Social Skills Education does not have to be Ableist

I’ve said it.  Social skills education does not have to be ableist.  Say what?  Kristen, you are affirming of neurodivergent people, how can you say this?  I have done a lot of work with social skills teaching over the last five years, and have seen it benefit a lot of teens and young adults when it is done in a way that does not encourage masking, but simply allows people to learn how others might communicate to grease the social wheels.  I liken it to me learning the language and culture of Germans before going off to live there for several years.  I have spoken fluent German since childhood, but I investigated the culture and the similarities and differences to my own before moving there, so that I would not stand out as the “American.”

That does not mean that I changed who I was or did not have a good understanding of myself.   I did not feel like I was masking, which is something I do. It simply was a way to fit into my new country as seamlessly as possible.  I would encourage anyone to do this if moving to a foreign country; even an English speaking one.

So back to social skills.  What is the rhetoric?

What is the Problem with learning Social Skills?

1.  Social skills education implies that there is only one way to communicate:  Actually, social skills education teaches one way to communicate out of many.  Some people may not want to learn these skills, and that is OKAY.  Others do feel that they want to be able to communicate in ways typical for American culture … at least the neurotypical presentation.  There are many ways to communicate though.  For example, in North America and Europe, making eye contact is considered typical, but in East Asia, it is considered disrespectful.  Native American cultures may view direct eye contact as a sign of aggression.  Learning what is typical for the people you communicate with may be helpful.  Personally, I think it would be great if social skills were taught in school and included all neurotypes.  Obviously, neurotypical individuals should be learning how autistic people communicate!
2. Social skills education tries to “cure” autism:  Maybe ABA programs, but many facilitators of social skills just want to help people feel more comfortable socially and have more social success with others, including neurotypical individuals.  I have taught a social skills curriculum for years with a team of other providers at IRL Social Skills, and no one wants to cure autism.  Teens and young adults are embraced for being who they are.  The social skills they have learned though, helps them make friends as neurodivergent youth, and many express gratitude for that.  Autistic individuals often struggle to make friends, and children and teens may be shunned or bullied.  Learning effective ways to communicate with neurodivergent and neurotypical people can reduce social exclusion and loneliness.
3. Descriptions of loneliness are neuronormative and should be reconceptualized: Many of you have heard me say this before, but that is a sticky wicket. I am conscious of the ways that we speak about neurodivergence or conceptualize it and the new language around autism and neurodivergence that is currently being released.  The term neuronormative is not recognized by my blog, and frankly I don’t accept it either.  Neuronormative?  Who are these normative people of which we are speaking?  I hope my family and friends aren’t reading this, but … none of us are “neuronormative.” I am also not going to marginalize autistic individuals more by suggesting that they do not know how to conceptualize loneliness as experienced by for example these elusive neuronormative individuals in the US and other countries.  The Review Journal of Autism and Developmental Disorders conducted a study in 2024 to look at this idea.  In this study, autistic youth reported experiencing loneliness as a negative feeling that emerges from being excluded from social activities, and feelings of inadequacy (not ‘fitting in’).  That sounds like a valid experience of loneliness in many cultures.  Really, everyone experiences emotions differently whether they are neuronormative or neurodivergent.  As a therapist, I always ask what a person’s depression or anxiety (for example) looks like, because I cannot just assume that my understanding of those emotions is equivalent to how someone else is experiencing them.  We are all unique, but our emotions do share common threads.
4. There are no good tools to measure social communication difficulties in autistic individuals leading to misdiagnosis or misunderstanding:    Some of the measures of social communication do use some unfortunate language.  The ickiest word is appropriate as in  Responds to teasing appropriately (CELF-4).  Hopefully the current CELF-5 does a little better, but it probably does not.  I think the word effective is best.  Who decides what is appropriate? No.  Hopefully, a good clinician knows better. What some people misunderstand about these types of tests is that they are solely looking to diagnose autism.  They are not.  They are exploring pragmatic language difficulties in all children.  Pragmatic language refers to the practical use of language in social situations, considering the context and social cues to communicate effectively with others; it involves understanding social norms, turn taking in conversation, interpreting emotions, and adjusting your speech to fit the situation.  What is that?  That sounds like autism?  It can be.  It also sounds like  specific language impairment, social anxiety disorder, intellectual disability, and social pragmatic communication disorder.  It can be an early marker for ADHD or can be associated  with nonverbal learning disability (which is not a valid DSM-5-TR diagnosis for now) .  I personally use the Clinical Assessment of Pragmatics (CAPS) with People 18 and younger, and kids love it because it is a video-based format.  Some of its reviews use the term appropriate, but the assessment itself is very neuroinclusive.  I wish there were something like this for adults.
5. Social skills training is biased and oppressive because it is often taught by neurotypical individuals:  I’m going to lay out some sobering facts that will give you a moment of pause. Only 36% of young adults on the autism spectrum attempt postsecondary education of any kind between high school and their early 20s, including 2-year or 4-year colleges or vocational education, and only 38.8% of them will complete their degrees.   If you do the math, only about 14% of autistic high-school students graduate from college.  Also, up to 85% of autistic adults are unemployed. In fact, autism is the disability with the highest unemployment rate. These are sobering statistics and are probably an indication of why autistic individuals are not teaching most of the social skills classes.  Things are slowly changing though as more autistic college students go into careers like counseling and social work and set up practices that focus on people who are autistic.  I think that’s great.  I’m also going to add, that I can be seen by an oncologist who has not had cancer.  Actually, I was.  He did not understand exactly what I was going through, but he tried to put himself in my shoes and that was enough.  I would be happy to see a therapist who is autistic even if I have other areas of neurodivergence.  It is unfortunate that we get caught up in the cycle of believing that only people like us can help us. As far as autism and education and employment, I’ll check in on that topic in another post.

So I’ve hit some of the major ideas about social skills and ableism and have tried to explain why social skills training does not have to be ableist.  Feel free to email me your responses.  I’ll try to email you back.  I leave you with a video about IRL Social Skills and their program for youth and adults.