Often individuals with autism struggle to make friends because they're fearful of being vulnerable, experiencing social anxiety, and struggle with the social skills necessary to make new friends.
Individuals on the autism spectrum often have difficulty recognising and understanding social cues and therefore do not instinctively learn to adjust their behaviour to suit different social contexts. People with autism may well have the potential to learn these skills however.
Autistic people overwhelmingly report that they want friends. And they have shown that they can and do form friendships with both neurotypical and autistic peers, even if their interactions sometimes look different from those among neurotypical people.
The most striking feature of autism is social disconnection. People with autism may appear neither to be interested in nor able to “read” the social world. It is as though they are blind to the boisterous, complicated, emotionally loaded give-and-take of human interaction.
Autistic people's difficulty with expressing emotions can make relationships difficult for them to navigate. Although people with autism have the same feelings as everyone else, their feelings can be more intense than those neurotypical people express.
Children with ASD may have difficulty developing language skills and understanding what others say to them. They also often have difficulty communicating nonverbally, such as through hand gestures, eye contact, and facial expressions.
Social Skill Deficits in Autism Spectrum Disorders
Often, their failure is a direct result of ineffectual programs and inadequate resources typically made available for social skills instruction. For most children, basic social skills (e.g., turn taking, initiating conversation) are acquired quickly and easily.
Autistic people, however, can be more susceptible to both, due to the pressures of everyday life, having to navigate social situations and sensory overload. Trying to cope with these pressures can lead to exhaustion (autistic fatigue) and over time this can lead to extreme exhaustion or autistic burnout.
Why does this happen? Turn taking and sharing are complex social skills that many children find challenging in the early years. Children with ASD may find it even more challenging due to a delayed understanding of social development and communication.
However, there are plenty of extroverted (or otherwise) autistic people who might even be perceived as almost obsessive or overbearing because of their desire to talk with their friends. Contrary to what some people may think, autistic people want connection just as much as any other human being.
Some developmental health professionals refer to PDD-NOS as “subthreshold autism." In other words, it's the diagnosis they use for someone who has some but not all characteristics of autism or who has relatively mild symptoms.
An individual can have both social anxiety disorder and autism, they can also only be autistic, or only have social anxiety disorder. The same study also found that “data from multiple samples, across settings, consistently indicate that a significant proportion, but not all, individuals with autism have SA”.
It's true that many people with autism don't show emotion in ways that people without the condition would recognize. But the notion that people with autism generally lack empathy and cannot recognize feelings is wrong.
Children with an ASD are not vigilant and do not look up to the caregiver for social referencing. They may not cling to the caregiver, although go up to them for succor. However, some cling to the caregiver because of extreme anxiety.
Most autistic people experience difficulty with: interacting with others. initiating interactions, responding to others, or using interaction to show people things or to be sociable. understanding and relating to other people.
There are other brain disorders that mimic autism symptoms, like ADHD and anxiety disorders, including selective mutism. Autism can be misdiagnosed as another disorder with some shared symptoms.
Anxiety, depression, and other mood disorders. Communication challenges. Difficulties with emotional regulation. Executive functioning problems.
Every autistic person is different, but sensory differences, changes in routine, anxiety, and communication difficulties are common triggers.
Does The Father Or Mother Carry The Autism Gene? Autism was always thought to have a maternal inheritance component, however, research suggests that the rarer variants associated with the disorder are usually inherited from the father.