To those who volunteer, did it improve your social skills?

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I'm more interested in volunteer work that involves heavy social interaction with peers. If it did or didn't improve social skills, why do you think that was?

Yes, I think volunteering is a good thing for aspies if you are able to do the job you are volunteering for.

First: it gives you something to do besides "pure socializing" if you get involved in some type of service organization. So that the focus isn't totally on your social skills, or lack thereof; rather the goal is to do your job and provide that service to your community.

Second: You have the chance to earn respect of your peers by how well you do your job, rather than how socially adept you are. This helps to combat situations where you may be picked on, and also usually gives you a few people who are in your corner if you do get picked on--those people who can say: "Yeah, he might be a bit awkward, but I have seen him in action and he does a good job."

Third: it allows you to practice social skills in an environment where, by and large, people are appreciative of what you do. Most people recognize that volunteers don't *have* to be there but are giving of their time and energy. Many times this results in positive feedback which is good for aspies who tend to have problems with low self-worth.

Fourth: it gives you a feeling of usefulness as a person. We all need to be needed, to feel like our contributions are worthwhile. This helps to combat the feelings of low self-worth as well.

I would highly recommend it. Volunteering has been a good thing in my life.

I also see its benefits for my dad, whom I suspect is also a high functioning aspie. After he was laid off from his job, his skills he learned as a volunteer helped him to get a job in the field where he started out as a volunteer 20 years ago.

I did volunteering and it improved my social skills because we had to work together. I wasnt worried because we all work on a common goal so that makes things easier.

Of course i still have problems though it did not get rid of social issues completly. In certain settings like socialising for a task i am often fine but socialising for fun or just the sake of it i cannot do well at all.

My social skills tend to deteriorate as I do anything for more than a month, due to stress. My life is not about learning social skills, it's about balancing stress to avoid breakdowns.

Anyway I played the drums for many churches in my area, my main church had 300 in the main service each week and word spread about me surprisingly quickly considering I didn't have any friends. I was "that guy who learned to play the drums by playing Rock Band". I played somewhere at least every second week and it was fun for a while.

What really killed me was group practice. Those times were extremely stressful and I always left with a headache. I also hated playing on acoustic sets because they were too loud. I'm always courteous on the outside when greeting people (although I bow a lot so people ask if I'm Asian as a joke), but when leaving practice I was quiet and avoided saying goodbye if possible.

In the end, my social skills were no different before or after. My drumming career ended as everything else in my life has: not showing up, not answering my phone, and spending the next month googling things about ASD for assurance that I'm not just lazy.

Volunteering didn't do much for my social skills either though it didn't hurt them either. I volunteered at a small movie theater that a friend owned. I helped clean up, run the projector, splice film & thread the projector. I dealt very little actually with the customers.

When I use to do volunteer work around the public it seemed to help a little because it was good practice, but it was very overwhelming when I was around several people.

I don't really work with the public for the volunteer work that I do now so it doesn't really do a lot for my social skills. I still still try to be friendly, but I don't say very much. We mostly do our own work where I volunteer now.

It helped me slightly, but its not going to be the "silver bullet".

It took a while to read up enough on social skills and psychology (which is now a topic of fascination for me). After reading enough to comprehend people, I was able to seek out more advanced opportunities for skill building through volunteerism.
It took me two attempts to make the cut, but I got a spot as a volunteer crisis counselor for 211/Lifeline. They gave me 50 hours of training and very specific guidelines on how to deal with people's emotions. I learned to be an active and nonjudgmental listener. I learned how to paraphrase what people say. It is amazing how paraphrasing what someone /just said/ keeps the conversation flowing. People interpret it as interest when you state (not ask) what you said; they feel that you are listening. I use this technique all the time now, in real life. It is hilarious how well it works.
I also learned that giving advice is often the wrong choice, which I had been bad about.
Volunteering can improve social skills if it includes working with and being trained about social skills. Being a hotline counselor was one of the best developmental steps I have made.
I don't have natural social skills, but I've compensated by actively pursuing information. Cue psychology obsession.

Honestly, in my experience, it didn't help at all, and I've volunteered twice.

The first time was almost two years ago at a computer shop in Ephrata, PA called "Free Geek," where I dismantled computers in the back of the store and recycled the parts. It was pretty much isolated, repetitive work with absolutely no social interaction whatsoever, with the occasional exception of asking a supervisor for help on something.

The second time was at Goodwill, and that actually caused me to be more socially anxious, and I quit volunteering after two days when my goal was to do it for two weeks.

My current paid job at Sherwin-Williams has been more successful at molding me into someone who's more socially confident than any other job (although I can still be a little bit socially incompetent at times because of the nature of being autistic). I started out as a warehouser there and was cross-trained in the tint room and at the POS registers, and now I have (almost) no problem with greeting and helping people who come in to get paint.

And again, this is just my experience, but I just wanted to share it nonetheless.

I actually ended up leaving the crisis counseling thing because I felt anxiety over interacting with the other counselors. It felt very ironic. I meshed well with the callers, and I felt comfortable around them. But I felt the counselors didn't like me, and I felt awkward. I still got the para-counselor social skills training. I still had trouble with people in person...

Hello everyone. I think that volunteering can benefit a lot to enhance the confidence and self-esteem through various skill development programs. Its a great feeling of volunteering to get connected with the society and do something good. I haven't volunteered yet, but one of my friends has shared his life-changing experience of volunteering with shammesh. He also recommended me to take help from this source mission-humanitaire-afrique.org and experience volunteering to maintain the human dignity.

No, I think it actually made them worse.

I've had two volunteering projects in my life, both dealing with kids. The first was in my freshman year of high school, working as a teacher's aid in a sixth-grade religion class at my church. I can't say that I was much of a help to the poor teacher (I can't follow verbal directions to save my life), but I was forced to interact with the kids from a position of semi-authority. I wouldn't say that it helped me build social skills, but that's because I avoided interaction as best I could. I probably would have gotten more from it if I had been working there for the sake of improving myself.

The second project was supposed to be a paid tutoring job, but my mom intervened on my behalf and told the kid's mom that I'd do it for free. I enjoyed that work much more, though. The kid was shy but eager to learn, and I think I did succeed in helping her build confidence. Unfortunately, I had to drop that job when my sensory problems regressed again. The first year I was helping her, though, I think I genuinely benefited. My one on one interaction is definitely better these days.