Book Review: Unwritten Rules of Social Relationships

One of the most significant problems facing people on the autism spectrum is difficulty in understanding and managing social relationships. Autistic people rarely grasp such rules intuitively, and their failure to do so can cause serious personal and professional problems. This book, written by two highly-respected adults with high functioning autism, is an intriguing exploration of the subject.

The subtitle of this book is "Decoding Social Mysteries Through the Unique Perspectives of Autism." This is an interesting idea, and one made more interesting by the involvement of two very different autistics.

One of the authors, Temple Grandin, is the pre-eminent spokesperson for the autistic community. A Ph.D. with a fulfilling career in agriculture, Dr. Grandin is best known for her works which describe "thinking in pictures." The second author, Sean Barron, is a writer who, unlike Grandin, has had a difficult time working with and through his autism. His perspective is highly emotional, while Grandin's has a logical, "Mr. Spock" sensibility.

Both of the book's authors are individuals with tremendous ability to reflect, respond and articulate their ideas to the typical community. This is not the case across the autism spectrum.

Autism is a very broad term, and it encompasses people with outstanding intelligence and competence as well as people with profound mental and physical disabilities. As a result, books which address "autistic people" rarely address the entire spectrum. This book addresses the higher end of the spectrum: those people who will find themselves coping with typical social issues on a day to day basis. Social rules are only relevant to people who can use them. In the autism world, these people are the high-functioning children and adults who generally fall into the diagnoses of Asperger Syndrome and PDD-NOS. People who are non-verbal, profoundly retarded, or impaired to the point where they are unable to engage in typical social interaction, are unlikely to benefit from information about "unwritten rules."

Temple Grandin describes her approach to segmenting social rules into four categories. These include "really bad things" (such as assault), "courtesy rules" (saying please and thank you and so forth), "illegal but not bad" (speeding by an extra five miles an hour, for example), and "sins of the system" (illogical rules that must be absolutely followed). Some of these rules can be easily taught by rote to most autistic people (NEVER run into the road, for example). Others can be taught by rote to verbal autistic people who are engaged to the degree that they are responsive (say thank you when you are given something).

When it comes to "sins of the system," however, teaching is virtually impossible. As Grandin herself points out, these rules are illogical -- and absolutely circumstantial. They require an extraordinary knowledge of human behavior, and a subtle understanding of many different cultures. And, as Grandin suggest, agony columnists would be out of a job if most neurotypical people really grasped these social norms.

Sean Barron relates a story in which high schoolers are smoking in the boys' room. A teacher comes in, but doesn't take appropriate action. Sean decided to "tattle" to the vice principal -- and learned the lesson that this was not the right choice. He should have kept his mouth shut to avoid the inevitable intimidation that followed.

But precisely how could this lesson be taught to an autistic child? What is the rule that is enforceable here? Young children are told to come to an adult when they face a difficult social interaction. Should older children unlearn that rule -- and instead decide to overlook broken rules? Which rules can be broken? What if the boys had been drinking or doing drugs?

Questions like "he looked at me and smiled -- does he want to be my boyfriend?" plague all of us. How likely is it that an autistic individual will make the right guess? Yet books, videos and classes are offered for autistic children and adolescents to teach just these skills.