Autism Interactions: Positive Social Relationships in People with Autism Spectrum Disorder

By Brittany Forrester

People on the autism spectrum vary enormously from each other but they all have impaired social skills of one kind or another.

Those social skills include social interactions such as sharing interests with other people, the use of non-verbal communication such as making eye contact, and the development and maintenance of relationships such as making friends.

For example, some people on the autism spectrum are unwilling to make direct eye contact with other people, may not respond when their name is called or when they are spoken to, find it difficult to understand other people; they are extremely directive and controlling or overly passive, find it difficult to deal with conflict. And they may not understand the difference between being assertive and being aggressive.

Positive social relationships are important for both our physical and psychological well-being, and depend on the ability to engage appropriately with other people across different situational contexts. Although qualitative and clinical reports indicate that people with autism spectrum disorder (ASD) struggle with their everyday interactions, there is a paucity of experimental work examining the nature and severity of their difficulties, especially those of higher-functioning adults. Overall, compared to neurotypical people, individuals with ASD tended to generate less socially skilled strategies in their interactions. Although they often showed relatively intact awareness of many social and normative expectations underpinning everyday situations, their understanding of these appeared to be more limited.

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: B086Y5PBMG
• ISBN13: 9798636532231
• Release Date: January 1
• Publisher: Independently Published
• Length: 122 Pages
• Weight: 0.38 lbs.
• Dimensions: 0.3" x 6.0" x 9.0"