Can someone have great social skills and still have AS?

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Can someone have great social skills and still have AS?

No. Thats the main thing with AS we have no social skills. You can't really have AS and have social skills, thats like (for example) having a giant puzzle with a huge piece missing, or reading a book and most of the pages are gone. It's just weird.

Maybe. But they probably went through many trials and errors to learn them.

Yes - but not naturally. A person who has trained themselves their whole life may get a hold of some fabulous social skills.

As for me - eh, I'm decent.

Yeah, if we keep working at it.


Shadesofme if someone with AS worked on their social skills and then they were great at it, does that mean congratulations they don't have it anymore?

You can study social protocal & mimic the actions to NTs to fit in much better, but that's about as far as you can go. Social skills don't come naturally to people with AS. You'll never be able to act without thinking (or over-thinking) first.

I have great sociall skills in one-on-one contacts. that's about it though.

Certainly. A few aspies are naturally good at it and as for others, it can be learned.

I think social skills can be learned to the point where they start surpasing nuerotypicals, because even nuerotypicals sometimes try to study social skills. Social things are a science like any other science, and many of us are good scientists.

I turn 50 next spring and I've learned a certain level of social functioning, but I still suck at it and still hate it. I'm tattooing in a shop at the moment that deals with a near-constant stream of walk-in customers and it stresses me until my head explodes. I can cope with one person at a time okay, but when they pile in by the carload, I have internal panic attacks. By the time the night is over, I'm physically sick. Needless to say, I'll be switching to an "appointments only" situation as soon as I can find one.

Bottom line is: You can learn to fake your way through with the basic social amenities in some situations; as for those moments when you're having to talk to a stranger and you wish they'd go away because your brain can't process what they're saying to you fast enough for you to respond, and while you're digesting the input coming from them, you can't multitask and come up with an appropriate response, so you end up looking away and saying nothing and wandering off the first time they stop to take a breath and going somewhere to hide alone and calm down from the stress - you'll be dealing with that all your life. Get used to it.

The basic trait of AS is lack of empathy (the ability to grasp intuitively other people's thoughts and feelings at the moment of interaction). If this is what you call social skills, then the answer to your OP is NO, because by definition if you're good at empathy, you're not an Aspie.

Social skills if you mean equaling "manners", of course are available to people with AS.
I had an early diagnosis of autism and have had much behaviour mod therapy and cognitive behavior therapy throughout my life, and I would hold my social skills up for comparison with anyone.

It is just self indugent if you use AS as an excuse not to have these skills.

I think so yeah, definetly. Like it's already been said here, you can mimic them over time, after learning through a lot of trial and error. I have. A few years ago it was blatantly obvious that I'm an aspie. Now people are shocked when I tell them that I have Asperger's.

The only problem I've found with this is that I feel like a complete fake because it's "all style and no substance". It's just empty acting for me a lot of the time. Leaves me with a brand new set of problems then.

Don't get me wrong though, an unpredicted change in the circumstances - ie. a new face or place - and I slip up quite easily, looking akward and inappropriate. Most of the things I say in conversation are monologues and learnt responses, so when there's a new face, it's kind of like a comedian performing to a new audience - for the first few jokes they're feeling out the audience and what they respond to. I have to get used to thier particular brand of socialising and try and figure out quite quickly when thier lying or being sarcastic etc. All the things we can't tell naturally by facial expression and nonverbal cues.

After all, Asperger's Syndrome can be referred to as an "autistic spectrum disorder", a "developmental disorder"... but when it's referred to in terms of our ability or disability to learn, the term used is "learning difficulty".

I feel that it is possible with a little hard work.

I think it's only possible if you focus on social skills to the exclusion of all else. It's got to be very much like being an olympic gymnast or a world-famous pianist... Constant practice from toddlerhood; no time for fun; no time for hobbies; no time for anything but that one thing. For most Aspies, it's much better to work on functional communication than to try to have wonderful social skills; unfortunately, some curebie parents think it's quite appropriate to put three-year-olds in 40 hours a week of ABA, plus OT, PT, ST, animal therapy, floortime, sensory integration, and who knows what else to try to get them to be "normal". Depending on the kid, it might work. It will also completely block him from doing anything with his natural strengths.