Would You Take a Course to Learn Social Skills?

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In order to live my dreams, and someday accomplish independence, I will need social skills. I accomplished nothing sitting alone in the house all day.

I feel like I know the rules, but they don't make sense to me, and when i try to follow them it goes wrong anyway, so I'm not sure how a class would help.

But then again if it was tailored to someone who thinks and works like me.. well, maybe it would!

Interesting concept. I don't know if I would take a 'course' as such, and I wouldn't bother with anything that costed money (with all the free information on the internet), but there are some topics you listed that I would definitely be interested in expanding my knowledge on, and if that information was being presented, I would take advantage of it. Particularly if it was all in an audio format and a few hours long so I could listen to it at work.

Of the topics you've mentioned, the ones that might interest me personally are:


- Eye contact: maybe if it was new information
- Facial expressions: maybe
- How to initiate and keep a conversation going indefinitely
- Asking good questions and actually listening: maybe
- Leveraging your autistic traits to become interesting and popular instead of weird and unattractive
- Clothing style (this actually matters socially): maybe.
- Physical fitness, posture, and basic nutrition: these topics are of great interest to me. As would dieting and eating the right foods when you have food aversions.
- Initiating contact with the opposite gender: yep (where and how)
- Making and keeping friends

I took acting lessons too. I was always better with my voice tone and accents than I ever was with physicality though.

Long long ago I used to belong to a Toastmaster's Club.

I value social experience, and there are all sorts of ways to get it. We can also read books and interact online. All valuable. But a social skills class, too many unstated premises.

Richard

It's now been TWO weeks since the OP posted on this website.

I think he may have finally moved on to find other sheep to shear.

I think he may have been wanting to develop a service, but decided that the cynics would probably sink him.

WHAT service? Even his website is still under construction.

The service that would be designed according to the needs and wishes uncovered by research like this. It would be foolish to spend a year working on course material that nobody would use.

It would be foolish to work on course material that is worhtless, and even more foolish to pay good, hard-earned money for it.

I never expected a one-size-fits-all, especially for you. Market research is a foundation of good work. It may have turned up an attractive niche, or not. However, I can't agree that all prospective helpers are useless leeches. Some are effective people who need money to live.

After having been cheated out of my college fund, my home and my job after trusting someone who "only wanted to help", I learned how to spot potential threats of a similar nature. Claiming to not want to sell something while offering something for sale should be an obvious tip-off to anyone, even if the offer of sale is only implied. Ignoring questions of accreditation and certification is another. Having no fixed address (a P.O. box won't do), and no fiduciary prospectus are two big indicators of something that is much more than just "risky" -- they strongly hint that a possible "take the money and run" plan is in play.

While it is true not all prospective helpers are leeches, with this many red flags, it's best to exercise a great deal of caution.

Of course, those flags would have to come down during product development. We are not looking at an offer here.

Every time you or I endorse the concepts of Autism, Asperger's, or Neurological Difference, we are further marginalizing ourselves, and we are encouraging child abuse.

Right now as you are reading this, there are parents driving their child to the doctor, simply because they find the child to be an embarrassment. And these are children whom the parents did not need to have, they merely did so hoping that they would be able to give themselves an unstigmatized adult identity.

So I no longer talk about Autism-Asperger's, or Neurological Difference.

I would never grace any kind of a social skill class with my presence, if it was based on the idea of Autism - Asperger's or Neurological Difference.

People do not need to sit at home, there are children currently being abused, in the home, and in the doctor's office, and also in social skill classes. Sometimes things related to this end up in court too. There can be ways to get involved.

You become better in more social situations just by the experience of entering them.

If we are not willing to act to protect the children of today, who do you think is going to do it?

Richard

Ah, yes ... ye olde "Autism is a lie" denialism coupled with the "Please think of the children!" appeal to emotion -- the making of a conspiracy theory in action!

Denying autism does not make it any less real.

Autism - Asperger's is one of the most basic conspiracies around, mostly one of child abuse, and that goes back at least as far as Moriah.

If you don't want more children to be abused in this way, you stop promoting Autism-Asperger's, and you stop the doctors and therapists who dish it out.

None of this would have ever existed without Nazi Social Darwinism and Eugenics.

Now we know that Hans Asperger sent at least 5,000 children to be euthanized.

Others who did comparable things were held accountable.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nuremberg_executions

But Asperger was able to hide his Nazi past.

Richard