autism and manipulation

It depends on where they are at on the spectrum.

I have suffered from Aspergers/Autism since I was 14 and didn't realize it until last year. I am a higher functioning Autistic and I lie without even knowing it sometimes. I do not know how to empathize with people, or how to be myself, or who I even am! so, I make up identities based on people I like from TV and real life just so I can fit in with people. I've become a great actress and it has been a struggle to look at myself and figure out who I am so I stop doing this. (I had no idea I was doing this until my therapist told me.)

Because of that, when you have grown up in the spectrum, some autistics lie to please people or to keep them from catching on that they have no idea what's going on (in a moral or social sense). The autistic kid who hid his socks? Maybe he didn't understand what to do with them. Maybe he didn't understand why Mom got mad and discovered that lying made her happy. Anger, confrontation and negative social situations seriously stress out autistics and sometimes (not always) we will do whatever we can (LIE) to avoid them if necessary. Look at it from that way.

It is a learned behavior so that you fit in because you will never really figure out how to on your own. Accepting discipline and negative criticism is hard, although we still have to face it. The less confrontational and anger-based that it is helps immensely!

I don't think spectrum people are unaware of anything.

Doesn't feel like that though...

It is slightly off topic, But there is something I observed with my sister that might put some contrast on this.

First, She is not autistic or on the spectrum. Although she is highly narcissistic and vindictive. But she is both at the same time a master of manipulation and and very unaware that she is doing it at the same time. And that is something I have noticed about many of the most manipulative people I know. They are unaware that they are doing it.
Does that apply here, I don't know enough to say one way or the other, But it is something to consider.

Yes, you're right, not low empathy. We feel empathy, WHEN we are successful in tuning into it, IF we manage to pick up the cues we need to. But, sometimes we don't whilst others might. It's difficult to measure or quantify.

Psychopaths/narcissists have a "low empathy" problem, not autists. It's almost like mis-applied empathy in a way, I have felt empathic towards animals and people when most others would not, by the same token I have felt no empathy when most other people would. So, it's difficult to pin down. But, I think it might very well be possible for an autist to "detach" from a certain situation and manipulate it, when he/she simply failed to read the cues to have empathy at THAT particular instance. He/she might be a very empathic person otherwise.

I STILL have this theory that when autistic people DO feel empathy, it is much stronger than what neurotypical people may feel. I know it cannot be proved, but I do believe it. If you simply look how certain situations or people/things have a profound impact on the autistic person, you can actually observe it. It explains well the attachment I felt to certain people and things in my life, versus the seeming ease with which other people can "move on" in life after loss or detachment from the attached object/person.

We found with our autistic son that we could not teach him anything he did not want to learn. That might just be specific to him.

ValentinaVVV,
Our son was kind to animals, we thought. It turned out he was touching them in ways he liked. It was lucky the animals were okay with it. Once his mother got hurt physically and was showing it and he said, "that didn't hurt you, it didn't hit hard enough." He could not see that she was in real pain. He came to a conclusion about the situation without considering her experience, the experience she was having.

If your son is asking how they feel, that's not empathy. Maybe it's a precursor to it, that he's even concerned about how they feel. Our son was constantly arguing that other people needed to change their behavior because they weren't listening to him. He never, still doesn't, think he ought to change if his behavior is disturbing for others. He says it's their problem.

Not all people with autism are the same. That is all I was getting at.