Social Training

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Do they have remedial social training sessions or classes for those who need them in schools these days?

How effective are they? Will they get you...

Hanging with the 'cool' crowd?
Dating the hottest girls?
Getting elected student council president or class valedictorian?

Or is their effect more limited than that?

It'll teach you the basics of normal social communication. IE: eye contact, body posture, personal space, conversation tips, etc. That's about it.

If they can keep teaching intellectual ret*ds math and other academic subjects for 12 years, why can't they provide these social remediation programs full time for a full 12 years for the social ret*ds?

It would be a miracle if it were that easy. But since we on the spectrum are "wired" differently it is like trying to get a minivan (which I drive) to win the Indy 500. It's just a different type vehicle like we are a different type of person.

Now does that mean we on the spectrum are hopeless when it comes to the type of social interactions that Nutterbug mentions? No. It is not hopeless. I mean, it could happen if everything fell into just the right place. But it would take therapy I would think. At 44 years old, I am beginning a small series of "coaching skills" sessions from a social worker who is an expert in the field of the spectrum including Asperger's. He has told me beforehand not to expect anything dramatic. But he has told me that with enough of these "coaching skills" that I can begin to learn to socialize better by learning these so-called social cues that I miss and misinterpret.

My goal is to make maybe a 5-10% improvement in my life socially. Even with that, I will still be perceived as odd and eccentric. But every little bit of improvement for my relationship with my family will be worth the effort.

We're also a disrespected minority whose educational needs aren't given too much importance, aren't we?

Some of the things you want to learn how to do, you might be able to learn them,
but your teachers may not be able to teach them or even learn them.
Adults may be able to find courses on how to be social with each other,
or how to act like a leader if they are promoted to boss.

Here is a good example of why teachers can't teach you how to be cool:
Educational film: WHAT TO DO ON A DATE ... in 1950
If it was 1950 or 1960 or 1970, maybe you could watch that and then get a girlfriend.
Maybe after watching that, who knows, maybe it does still work now.
BUT ... doubtful ... because
Nowadays "what's cool" changes so fast it won't be cool next month.

Anything you can learn about coolness might be learned from a nice good NT friend,
but I had one, and he tried to teach me how to be cool in school but I never was.

If you want to improve your social skills I'd suggest observing how NTs interact, and also paying close attention to how you yourself interact with others. My social skills improved dramatically after I forced myself to be social and paid close attention to how people, including myself, interacted. I noticed a lot of things I was doing wrong as well as things that I could do to be more successful when socializing (for example, I picked up a heuristic for keeping in touch with people after meeting them for the first time by watching two guys meet each other on a bus one day).

The issue with teaching social skills is that socializing is an extremely complicated process. There are a ton of subtleties involved that can determine if people take a liking to your or not, you have to know what's appropiate to talk about and do and what isn't, you have to know what's cool and what isn't, and a ton of other things. Socialization is one of those things in life where you just have to learn from experience, not rote memorization.