Living with Autism - the social implications
Key Points
Difficulties in social situations and communicating
Needing help with emotional regulation and reading body language
Having Autistic Spectrum Disorder involves social and communication difficulties as well as sensory challenges. In this blog I will concentrate on the social and communication difficulties as in my experience these are more often less obvious and, therefore, overlooked. People on the autistic spectrum who, until recently, were described as having Aspergers after the man who identified the syndrome, tend to struggle with both understanding the wider social experience such as social rules, and with reading the facial expressions, body language and tone of voice of others. Other people’s responses can seem puzzling.
Children with these challenges can struggle to relax in the school environment, within which they must try to tell the difference between friendly gestures and mean spirited or angry ones, and within which their attempts at making friends are more often shunned by other children who don’t appreciate listening to a seemingly endless supply of facts or who misinterpret the child with autism’s lack of eye contact as disinterest. It’s no surprise then, that these children often come home from school desperately in need of some alone time. Adults with autism experience similar challenges in the workplace, often uncertain of how to respond to the banter of colleagues or the expectations of managers.
Children, and adults, with milder forms of autism are often highly motivated to have friends but struggle with non-verbal cues, including facial expressions. They can’t tell whether another person’s intention is friendly or meant to hurt. A simple comment such as “oh come on, what are you?” or “yeah, right” have no body language, facial expression or tone cues for someone on the autistic spectrum. They have no idea whether the other person is teasing them in a friendly way or is really being mean or rude. This can lead to inappropriate reactions and to subsequent social exclusion as those around them struggle with reactions that don’t fit the context. Children and adults on the autistic spectrum can also become a target for bullying due to their guaranteed strong reactions to any needling.
How to help
Support is needed on two key fronts. Firstly, help is needed to learn how to manage their emotional reactions to any perceived teasing and secondly and, secondly, they need help to learn step by step how to recognise body language and facial cues.
Emotional regulation can be a particular challenge for people on the autistic spectrum because they don’t readily understand either their own or other people’s emotional reactions. Learning to name what they are feeling while they are feeling it, or at least shortly after, is a crucial step towards being able to manage their own emotional reactions. This needs to be balanced with experiences of having their feelings understood by another person. These can provide understanding of the purpose of sharing emotions, something not readily understood by people on the spectrum.
Playfully expressing emotions in an exaggerated way is a helpful way of teaching body language and facial cues. Drama classes may be helpful for some children, and even adults. The most important experience for learning about communication is, however, simply lots of interaction. This can be in the form of board games with the family, taking turns to talk about their day around the dinner table, or talking about their day with a parent or partner at the end of the day. Feeling listened to and understood is a great foundation for learning how to listen to and understand others.