The Triad of Impairments 

People with ASD experience difficulties with social interaction, social communication and social imagination.  These are known as the Triad of Impairments (Wing 1981).

Social interaction

Problems with social interaction may show as:

• not paying attention to others
• being aloof, distant and uninterested
• being alone and withdrawn
• a lack of social skills
• inappropriate social behaviour
• a lack of understanding about friendship or strangers
• difficulties in making and sustaining friendships.

Social Communication

There is a wide variation in the extent of difficulties in communicating. These may be verbal and non-verbal, for example:

• not fully understanding the meaning of common gestures, facial expressions or tone of voice
• unusual patterns of verbal communication
• Echolalia (repetition of what has been said to a person)
• making up words
• difficulty with ‘I’ and ‘you’
• inappropriate tone of voice
• a lack of facial expressions and gestures.

Social Imagination

This may show as:

• difficulty in understanding how others think, feel and react
• problems with imagination
• difficulty in the development of imaginative play
• having a literal understanding of language, for example having difficulties with expressions like “it’s raining cats and dogs” or “pull your socks up”
• problems with predicting events or actions.

Patterns of behaviour, interests or activities

Some common patterns of behaviour, interests or activities in people with ASD includes:

• being obsessed with a certain topic or object
• focussing on specific routines or rituals that have no practical function
• repeating actions or movements like hand flapping, spinning, and/or body movements
• intense preoccupation with parts of objects
• extra sensitive (hypersensitive) or under sensitive (hyposensitive) to certain sounds, smells, tastes or textures.

More about ASD

• The range of disorders on the Spectrum
• Some facts about ASD