Category: Executive Functioning Skills

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Social Media can help Neurodivergent People Make Friends

How online interactions can be easier for people with Executive Functioning Deficits

In a previous blog post I talked about how executive functioning skills are extremely important when interacting with others. Interacting online with people is one way to help mitigate some of these deficits.

The Scandinavian Journal of Disability Research published an interesting paper (“Exploring The Potential for Social Networking Among People with Autism: Challenging Dominant Ideas of ‘Friendship'” by C. Brownlow; H. Rosqvist and L. O’Dell) that addressed how online interactions are viewed by people with disabilities. The purpose of their study was to “deconstruct dominate understandings of (autistic) friendship”. They did this by reviewing previous literature on the subject and interviewing neurodivergent individuals. Many of the people interviewed for the paper provided very specific examples of how executive functioning skills posed a problem during in person interactions, but were lessened during online interactions. For instance:

  • Autistic individuals said that online interactions gave them the chance to look back at previous conversations, so they knew where to begin.
    • This not only helped them know where the conversation left off and how to pick it up again, but it also allowed them to look back at information about the person they were talking to.
    • Online interactions can help with deficits in working memory.
  • Autistic individuals also said that they were able to plan their responses better when they were interacting online there wasn’t the quick back and forth that is present in “in-person” interactions.
  • It is also easier to focus on online conversations because you just have to focus on the words.
    • Some people might say that you miss out on body language/facial expression/voice tone, which help in understanding another person. However, all those things can also get in the way because neurodivergent individuals spend so much of their time and energy focused on trying to interpret all that information.
    • In person interactions can feel like an overload, while online interactions don’t.

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Executive Functioning Skills Impact Social Skills

I recently conducted a training about how to teach online safety skills to individuals with disabilities. Before I went there I looked into the pros and cons of online relationships. It is pretty easy to identify the risks (i.e. potential exploitation, bullying, etc). But as I did some research I thought it was interesting what the benefits are.

Many people (with and without disabilities) have executive functioning deficits. This means that they might lose things, not show up on time, fail to plan, lose things, lack emotional control, etc. I used to think that executive functioning skills were specific to school/work. But I realized that they are also paramount when it comes to social skills. See the table below for a breakdown of the executive functioning skills and how they related to social skills.

So, having online friends can actually help mitigate these executive functioning deficits. See below for how:

Some qualitative studies were done to see how neurodivergent individuals experienced online interactions. One participant said, ““With photos and names listed, I can keep track of my friends even when I have trouble with names and faces. All the background information of my friends are available for me to reference. Friends provide updates with which I can use as a context to re-establish contact with them where necessary.” Interesting….