[fps]

I don't believe you. Either that or I've never in my life encountered a "neurotypical" child. Figuring out which behaviors are appropriate/inapproriate and changing accordingly, through self awareness and peer feedback, is most of what growing up is. Some people don't outwardly display as much effort, but it requires effort from everyone.

[Consultant32452]

It's not just effort vs no effort. Here's my personal anecdote with autism.

Every conversation I have I run every input someone says through a decision tree to determine what the appropriate response is. I do this in my conscious mind. I didn't realize this wasn't normal until much later in life.

Unless you're displaying a caricature of "happy" or "sad" emotional expressions I have no idea what your emotional state is. I'm completely blind to it. I have to consciously analyze the shape of your mouth, where your eyebrows are, compare it to the context, etc. to try to determine your emotional state.

Not only am I blind to other peoples' nonverbal communication I don't express my own naturally. Every emotion I express through non-verbal means is largely "acting" on my part. I have to consciously make my expressions match my emotional state.

My anecdote may not match exactly what another person's with autism, but that's the kind of difference that's meant by doing things "automatically."

[gt_]

Yes, and I will add the more cumulative result is more one of being judged, unincluded, and isolated, not one of acknowledgement that the communication was impaired. When I have a conversation or a job interview and someone asks me how it went, I never can say. I can speak to practical and obvious fumbles or difficult questions to which I am proud of having known the answer but this seems to not be what is means when I am asked how it went. I literally have no idea how it went and saying I did would be just as well done with a roll of dice. For most of my life, I thought I knew, but I was just working from what I had. Without very explicit novelty displays of preference or emotion, I would just assume things are fine. This is a very bad road to travel.

[fragmede]

> it requires effort from everyone.

Yeah, but it doesn't require the same amount of effort from everyone, and neurotypical children will eventually get it. It takes an order of magnitude more effort for children with ASD and in the most extreme cases, they simply can't.

It's like red/green colorblindness - some afflicted eventually manage to tell the difference between the same shade of grey, but for normal sighted people, the number inside the circle of colored dots is blatant and obvious, and requires no studying of the picture.

There are children with ASD that are highly-functioning and if they manage to get good grades, it's possible for them to escape notice. However, there are those for whom social situations simply don't make sense, and no amount of effort, self awareness, or peer feedback can enlighten them.

[itronitron]

A more analogous vision example would be the ability of people (especially children) when not wearing glasses to force focus which requires effort and temporarily decreases their ability to keep eyes in alignment (if they have amblyopia or strabismus.)

[watwut]

All the kids I know pick huge amount of behaviours the way I described. Not all of it, not complicated stuff, but definitely a lot. They also tend to like what other kids like - without them trying to imitate interest as strategy. It just happen naturally.

Especially things like smiling or crying to get something (depending on circumstances) etc - they do it before they have logic and before they have ability to plan. Two years old has tendency to do stuff adults around find cute and react to, but it is not conscious plan. Autistic kid won't or will to lesser extend.

[PhasmaFelis]

> I don't believe you.

It's kinda shitty to imply that someone is lying or delusional because their lived experience doesn't match with yours. There's plenty of literature on how autistic people learn socialization and how it differs from neurotypicals.