details, and just remember the person and the feelings. I bet I could join a table and try having fun with others, if I wanted. This isn't a serious thing.

As for small talk, it works! I started talking with a 40 years old guy at work, about what do you do, tecnology, graduation, etc etc. After lunching, we moved on from small talk to more deep topics, like marriage, happiness, life, how hypocrite politicians are a reflex of a hypocritical society, how/when to sacrifice things for the ones you love, how people are scared of truth, etc. There's no problem in small talk, as long it isn't too boring.

Thanks for your knowledge!!!
 
Hey Antonio my name is kade vilbig I am a 22 year old student at isu with Asperger's syndrome. I to have struggled with learning to socialize and interact with others but more recently I figured out how to program my Brian to read body launuage and I have gotta better and interacting with others and am currently sharing my methods with other students and I would like to share them with you.
There are some things you can do to develop the ability to read nonverbal cues so you can learn social rules.
1. Eye contact is a big one because the way body launuage develops is through looking at a persons face and building schemes or patterns
2. Get comfortable looking at the person when there talking and you can look away when your talking then slowly work up to looking at the person when they talk after you can do this.
3. Observe people and there faces you can start to get a sense of what a person is normally like and when something is off about them today even if you don't know what it is
4. Listen closely to people's vocie and what it sounds like
5. When you hear a familiar vocie try and think about wich person it belongs to

When you do these things it builds patterns of faces and voices into the Brian eventually connecting voices/faces to the part of the brain the gives a face an emotion and a voice an emotion.

Normally this develops fine because there is a neuro chemical that makes doing these things rewarding in autism and Asperger's its not rewarding or pleasant to do these things so when were younger we miss the the basics.

It's kinda like if you give a kindergardener who dosent know there abbs yet a book and ask them to read it and write a report.
You have to learn your abc's then words then grama on so on. In order to learn social rules you have to be able to read body lanuage.

Anyway hope it helps let me know if you have any questions I'd be happy to talk with you further.




Doing these things
 
Hey Antonio my name is kade vilbig I am a 22 year old student at isu with Asperger's syndrome. I to have struggled with learning to socialize and interact with others but more recently I figured out how to program my Brian to read body launuage and I have gotta better and interacting with others and am currently sharing my methods with other students and I would like to share them with you.
There are some things you can do to develop the ability to read nonverbal cues so you can learn social rules.
1. Eye contact is a big one because the way body launuage develops is through looking at a persons face and building schemes or patterns
2. Get comfortable looking at the person when there talking and you can look away when your talking then slowly work up to looking at the person when they talk after you can do this.
3. Observe people and there faces you can start to get a sense of what a person is normally like and when something is off about them today even if you don't know what it is
4. Listen closely to people's vocie and what it sounds like
5. When you hear a familiar vocie try and think about wich person it belongs to

When you do these things it builds patterns of faces and voices into the Brian eventually connecting voices/faces to the part of the brain the gives a face an emotion and a voice an emotion.

Normally this develops fine because there is a neuro chemical that makes doing these things rewarding in autism and Asperger's its not rewarding or pleasant to do these things so when were younger we miss the the basics.

It's kinda like if you give a kindergardener who dosent know there abbs yet a book and ask them to read it and write a report.
You have to learn your abc's then words then grama on so on. In order to learn social rules you have to be able to read body lanuage.

Anyway hope it helps let me know if you have any questions I'd be happy to talk with you further.




Doing these things

Thanks Kade,

I've tried these things on my own but I did them wrong and it caused me more problems than I had before I tried. I really need an instructor.

For example I tried making more eye contact and more facial expressions when someone was speaking but people mocked me and made funny faces at me. I took that to mean I was doing it wrong. It really hurt my feelings and just made me want to isolate more.
 
Through my therapy sessions I am going to be given social training lessons, I don't know how effective they will be at my age but I am willing to try (I think)
 
there must be at least be a group with aspies who meet on a regular basis. I go to such a group and it helps.
 

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