Social Struggles in Autism Over the next couple of weeks we will be looking at the social challenges that people on the spectrum experience. Dealing with our social world is the most stressful challenge for those on the spectrum. Since they think and experience the world differently, trying to regulate the day to day interactions in our social world can be exhausting, overwhelming, and invalidating. It is hard to feel competent and confident when you don’t fit in. Listed below are several of the primary struggles those on the spectrum experience: Common Social Struggles • Difficulty reading and interpreting social cues. • Impaired ability to read the thoughts, feelings, perspectives and intentions of others. • Difficulty understanding the unwritten social rules. • Hard to initiate, co-regulate and repair interaction. • Poor awareness of how their behavior affects others. • Difficulty establishing and maintaining relationships • Often teased, bullied, or taken advantage of. • Since interacting with others requires so much “thinking it out”, it taxes the brain. • Strong social anxiety often leads to isolation/depression. In the following articles, we will explore some of the cognitive (social processing) differences that lead to these common struggles. You will understand how these social struggles are tied to the three cognitive processing differences (information processing, central coherence, and rigid/inflexible thinking.) It makes sense that the way we process information (the world around us) will directly affect how we relate with others. One of the cognitive differences in autism is the difficulty “rapidly processing multiple information simultaneously.” Our brains are continuously taking in a rapid flux of information simultaneously. Our brains have to register and integrate all this information simultaneously, most of it subconsciously with minimal mental effort. As we saw in the articles on information processing, this rapid processing requires simultaneous communication between the different areas of the brain in order to effectively integrate the flux of information effectively. With people on the spectrum, they often have weak neurological connections between the different brain centers, which make this rapid integration of information difficult. The social processing underlying relating requires this rapid processing of multiple sources of information simultaneously. We have to process the following information simultaneously: • Hearing and interpreting the words spoken. • Interpreting nonverbal communication (facial expressions, body language, voice fluctuations, etc.) • Reading thoughts, feelings, perspectives and intentions of the other. • Understanding the context which interaction is occurring. • Deciding how to respond back. • Referencing other’s feedback to our response. • Staying coordinated in back and forth flow of interaction. The dynamic process of interacting with others leaves the person on the spectrum multi-tasking this very rapid flux of very vague information. “What did he say? What did he mean? Why did he frown? What is his intention? Did he understand me? What do I say next?” Trying to read the continue interplay of verbal and nonverbal language, comparing it to the context of the situation we are in, reflecting back on what I already know about this person, appraising how I need to respond, etc. requires way too much rapid processing for people on the spectrum. Relating requires quickly shifting between listening and responding; simultaneously listening, interpreting, planning a return response, and reading the person’s reactions to our response. For those who cannot process this simultaneously, trying to attend to all this information is exhausting. In the following posts we will explore these social processing issues, what challenges they present for those on the spectrum, and so helpful ways of bridging these difficulties. This series on “social struggles” can be found in the blue book, “Autism Discussion Page on the Core Challenges of Autism.”
Posted on: Wed, 24 Dec 2014 11:31:13 +0000
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