If an Autistic child makes a friend AFTER they have completed a course of 'social skills training', then they have NOT made a friend.

If an Autistic child makes a friend AFTER they have completed a course of 'social skills training', then they have NOT made a friend.

If connections are only made at the level of the mask, the Autistic essence underneath remains untouched.

People attempt to justify the use of 'social skills training' as a necessary course of action for their lonely children: "my child has no friends and wants them", I hear parents say all the time. Whilst Autistic loneliness is a huge problem, becoming more Neurotypical is NOT the answer for them or any of us. This simply exacerbates the problem.

Also, the loneliness inheres within the Autistic essence. Social skills training seeks only to manufacture a new, counterfeit self, polished, up to snuff and fit for societal use.

This husk conceals the Autistic essence, which has now been deemed inferior or useless, both by the perpetrators of social skills training AND the Autistic person themselves; whose new reliance on their non-Autistic social armoury reinforces the notion that the Autistic essence is worthless.

Alas, no matter how much one strives to distance oneself from who they are, our truth - our essence - remains an extant entity. The irony of opting for 'social skills training' in hope that it will eradicate loneliness demonstrates that only more loneliness and self-rejection will ensue.

'Social skills training' is not the solution to Autistic loneliness. Establishing connections with other Autistic people at the level of the essence - and NOT at the level of the mask - IS.