Unambiguous social situation

" At the program where I work, we have members of all three diagnostic groups as clients, given that those with autism are high functioning. When prospective clients and their families visit, we like to ask a veteran client to show his or her apartment to the visitors. This is an unambiguous social sitaution in that there is a specific point to the interaction; it is meant to be friendly, informative, and brief. Our executively impaired clients have no difficulty accomplishing this task and passing for normal if the contact remains brief enough and superficial enough. They have sufficiently good social behavior to greet strangers with eye contact and a hand shake, to make small talk while walking to the apartment, and to point out obvious features of the environment (this is my bedroom and this is my roommate's bedroom). The clients who have autism or Asperger's are not able to accomplish this simple behaviour without revealing their social disability. "

- "Adults on the Autism Spectrum: Leave the Nest, Achieving Supported Independence" by Nancy Perry