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Social Skills That are Not Always Social and Problems That are Not Always Problems

DESCRIPTORS: autism, social skills, problem behavior, social motivation, idiosyncratic interests The best research studies are more noteworthy for the issues they raise than for the questions they answer. Being informative is good; being heuristic is better. The two papers under consideration here are heuristic as well as informative. Thus, Wong, Kasari, Freeman, and Paparella (2007) provide an answer to the question of what might influence the successful teaching of certain key skills in children with autism. It appears that the nature of the skill (symbolic play versus joint attention), the teaching approach used (discrete trial training versus incidental teaching), and the specific child characteristics (developmental quotient) all influence degree of success. Likewise, Klin, Danovitch, Merz, Dohrmann, and Volkmar (2007) provide an answer to the question, what is the nature and significance of circumscribed interests in children with autism? It appears that highfunctioning individuals with autism are extremely likely to have an obsessive interest in verbal learning and memorization of facts that may interfere with other activities pursued by themselves or with others. The findings just summarized are informative, but more importantly they are heuristic. They raise two critical issues for the field: the centrality of social motivation and the possibility that not all "problems" need to be treated.