Social Communication

Autistic people vary enormously from each other but they all have impaired communication skills of one kind or another.

Those communication skills include verbal skills (such as speaking and listening) and non-verbal skills (such as making eye contact).

For example, some autistic people:

Cannot speak, can only use a few words or learn to speak very late

Speak using unusual volume, pitch, intonation, rate, or rhythm

Use odd language or repeat the same things over and over again

Find it difficult to hold a two-way conversation i.e. where each person speaks and then listens to the other person

Find it difficult to explain how they feel using words, expressions, tone of voice, and gestures

However some autistic people claim that, rather than having poor communication skills, they have different communication skills and that non-autistic people need to learn how to communicate using those skills.

More Information

Please see our detailed entry on Social Communication and Autism

Quick link:

https://informationautism.org/social-communication

Updated

16 Jun 2022