Improving Social Outcomes for Young Adults with ASD 

I had no idea thats how its supposed to be done!!! I've actually had people approach me that way but bc of their stupid prop I always felt like I was interrupting and ended the conversation by apologizing for interrupting & saying I'd let them get back to what they were doing. It usually goes something like: I'm standing somewhere alone or talking to someone and notice someone by themself standing nearby occasionally looking at us. I try to include¹/engage with them and after a moment my brain finally registers their prop and tells me I've just interrupted. So far what I'm learning from all these lectures I've been watching about autism and social skills is that neuro-typical people want me to be indirect, disingenuous and superficial. • Wanna talk to someone? Don't just introduce yourself, instead pretend to be doing something else, listen in all sneaky like and look for an opening so you can pretend just so happen to hear X and wanna know more about. • Think talking about stupid shit like the weather is a waste of time and prefer to ask about things that actually matter? Too bad. Too deep and personal to just jump in with out all the superficial bullshit first. • Think someone is making a mistake or doing something they shouldn't? Don't say anything - that's policing and a bad thing, apparently. Quite honestly, I'm starting to think the problem isn't with us but with neuro-typical people having become too dependent on sugar-coated bullshit, superficial & meaningless rituals and well...brutal honesty: a form of pathological dishonesty except that its considered "normal" or "neuro-typical" (in otherwords most common) so its not considered pathological. Its still a reliance on dishonesty, indirect & often unspoken communication and superficial interactions. How on Earth is that better than honesty, directness and deeper/more meaningful conversations & connections? Why is it so bad to skip all the disingenuous nonsense & instead attempt to have a real conversation about real life? Why do y'all feel the need to pretend so much? (pretend you're not looking, pretend you're not listening in on someone else's conversation, etc) And when does the make believe finally stop? How do you know when you've had enough beating around the bush & pointless hemming and hawing to finally move on to pretending you wanna hear/talk about something that actually matters? Sorry, I'm probably coming off as an angry, self-congratulatory/self-righteous jerk. In truth, I'm just an honest & frustrated, socially inept jerk. I'm someone that wants brutally honest answers when I ask a question. Does this outfit make me look good? (Not a question I'd ever actually ask but still) If it looks awful I'd rather hear "no, it's awful!" than "yeah and adding this is even better" "Its ok but this one would look better" "Idk, its not great but its not terrible either" or any of the other variations people use to avoid just coming out and saying what they're actually thinking. As such, I have a rule for myself and those in my life: Don't ask a question if you're not prepared to receive an honest & direct answer. If you ask and my reply hurts your feelings, you have yourself to blame, not me. ¹ As an aside: when I was approx 13 I got expelled from my middle school & was about to start going somewhere new. All through elementary & middle-school to that point I'd never had a single friend (and didn't feel like I was missing out on anything either - I was perfectly content doing my own thing). Before my first day at the new school my mom had a talk with me about how fun it was to have friends and gave me lots of tips about how to make some friends (ie: ppl like confident, happy ppl so keep your head up, shoulders back & smile at everyone - that sort of thing). She also expressed worry & concern about my disinterest/lack of having friends. I don't now recall her exact wording but, whatever her words were, they definitely made it clear to me that it really upset (?) my mom that I didn't have any friends and that she definitely wanted me to change that. My mom's a great mom so I decided to make friends for her benefit. I made the decision to learn how to talk to ppl & make friends, decided to use the fresh start to change myself & started forcing myself to go places alone & introduce myself to/interact with people. Idk if its normal or not but bc of that decision I discovered that I can turn on & off confidence, extravert vs introvert behaviors, etc - though it is *_absolutely exhausting_* so over the years I've lost the will to care enough to do so unless I must. My whole point for this aside is to say that I did follow through on that decision and for the first time in my life I noticed how seldomly other people try to be inclusive. That realization caused me to make another decision: that I wouldn't be like them. That whenever I see someone standing by themselves I'd try to engage/include them and/or at the very least try to let them know they were welcome to join _insert whatever I was doing here_ I've also followed through on that decision which brings me back to where all this started. I apologize for the length of this, I seriously suck at being concise!

I feel like in some cases peer rejection and social neglect can both happen. You can go out and get rejected and as a result become neglecting of social interaction.

As a person on the spectrum I don’t like the way this is worded. It seems she’s saying anyone on the spectrum would have a problem in all of the areas that she’s talking about when she says “most adults on the spectrum. “ It’s called a spectrum for a reason I am a part of a women’s asd FB group with thousands of women and many have no problems at all in romantic relationships, like me. To act like it’s typical that most autistic people have a stalker like disposition in dating is incredibly insulting to me. Many people on the spectrum have successful marriages and kids they have awesome relationships with, Some can’t even think about having kids or a husband. Many women on there have jobs that they’ve been in for a long time and really enjoy and do well at, I haven’t held a job longer than 6 months. Some have great friendships and are completely overwhelmed with sensory problems. Everyone’s challenges are different and the women I’ve talked to on the Facebook group are very strong in some areas and absolutely lack like she says areas “all autistics lack in” is what it sounds like to me, an autistic person. When you know a lot about the spectrum, I just don’t understand saying “most autistics” and “almost all autistics” before every area of lack and not mentioning that many do not have lacks in every area. Not mentioning people who have advanced degrees and jobs in science, medicine and IT and many other fields.

people also always reject you and dont want anything to do with you in class in college and on the college bus i ALWAYS sat alone. Even though I was the first one to come and the class/bus was packed otherwise. So every single person would come in and choose to not sit next to me. Theres research on this that people shun us individually but all of them do it.

A borg (short for blackout rage gallon) is a social lubricant, despite the binge drinking risks involved. There are those that believe that the risk of hospitalization for alcohol poisoning is better than being stigmatized for autism.

I don't understand why people get the idea that we have a hard time "putting ourselves into other people's shoes" and knowing how they'd feel. I've been able to do that since I was little. Am I unusual?

i hope its on amazone, im badly in need of this, its gonna save me alot of mo ney

In the first 8:13 minutes you described my whole life!!

I’m going to search for someone in my region that does this training. I think my adolescent daughter would benefit.

You didn't teach them how to actually speak to them tho. Only look at them

This is such a negative interpretation on everything. The talk is clearly not here to help an autistic person. It’s basically telling a triangle to fit into a square. Be your own person and you will find your group. This person sounds like she’s reading from a text book 🥱. They laughed at the fact that two ppl sat on the train together without a conversation, really empathetic! !!

+UCLACART *Thanks for an overview of the Program for the Education and Enrichment of Relational Skills.* As, for practical purposes, a senior citizen on the Spectrum, I'm a _practical_ statistic with a bunch of co-workers (e.g. at OMS (viz., Oriental Missionary Society) Japanese Christian Church, Walnut Creek, CA, USA) and client contacts (e.g. for a family business), a buddyhood on facebook®, and a cohort at Faithlife®; but, without immediate family, no friends per se. Since my 2000 move to East Contra Costa, CA, USA, I haven't been able to connect with a singles' group in any of Oakley, Brentwood, Discovery Bay, or Byron; ∴ lack opportunity to field-test what relational skills I's lucky to acquire as of 14 September 2022. 14:06 In terms of integrated attachment theory, I found a default for the Spectrum on the Fearful Avoidant - Dismissive Avoidant continuum. My results from The Personal Development School® attachment-style quiz, accessible at Attachment.PersonalDevelopmentSchool.com, had me _leaning_ secure, but with no _Majority_ Attachment Style (FA:22%; AP:22%; DA:22%; SA:33%). 16:55 I'm Witness to the dearth of social and relational training for adults, being been out of the eligible age range for subjects of the most recent relational-skills studies, including those at the Semel Institute for Neuroscience and Human Behavior that proofed the five syllabi that constitute the Program cited. Still awaiting a study on senior citizens with social and relational challenges as of 14 September 2022. 29:36 As a new Subscriber to the PDS channel here at RU-vid℠, I've brainstormed a concept for a neurodivergent romance set around a future General Assembly of the OMS Holiness Church of North America hosted by Los Ángeles (CA, USA) Holiness Church. As tail ends of the multigenerational trauma sustained by the 大日本人 _Ōyamato_ diaspóra, ∴ defaulting to the Dismissive Avoidant Attachment Style discussed in greater detail on the PDS channel, I _don't_ envision the lead pair being partial to flirting, which wasn't historically part of the matching process for the _Ōyamato_ diaspóra - that is, until first mating, the neuropsychological fallout whereof will make the pair "no longer emotionally unavailable."