SOCIAL UNDERSTANDING and FRIENDSHIP
The nature of these children is revealed most clearly in their behaviour towards other people. Their behaviour in the social group is the clearest sign of their disorder. – Hans Asperger (1944)
SOLITUDE
In solitude, the child or adult with AS does not have a qualitative impairment in social interaction. At least two people are needed for there to be social interaction. There is no one to talk to, so there are no speech and language peculiarities, and the person can enjoy time engaged in a special interest for as long as they desire, without anyone else judging whether the activity is abnormal either in intensity or focus.
Solitude is one of the most effective emotional restoratives for someone with AS. Being alone can be a very effective way of calming down and is also enjoyable, especially if engaged in a special interest, one of the greatest pleasures in life for someone with AS.
Solitude can facilitate learning. The acquisition of knowledge requires considerable social and linguistic skills. Some children with AS acquire academic skills such as basic literacy and numeracy before they attend school, often by looking at books, watching television or playing educational games on a computer. They have successfully taught themselves, in solitude.
Alone the hypersensitivity for some sensory experiences is reduced. The child with AS may be sensitive to change and anxious if things are not where they have been or should be.
FRIENDS
People with AS may function reasonably well in one-to-one interactions, using their intellectual capacity to process social cues and non-verbal communication, and using the memory of similar social situations to determine what to say and do. The phrase ‘two’s company, three’s a crowd’ is very appropriate for someone with AS. In a group setting the person’s intellectual capacity may not be sufficient to cope with the social interaction of several participants, and the person may take longer to process social information that is normally communicated more quickly in a group than individually. If a one-to-one conversation is a game of tennis, a group interaction is a game of football.
The delay in social processing means the person can become out of synchronization with the conversation and is liable to make a conspicuous social error or have to withdraw. When another person or several others join in, the person with AS becomes quiet and does not participate as actively and fluently as when just two are involved.
The degree of stress is proportional to the number of people present. A mathematical formula and geometric representation of the number of potential connections between individuals that can occur as more people join a conversation. With two, there can only be one link, with three, three links, with four, six links, five people, ten links, and so on.
For adolescents and adults, the assessment of social interaction skills is achieved using a conversation that includes a range of topics that explore aspects of friendship, social experiences, and social abilities to determine the person’s social maturity and social competence.
For peer relationships or friendships, identify the person’s friends, the quality, stability, and maturity of the friendships, and their thoughts regarding the attributes of friendship. Ask Who are your friends? Why is he your friend? What are the things that someone does to be friendly? How do you make friends? Why do we have friends? What makes a good friend?
The child with AS has a concept of friendship that is immature and at least two years behind that of their age peers. They typically have fewer friends, playing with other children less often and for a shorter duration in comparison to peers. This can also occur in adolescence. Friends may be defined in very simplistic terms. They may be people they enjoy spending a few minutes or a few hours with.
Friendships maybe when the child chooses to play with younger children or prefers the company of adults. Adults may be more mellow in temperament and quieter. Adults tend to have more patience to listen to special interests and ‘scaffold’ a conversation.
People with AS can mistake friendliness for friendship and conceptualize friends as though they should be reliable machines. A child may conceptualize friendship to be about possession and is intolerant of anyone who breaks their personal rules about friendship. Teenagers and adults may have problems understanding that friendliness is not necessarily a sign of romantic interest.
Motivation for friendship, the ability to make and keep friends, and the value and nature of friends in that person’s life are natural for typical people. Adults with AS can express feelings of loneliness, sometimes being acutely aware and miserable about having so few, if any, friends. Contrary to what people may think, it is possible for an autistic person to feel lonely and to love somebody.
Young children may be described as socially clumsy, such that other children often consider that the child is not fun to play with, and does not conform to the usual rules of friendship, such as sharing, reciprocity, and cooperation. To share, you have to give up control and their friends don’t let them do what they want to do.
The child with AS often plays in an unconventional or idiosyncratic way with different priorities and interests to his or her peers, who tend to be bored with monologues or lectures on the child’s special interests. Besides being not very good at playing in typical ways or with other children, they rarely get enjoyment from it.
Imaginative play can be qualitatively different in AS. Imagination may be described as being different for each person. It may be making lists, creating fictional genealogies of characters, planning imaginary ball games with players on baseball cards, creating different languages, and the list goes on. Imaginative play is developed as a solitary and idiosyncratic activity.
The child can be on the periphery of the playground, sometimes socially isolated by choice, or actively among the other children and seeking inclusion but being perceived by peers as intrusive and irritating. Such behaviour is often described by teachers as silly, immature, rude, and uncooperative.
When adolescents are included in the activities and conversations of their peers, there can be feelings of not being included or popular. “I wasn’t rejected but did not feel completely included” or “I was supported and tolerated but not liked”. A lack of genuine social acceptance by peers will affect the development of self-esteem.
In the assessment, examine the child’s awareness of the codes of social conduct in a range of situations, particularly the child’s recognition of the concept of personal space, and their ability to modify greetings, touch, and topics of conversation according to the context and cultural expectations. Assess the child’s response to peer pressure, the duration, and enjoyment of solitary play, the enforcement of social rules, degree of honesty, sense of humour and susceptibility, and reaction to teasing and bullying.
THE MOTIVATION TO HAVE FRIENDS
An interest in the physical world
Very young children with AS before grade 1 are usually more interested in understanding the physical rather than the social world. The social activities of their peers are perceived as boring, with incomprehensible social rules. The child is content with solitude but may be motivated to interact with adults who can answer questions beyond the knowledge of the child’s peers, or seek refuge from the noisy and chaotic playground in the quiet sanctuary of the school library to read about topics such as volcanoes, meteorology, and transport systems.
Wanting to play with other children
In early primary or elementary school, children with AS notice that other children are having fun socializing and want to be included to experience the obvious enjoyment of their peers. Despite their intellectual ability, their level of social maturity is usually at least two years behind with difficulties in reciprocal and cooperative play.
They may long for successful inclusion and a friend to play with. They can become aware of being different, giving rise to the adjustment and compensation strategies described earlier (depression, escape into imagination, denial, arrogance, or imitation).
The initial optimism can turn into paranoia, especially if the child fails to make the distinction between accidental and deliberate acts. Difficulty with Theory of Mind tasks – conceptualizing the thoughts, feelings, knowledge, and beliefs of others proves difficult. Failure to recognize from the context, and often the knowledge of the character of the other person whether a particular comment or action has benevolent or malicious intent occurs. Other children know when someone is teasing with friendly or unfriendly intent. AS children often are limited in their ability to make character judgments – which children are not good role models and should be avoided, may be somewhat naive in their judgments, are prone to be attracted to and imitate children who may not demonstrate good friendship skills.
Making first friendships.
In the middle school years, AS children may achieve genuine friendships but tend to be too dominant or to have too rigid a view of friendship. They may ‘wear out their welcome’. However, some typical children, who are naturally kind, understanding, and ‘maternal’, may find children with AS appealing, and can be tolerant of their behaviour, becoming genuine friends for several years.
Sometimes, the friendship is with a similar, socially isolated child, who shares the same interests, but necessarily the diagnosis. The friendship tends to be functional and practical, exchanging items and knowledge of mutual interest and may extend to a small group of like-minded children with a similar level of social competence and popularity.
Searching for a partner
In late adolescence, teenagers with AS may seek more than a platonic friendship, and express a longing for a boyfriend or girlfriend, and eventually a partner. The partner they seek is someone who understands them and provides emotional support and guidance in the social world – someone to be a ‘mother figure’ and mentor.
Adolescent peers are usually much more mature and knowledgeable in identifying a potential partner and developing and practicing relationship skills. The AS child may experience rejection, ridicule, and a misinterpretation of intentions. The adolescent with AS can feel even more socially confused, immature, and isolated.
Becoming a partner
Eventually, a lifetime partner is found. Both would probably benefit from relationship counselling to identify and encourage the adjustments needed to make an unconventional relationship successful for both.
BULLYING
Typical children who are the target of bullying are at greater risk for low self-esteem, increased anxiety and depression, lower academic achievement, and increased social isolation, and these psychological consequences can last for more than 10 years. Children with AS are more prone to these consequences because of their already low self-esteem, predisposition to anxiety, and difficulty understanding why someone would behave that way, questioning why they were the target and what else they could have done to stop it. The psychological consequences are likely to last many years causing anxiety, depression, and problems with anger management.
Adults have considerable difficulty understanding why they were the target so often or the motivation of the children who tormented them. Their main way of trying to understand why they were singled out is to repeatedly replay the events in their thoughts. The person is reliving but not resolving past injustices. This can be a daily experience, even though the incidents occurred decades earlier. As the event is repeated in their thoughts, so are the emotions experienced again. They may require psychotherapy to overcome the deep and entrenched traumas. They cannot easily forgive and forget, or have closure until they understand why.
THE IMPORTANCE OF FRIENDSHIP
Children without friends may be at risk for later difficulties and delays in social and emotional development, low self-esteem, and the development of anxiety and depression as adults. Having friends can be a preventative measure for mood disorders.
Another advantage can be an improvement in problem-solving. If a group of children is engaged cooperatively in a task they have the benefit of different perspectives and ideas and greater physical abilities. Another child may be literally in a position to see something of importance, have previous experience of what to do, or can generate an original solution.
Friends give support. You can ask a lot of things from them and they’ll help because they are your friends. Without friends, problems are handled on their own. They don’t know how to socialize and thus don’t know how to use people to their advantage.
Being isolated and not having friends also makes the child vulnerable to being teased and bullied… The ‘predators’ at school target someone alone, vulnerable, and less likely to be protected by peers. Having more friends can mean having fewer enemies.
Peer acceptance and friendships can benefit the child in terms of providing a second opinion about the motives and intentions of others preventing a sense of paranoia. Friends can provide an effective emotional monitoring and repair mechanism, especially for emotions such as anxiety, anger, and depression. Friends can offer guidance on what is appropriate social behaviour, help develop self-image and self-confidence, and can act as personal counsellors and psychologists. The best cure for low self-esteem is friendship, especially true in adolescence.
All the qualities of a good friend are the qualities of a good team member, an important attribute for later employment as an adult. Many adults with AS have impressive academic qualifications but their lack of teamwork skills has contributed to problems with gaining or maintaining employment or achieving an income appropriate to their impressive qualifications.
The development of interpersonal skills with friends is also the basis of later success in a relationship with a partner. Concepts of empathy, trust, repairing emotions, and sharing responsibilities, developed throughout childhood with friends, are essential in adult relationships.
ENCOURAGING FRIENDSHIPS
In typical children, the acquisition of friendship skills is based on an innate ability that develops throughout childhood in association with progressive changes in cognitive ability and is modified and matured through social experiences. Unfortunately, children with AS are not able to rely on intuitive abilities in social settings as well as their peers and must rely more on their cognitive abilities and experiences. AS people have difficulty in social situations that have not been rehearsed or prepared for Thus, it is essential that such children receive tuition and guided practice in the ability to make and keep friends and that their friendship experiences are constructive and encouraging. If you do not have friends, how can you know how to become a friend?
Parents can try to facilitate social play at home with siblings and another child invited to their home on a play date but will have difficulty providing the range of experiences and degree of supervision and tuition required for a child with AS. The optimum environment to develop reciprocal play with peers is a school. Education services will need to be aware of the importance of a social curriculum as well as an educational curriculum for a child with AS. The social curriculum must have an emphasis on friendship skills and include appropriate staff training and relevant resources.
See Atwood for the developmental stages of friendship (stages 1 to 4 [adulthood] using special programs and Social Stories)
One of the characteristics of a good friend during adolescence or adulthood is someone who accepts the AS person for who they are. Generally, no one seems to accept them for who they are. They always wanted them to be different, a copy of themselves. Eventually, the person may find a friend who is not constantly trying to impose change, and who genuinely admires some of the characteristics of AS.
Animals as friends
Animals provide unconditional acceptance, The dog is always delighted to see you., despite the day’s disappointments and exhaustion. The horse seems to understand you and wants you to be your companion. The cat jumps on your lap and purrs. Cats behave like autistic dogs, so there may be a natural affinity between cats and people with autism and AS. Pets and animals, in general, can be effective and successful substitutes for human friends and a menagerie becomes a substitute ‘family’. Animals identify with and feel relaxed in the company of a nonpredator, and pets can be a source of comfort and reassurance. A special interest in and natural understanding of animals can become the basis of a successful career. Autistic people are sometimes more able to perceive and have compassion for the perspective of animals than humans.
Internet friends. The internet has become the modern equivalent of the dance hall as an opportunity to meet peers. The great advantage is the person with AS has a greater eloquence in disclosing and expressing thoughts and feelings through typing rather than face-to-face conversation. Listening to and processing speech, to reply immediately and simultaneously analyze nonverbal cues such as gestures, facial expressions, and tone of voice is avoided.
As in any social situation, the person with AS may be vulnerable to others taking advantage of their social naivety and desire to have a friend. They need to be taught caution and not to provide personal information until discussed with a trusted person. Genuine and long-lasting friendships can develop over the Internet based on shared experiences, interests, and mutual support. It provides an opportunity to meet like-minded individuals who accept the person because of their knowledge rather than their social persona and appearance using chat lines, web pages, and message boards sometimes dedicated to people with AS.
Support groups. In regular meetings, discuss topics that range from employment issues to personal relationships and social occasions to museums or the cinema. Friendships can develop. Groups can be started by parents of young adults, at college or in new towns.
Information on relationships.
The source is important. TV programs (situational comedies in particular) may portray intense and dramatic emotions and relationships that may be taken out of context. Watching pornography may presume intimate acts occur very quickly and they may be less aware of any concerns regarding consent.
The source may recognize that the person with AS is naive, gullible, and vulnerable. If they have cruel intent, they can make suggestions that cause the person with AS to be ridiculed, or encourage others to assume malevolent intentions, setting up the teenager.
Sometimes, socially isolated teenage girls with AS at puberty become flattered by the attention of boys, Due to their naivety, they do not realize that the interest is sexual, and not simply to enjoy their conversation and company. When the teenage girl lacks female friends to provide advice on dating and intimacy there can be a concern about promiscuity and sexual experience. Teenage girls with AS are often not ‘street wise’ or able to identify sexual predators, and may become vulnerable to sexual exploitation when desperate to be popular with peers.