Absolutely. The autistic person will effectively understand social cues only at an academic level, after effort teaching him or her. Autists can also be shy or

Absolutely. The autistic person will effectively understand social cues only at an academic level, after effort teaching him or her. Autists can also be shy or not, by the way. They can interact freely and happily with others socially but miss cues in ways a shy person won't. For example, if a shy person has overcome their shyness and their play partner starts crying the shy person will empathize and possibly even try to get help, while the autistic person is as likely to simply walk away because their play partner is no longer providing stimulus. It's difficult to describe in a comment on HN, but even mildly autistic behavior in this regard is very obviously different from normal behavior.