Autistic sociality is the idea that autistic people may have their own valid ways of connecting, communicating, relating, and building relationships with others. Rather than treating autistic social differences only as deficits, this perspective recognises that autistic social interaction may follow different patterns, priorities, and expectations. Research in this area increasingly argues that autistic sociality should be understood as a form of human sociality in its own right.
This matters because autistic people are often judged against non-autistic social norms. When that happens, meaningful autistic ways of connecting can be overlooked, misunderstood, or wrongly treated as a lack of social interest. Current research suggests the problem is often not that autistic people lack sociality, but that autistic and non-autistic people may struggle to understand each other across neurotype differences.
What Does Autistic Sociality Mean?
Autistic sociality refers to the ways autistic people connect with others that may not always match conventional non-autistic expectations of eye contact, conversation style, reciprocity, timing, shared attention, or friendship. The concept has been used in autism scholarship to challenge deficit-only models and to recognise that autistic interaction can be different without being lesser. Research and commentary in this area explicitly describe autistic sociality as a diverse and valid form of human sociality.
Why This Idea Matters
Traditional ways of talking about autism have often assumed that social competence should be measured against non-autistic behaviour. Research on autistic sociality challenges that assumption. Work in this area argues that many methods for investigating autistic social interaction still assume non-autistic definitions of being social, which can make autistic behaviour look like a deficit rather than a difference.
This matters in schools, workplaces, families, and support services. If people misunderstand autistic sociality, they may assume an autistic person is disengaged, rude, uninterested, or lacking empathy when the reality may be more complex. Research responding to older deficit models has argued that the burden should not fall only on autistic people to adapt, but also on non-autistic people to understand autistic sociality better.
Autistic Sociality and the Double Empathy Problem
One of the most important ideas linked to autistic sociality is the double empathy problem. This suggests that misunderstandings between autistic and non-autistic people are often mutual rather than one-sided. In other words, autistic people may struggle to read non-autistic expectations, but non-autistic people may also struggle to understand autistic communication and interaction styles. This framing was developed most influentially by Damian Milton and has since become a key part of contemporary autism scholarship.
This is a more balanced way of understanding social difficulty because it shifts the focus from “what is wrong with the autistic person?” to “what is happening in the interaction between people with different ways of experiencing and expressing social meaning?”
What Autistic Sociality Can Look Like
Autistic sociality does not look the same for every autistic person. But it may include:
- connecting deeply around shared interests
- preferring fewer but more meaningful relationships
- communicating more comfortably in direct, literal, or information-rich ways
- feeling more at ease with other autistic people
- enjoying parallel activity or presence without constant verbal exchange
- building community through online or specialist spaces
Recent research on autistic community connectedness and autistic spaces supports the idea that autistic people often experience more ease, recognition, and shared understanding in autistic-led or autistic-inclusive environments.
Autistic Sociality Is Not the Same as “Not Being Social”
A common misunderstanding is to assume that if an autistic person does not socialise in a typical way, they do not want connection. Research on the autistic community, friendship, and weak ties suggests this is too simplistic. Recent studies show that autistic people value different kinds of social connections, including weaker everyday ties, and that these can support wellbeing in meaningful ways.
So the question is often not whether an autistic person is social, but what kind of sociality works for them and in what context.
Why Other Autistic People May Feel Easier to Talk To
Many autistic people report that communication with other autistic people feels easier, less effortful, and less full of hidden rules. Current research in neurodivergent intersubjectivity suggests that autistic people may create shared understanding in distinctive ways, and newer work on autistic spaces shows that autistic people may feel more comfortable and better understood in these environments.
This does not mean that autistic and non-autistic people cannot connect well. It means that better mutual understanding often requires effort from both sides.
How This Should Change Support
If we take autistic sociality seriously, support should not focus only on making autistic people appear more non-autistic. It should also focus on helping environments, teachers, colleagues, professionals, and families understand autistic ways of relating. Research discussing autistic sociality and support has criticised approaches that fail to appreciate autistic sociality and has pointed toward more humane and enabling models.
What This Means for Inclusion
Understanding autistic sociality can improve inclusion by helping people move away from the assumption that there is only one correct way to be social. It encourages a shift from “fixing” autistic people toward building better mutual understanding, communication, and community. That is consistent with current research on autistic connectedness and social well-being.
Final Thoughts
Autistic sociality is a useful and important idea because it helps explain that autistic people may connect differently, not necessarily less. Current research increasingly supports the view that autistic social life should be understood on its own terms, and that many social difficulties arise from mismatch and misunderstanding across neurotypes rather than from autistic deficit alone.
Understanding that can lead to better support, better relationships, and more respectful ideas about what human connection looks like.
Selected Academic References
- Milton, D. E. M. (2012). On the ontological status of autism: the ‘double empathy problem’. Disability & Society, 27(6), 883–887.
- Mitchell, P., Sheppard, E., & Cassidy, S. (2021). Autism and the double empathy problem: Implications for development and mental health. British Journal of Developmental Psychology, 39(1), 1–18.
- Rosqvist, H. B. (2019). Exploring meanings of different forms of sociality among autistic people. Scandinavian Journal of Disability Research, 21(1), 123–132.
- Botha, M., Hanlon, J., & Williams, G. L. (2022). Does language matter? Identity-first versus person-first language use in autism research: A response to Vivanti. Related work on autistic community connectedness and autistic-led perspectives has helped strengthen the case for understanding autistic sociality on its own terms.
- Trembath, D., et al. (2022). Tensions Between Autistic Sociality, Communication, and Learning in Mainstream Education. Journal of Speech, Language, and Hearing Research.
Additional Information.
At first, researchers (Ochs & Solomon, 2010) saw this as something that limited social interaction.
But newer research, especially from Brett Heasman (2018), suggests something different — that autistic people often have unrecognised social strengths, and that difficulties often come from mismatched communication styles between autistic and non-autistic people.
Studies (like Crompton et al., 2020) show that when autistic people interact with each other, communication can be just as effective as between non-autistic people.
Key takeaway:
Autistic sociality isn’t “broken” — it’s different. As a support worker or teacher, you can build stronger relationships by learning and adapting to communication styles that suit each student best.