The Implicit Rules of Social Interactions with Neurotypicals

Why social interactions feel hard to decode for autistic people, with a practical guide to the unspoken channels, purposes, and context neurotypicals rely on.

Published: 2019-06-01 by Luca Dellanna

In this short essay, I will try to explain why social interactions with neurotypicals are hard to understand for people with ASD (Autism Spectrum Disorder). The topic is complex and cannot be fully covered here, but I hope this will be of help.

1. Neurotypicals communicate on multiple channels

A face-to-face conversation does not take place only on the verbal channel (the words that are pronounced). It also takes place on the body language channel, the facial expressions channel, and the voice intonation channel. To fully understand what message is transmitted, you have to pay attention to all of these channels.

If you are not yet able to recognize body language, facial expressions, and vocal intonations, you can train these skills. A method that some find effective: watch a movie or TV series episode you’ve already seen before, this time without voice and without subtitles. Focus on the body language and facial expressions of the actors, using your prior knowledge of the story to interpret what you’re seeing.

If this is too difficult, or if you find you are not learning enough, repeat the exercise in the company of a neurotypical friend or family member, asking them to narrate what is going on just from the body language and facial expressions. Ask them to explain how they reached their conclusions: which expressions, which postures? Don’t be afraid to ask many questions. Make sure you fully understand a scene before moving to the next.

Once finished, watch the episode again. Keep watching until you have memorized the facial expressions, body language postures, their meanings, and how to recognize them.

Done correctly, the next time you observe a social interaction in the real world you should be able to pick up some of the expressions and postures, especially if you proactively look for them. With enough time (a few months) you should be able to do this more passively, without thinking hard about it.

2. Neurotypicals communicate for multiple purposes (often covert ones)

Small talk, for example, does not take place to exchange information about the weather or other trivialities. It takes place to make the other person comfortable, to gauge their value and intentions, and to signal that you can be a valuable ally. Other kinds of conversation have other purposes.

If you don’t understand the real purpose of a conversation, it will feel meaningless. But if neurotypicals keep having such conversations, chances are they serve a purpose, even if the participants aren’t consciously aware of it.

3. Neurotypicals consider a broader context as part of the conversation

You might think that only the message transmitted through words matters. Many other things matter. A few examples:

Confidence: Whether you act confidently or not modifies how your message is received. If you speak unconfidently, your message might be perceived as dishonest, not because of what you said but because of how you said it.
Context signals: Some people will be influenced by how you’re dressed, how you entered the room, who you know, and other contextual details. Not everyone will use these criteria, but some will. Becoming aware of them helps you understand how people might react to you, and eventually how to shift their perception.
The listener’s worldview: When you speak, people project what you say onto their existing beliefs and assumptions. What they hear is not only determined by what you said, but by how they interpret it. It’s not fair, but it’s how people work. Accounting for this is part of communicating effectively.

To conclude: neurotypicals communicate across multiple channels, for multiple purposes, using context to make sense of content, often in an unconscious or covert way. The more you keep this in mind, the more you will notice the patterns in their communication, and the more you will be able to learn the implicit rules of interacting with them.

For a deeper exploration of how autism shapes perception and behavior across different domains, see The World Through a Magnifying Glass.

1. Neurotypicals communicate on multiple channels

Once finished, watch the episode again. Keep watching until you have memorized the facial expressions, body language postures, their meanings, and how to recognize them.

2. Neurotypicals communicate for multiple purposes (often covert ones)

3. Neurotypicals consider a broader context as part of the conversation

You might think that only the message transmitted through words matters. Many other things matter. A few examples:

Confidence: Whether you act confidently or not modifies how your message is received. If you speak unconfidently, your message might be perceived as dishonest, not because of what you said but because of how you said it.

Context signals: Some people will be influenced by how you’re dressed, how you entered the room, who you know, and other contextual details. Not everyone will use these criteria, but some will. Becoming aware of them helps you understand how people might react to you, and eventually how to shift their perception.

The listener’s worldview: When you speak, people project what you say onto their existing beliefs and assumptions. What they hear is not only determined by what you said, but by how they interpret it. It’s not fair, but it’s how people work. Accounting for this is part of communicating effectively.

For a deeper exploration of how autism shapes perception and behavior across different domains, see The World Through a Magnifying Glass.