The Autism Society Event and Education Recordings Archive

This isn’t your momma’s Emily Post, and there is no “don’t do this” finger-wagging or patronizing “high and mighty preaching” here. It’s first-hand advice from the spectrum, talk that leaves folks asking out loud, “How did she get inside my head?” and walking away believing in their own awesomeness. It’s really easy to tell someone else how to do things. Or how not to do things. So it’s no surprise that “do-this/so-that” how-to’s abound in the autism world. It’s also no real surprise that those of us on the spectrum don’t particularly enjoy them. After all, “do’s and don’ts” written from a neurotypical perspective feel arbitrary. They feel distant and perscriptive. They feel, above all, condescending. And really, really not fun.

Maybe that’s why audiences respond so differently to “The Asperkid’s (Secret) Book of Social Rules.”  Numbers don’t lie. In eighteen months, the book has sold almost 20,000 copies to kids, tweens, teens, and adults, and has become the basis for this very (popular) talk. It’s Aspie/author Jennifer O’Toole’s “insider, in-person” exploration of the most important social “need to knows” — often told through her own less-than-fabulous goof-ups along the way.

With humor and sensitivity, Jennifer explains how, after diagnosis, she became a social detective in her own world - assembling a list of (and figuring out the reasons behind) seeminlgy “implicit” social norms that she, like others on the spetcrum, had to name and then consciously learn to generalize.

For example? Well, there are some big ones that NT’s never think to spell out:

• Being honest isn’t the same as speaking every thought in your head. 
• NT’s see friendship in levels.  Knowing them helps us to know who to trust and how much to trust them. 
• Laughing at your mistake is NOT the same as laughing at you.
• Perfectionism makes any amount of success worthless compared to a single failure.

And then there are little nuggets that just make daily living easier:

• If someone’s body is busy, their mind probably is, too.  Pick another time for any important conversations.
• Guys: in public bathrooms, leave at least one open spot between you and another dude, unless every “station” is taken.
• Girls: “I’ll call you,” doesn’t always mean he actually will. 
• Stay in the room if someone is speaking to you (even if you can hear from another room).
• When in doubt, brush.

“Obvious” is, after all, a very relative term.

But here’s the best part. This is NOT a talk about fixing - or correcting. Nope. This is about clear information and empowered choices. “No matter how we learn to speak Socialease,” Jennifer explains, “it will always be with a spectrum accent. And that’s a good thing. Because you have to be authentic if you’re going to be awesome.”

There have been many times we’ve all wished we could crawl in a hole and hide. Yet never, in fact, has anyone actually died of embarrassment.  The truth is that without a copy of the rules, folks on the spectrum have no idea what to expect. So here's the solution: the "secret" rules, told by "one of us." Give us this playbook - the one everyone else has - and there's no limit to how high we will fly. 

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