Related, I’ve always wondered if autistic people have an advantage in learning/integrating into foreign cultures over neurotypicals. Acclimating to a foreign culture requires you to consciously study and learn cues, customs, both explicit and unspoken rules, etc. and gain skill in performing them through repeated practice and exposure. Autistic people have to do this by necessity just to function in their own society, whereas neurotypicals who haven’t immersed themselves in a foreign culture have spent their whole lives cruising through social interactions on autopilot.
Related, I’ve always wondered if autistic people have an advantage in learning/integrating into foreign cultures over neurotypicals. Acclimating to a foreign culture requires you to consciously study and learn cues, customs, both explicit and unspoken rules, etc. and gain skill in performing them through repeated practice and exposure. Autistic people have to do this by necessity just to function in their own society, whereas neurotypicals who haven’t immersed themselves in a foreign culture have spent their whole lives cruising through social interactions on autopilot.