What exactly does social reciprocity mean?

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or more precisely, a deficit in social reciprocity?

I was looking at the proposed DSM-V criteria for diagnosing autism and 1.b. is lacking social reciprocity skills. This is where, for my son, it's sticky.

One of the reasons my pediatrician and even I wasn't overly concerned for a LONG time was that Henry was social. He smiled and cooed and charmed his parents with great eye contact from the beginning and always has. He started talking at 10 months, progressed to sentences very quickly (later realizing much of it was echolalia). He sat up unassisted at 5.5 months, but didn't crawl until he was over a year old and didn't walk until 17 months.

He had terrible sleep problems, always has flapped, has always been super sensitive to noise, went from no crying to full out scream, and had an insatiable need for touch.

Around 2 we realized he was painfully shy, and by the time he turned three I FINALLY convinced my husband something was wrong and I suspected Asperger's or Autism - except for his eye contact and hugging, etc.

How can a kid have EVERYTHING else with autism - but have the eye contact, smiling, hugging skills? I'm not complaining - we're so fortunately that those things come naturally to him. I'm just trying to figure that out... The skills he's missing are very debilitating at this point, but is it autism? How can it be on the spectrum, if he doesn't fit the number one thing associated with autism?

Not that it matters, I suppose as it's just addressing his needs that matter, but I would like to be able to say WHAT is the situation, and then feel I can find support where I need it.

Or is there more to social reciprocity than I'm seeing?

In every diagnosis, from diseases to psychology, a patient close to never have all symptoms.

While it is true that most persons with an ASD are more likely to avoid eye contact, it is not something absolute. The same with hugging family - you say he was always a big toucher... a hug is most likely exactly that - he enjoys what to him is the positive stimulation of contact.

Social reciprocity is a tough to detail concept, but it is not about spontaneous signs of affection or dismissal, it is responding to positive or negative signals of others.

An simple example would be if "Jack" smiled and waved at "Jill" and "Jill" returns the smile and wave. This is positive reciprocity. If "Jill" failed to return the smile and wave naturally, this is a failure to return the socially positive behaviour. A failure of social reciprocity.

I once saw a pair of budgies who wanted to escape their cage. One budgie lifted the door, and the other flew out. After his escape, he not once returned to the cage to try and free his ally. This is a harsher example of failed social reciprocity.

Not the number one thing anyhow. I would say there are more definite - though harder to spot visibly or from the outside - that define autism. Watch his prosidy and body language as time goes on. These are notably common visible/auditory indicators, along with your attention to 'shyness' (which can be caused by failure to note social invitation by others), etc.

link to prosidy.

You mean when someone says "hi!" to Henry (in his class or people he sees every week) and he refuses to look at them and says, "No, Mom." and tries to avoid contact with that person? I guess I always just saw that as his shyness... but it's more than that isn't it?... A shy person would say hi and hide... not hide and say, "no!"

But we never saw that avoidance of eye contact and smiling with us (family). With most everyone else, yes, but he's very intimate with family.

just because its a primary thing people associate with autism doesnt mean all autistics have it. flapping is very common too, but not all do it. thats why the criteria are set up as they are, you have to fulfill a certain number of a set, not every item. thats some of the "spectrum" part of the disorder.

you say he charmed his parents with eye contact, but what about everyone else? is his eye contact equal with other people as with you? what about topic, does the contact vary depending on what he is doing or talking about? both my SO and son have significantly less eye contact with others than with our immediate family, especially my SO and its most noticeable when he is talking about himself.

another example of social reciprocity is greetings. does your son say hello or goodbye without prompting when someone entering or leaving says it to him? reciprocity is simply the give and take of social interaction, the back and forth that comes naturally to most people. when you pass someone on the sidewalk and they smile, you smile back. its one reason autistics can come across as rude, because they dont exhibit the reciprocity that non-autistics expect.

my son too is a lover. i get hugs and kisses ALL the time. part of that is his sensory needs, he requires a lot of contact and has since birth. he still sleeps with us out of necessity due to his contact requirements. he can be sound asleep and will stretch out an arm or leg until he is touching me. i just accept i will have knee prints in my spine for eternity =) if i dont die from lack of sleep or back pain first.

sounds like your family went through the same process as mine, seeing that expressed affection and thinking it meant autism wasnt possible. once those other things start creeping in tho, you cant deny it.

I never understood the definition of shy anyway. So now I'm going to look it up.

(adj) Lacking self-confidence
(adj) Wary and distrustful; disposed to avoid persons or things

Do you really think your son is lacking in confidence, distrustful, and avoidant or that him saying No! is more a result of social problems? I think it is most likely the latter. I suppose finding a dictionary definition might be taking this too literally, but I don't know how else to understand it.

I've never seen a clear definition for social reciprocity but I would assume it means responding in tune with another person correctly. For instance, when someone asked me How are you? I used to not even respond. Now I sometimes mix up the words or ask them How are you? without answering the question. When people used to tell me Happy Birthday! I would say Happy Birthday to you too! back. This wasn't echolalia, this was clearly failing to socially reciprocate correctly because I was mixing it up with other social "greetings" where I knew I was supposed to respond back.

I think this can also be with body language. If someone waves or smiles at you, social reciprocity would be doing something back correctly. An autistic person might fuddle up the response or not respond at all. That's just my understanding of it.

Family automatically get a "safe" rating. Chuck and Bob don't have that rating... or have a negative rating because of something your son may have noticed about them. But yes, that would be social reciprocity being denied.

I am pretty good at eye contact. Especially when I am talking about things I am interested in. Talk to me about my chinchillas or about gardening and I am all bubbly and confident. But if you ask me a topic I am unfamiliar or uncertain with, or confront me with a challenge or query I need to think about in order to phrase a response ... I will suddenly drop my eyes or look off to the side. Because eyes are distressing/distracting. This is body language which I have been told is most often associated with the activity of lying.

Last edited by OddFiction on 29 Sep 2010, 11:05 pm, edited 1 time in total.

I think he is wary and distrustful of strangers or others outside his family/circle.. I don't get WHY, but I think he is because eventually, he will warm up to people.

But it is different than how my shy sister behaved, or the shy teens I work with behave, but, not being shy myself, I don't know!

But you HAVE to have a lack of social reciprocity to be considered to have autism. If you are socially able to be whatever socially reciprocity means, you cannot have autism according to the diagnosis criteria.



You know... he doesn't say hi and bye without prompting, but neither did my older son and he's not on the spectrum, so I never thought anything of it, but true... MAYBE he'll say be to me once in awhile, but now that I think about it, it's usually with, "Say bye to..." and maybe he will if he's comfortable with that person (which are very few people).



I could have written that, but I had to get him out of my bed as I really was losing my mind. In my bed, he would rub me ALL NIGHT LONG. He couldn't sleep from just needing to touch me. There were times when I really started to understand how parents could physically hurt a child because I was getting NO SLEEP and I couldn't escape his hands, his feet, whatever... Sends chills down my spine thinking of those years.

We just had to try to show him love and affection other ways and he's now taken to "woody' of toy story to hold/touch at night instead of me.

Which diagnostic criteria are you referring to? According to the DSM-IV-TR, one has to have at least 2 out of 4 impairments in social interaction, one of which is social reciprocity. If being assessed according to the DSM, social reciprocity is not necessary as long as 2 of the other 3 criteria are met.

That is true - I'm looking at what is being proposed for diagnosis with the DSM-V. Look here: http://www.dsm5.org/ProposedRevisions/P ... spx?rid=94

and with DSM - IV:

(A) qualitative impairment in social interaction, as manifested by at least two of the following:

1. marked impairments in the use of multiple nonverbal behaviors such as eye-to-eye gaze, facial expression, body posture, and gestures to regulate social interaction
2. failure to develop peer relationships appropriate to developmental level
3. a lack of spontaneous seeking to share enjoyment, interests, or achievements with other people, (e.g., by a lack of showing, bringing, or pointing out objects of interest to other people)
4. lack of social or emotional reciprocity ( note: in the description, it gives the following as examples: not actively participating in simple social play or games, preferring solitary activities, or involving others in activities only as tools or "mechanical" aids )

One and Three are very similar there. Now that Henry is 5, I can see he has: 2, 3, and 4. But, we didn't see 3 as being a problem until peers were involved and not just family. With family he tries to participate (sometimes) and would bring things to us or point out things to us. With peers and 'outsiders', now we see he doesn't do this. He has never had a problem with 1.

Social reciprocity can be as simple as engaging in a "high 5" or responding when someone says hello. Please note that the criteria says "QUALITATIVE" (as opposed to quantitative), meaning it happens in a way noticably different from same aged peers but perhaps not "all the time". That is an important part of the diagnostic criteria wording.

How old is your child? We initially laughed when my son was diagnosed with Aspergers in first grad, because he was nearly symptom-free about 60% of the time (and had a habit of talking like a computer just for fun; ordinarily he has a very expressive voice.) As he has gotten older - just in the last 3 years - the highs and lows of symptoms have evened out, and he meets many more of the criterion for Aspergers on any given day. (People take this as us "coming around" to the diagnosis, but while we knew our son definitely needed help and were open to whatever worked, the early diagnosis really didn't fit his behavior at the time.)

Not only is psychology an inexact science, where some criterion may appear in some people and not in others, but also children change and grow; some symptoms of autism may take time to appear.

Henry is 5 - and he loves to High 5! But the teacher said in a MONTH of school, he hasn't engaged with any of the kids, ever. Funny how he engages with us at home, but when surrounded by kids, not at all. One on one and small group he does better I suppose. But what that means for diagnosis, I have no idea.

Home - adults and immediate family - is not his peers. Home people are smarter, more predictable, more dependable, more understood, more valued...


Shinier. They have interest and long term permanence. The permanence and intrinsic value of his classmates is not defined and thus there's no reason to treat them as any more than a passing gaggle of geese. Loud, obnoxious, and noisy. And soon gone back into the reeds on the side of the road.