Is there a connection between the parts of criteria for ASD?

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Is it known if the impairments in social interaction as described in the diagnostic criteria for autism in the DSM and the restricted behaviour/interests/activities have anything to do with each other?
I mean, is it for someone who has problems with reading body language more likely to not like changes in routine for example or why is it that people with autism all share unnormal traits in exactly those two (seemingly?) separate areas?

I would say, in many autistic people, that these features are related to each other.

Do you know or have an idea why though? For example I understand the link between feelings of worthlessness for example and having less energy and so on as stated as criteria of depression, because it immediately makes sense to me (that if one feels worthless they won't jump around shouting 'hurray, let's start the day' full of energy).
But if someone doesn't get body language intuitively what has it got to do with having the need to occupy in a 'special interest' for hours?

I think things like routines and obsessions can be a way of coping with social difficulties.

I believe, in simplest terms, that repetitive, restrictive interests and inability to read body language are related because both these features are the result of the neurological differences found in autism.

I would have to actually meet individuals with both those features in order to be able to determine HOW the seemingly unrelated symptoms are related to each other. But I believe they are related, like I said, because of neurological differences inducing these symptoms

There is a theory floating around that autistic people are unable, because of some neurological deficit, to see specific features of a person's face; they only see the generalized aspects of that face.

This leads, according to the theory, to a disinclination for a young baby to socialize, because they are unable to derive more pleasure from that specific face (which could very well be his/her mother) than from any other face. Thus they, as infants, have a relatively neutral view of the mother, since the infant cannot, according to the theory, distinguish the mother's face from any other face.

When a baby is very young, they only seek to socialize with the mother-face. Without the mother-face, there is no incentive to socialize at this very crucial juncture in life. Inability to socialize at, say, a four-month-old level, leads to the inability to socialize, say, at the seven-month-old level

Think of academic prerequisites. Without taking the Introductory course, one finds it much more difficult to succeed in the more comprehensive and advanced coursework of their major.

If the baby doesn't succeed in the introductory four-month-old course of socialization, he/she will find it much more difficult to succeed at the more advanced seven-month-old course.

If there wasn't some connection between them on some level, they wouldn't be part of the same diagnosis. Exactly what the connection though is under debate. I think that on some cognitive level it's a dynamic system: went people aren't interacting with other people, they get absorbed by other things. And when people spend more time doing other things, they develop less social skills. Than I think whatever was the root cause for one or both of those traits varies greatly from person to person.