My hypothesis (I e-mailed Simon Baron-Cohen and he agreed) is that autistic people don't subconsciously "synchronize" with people in the same way that neurotypicals synchronize with each other. "Synchronization" seems common in the animal kingdom - this is why spinner dolphins can be extremely good at coordinating their movements together without even having to communicate at all.
So autistic people have to learn these signals very consciously, as explained in all these other posts. And conscious learning is often clumsy (which often means oscillatory convergence around a fixed point)
If I may, where did you learn these things? I am reading a book on trauma and some people with a history of trauma and abuse can lose the ability to synchronize with others and may have autistic qualities. I have a history of trauma. So, there may be some overlapping qualities. I would love to pick your brain or research. :]
From my understanding, people on the autism spectrum have difficulty reading people's emotions and general social cues. I'm curious how these people develop these skills and what one can do to improve them. I ask this as a matter of personal interest; while I am somewhat neurotypical, I feel this is an area where I am very lacking.
(Sidenote: would this be considered an appropriate used of the discussion section?)