A lot of what etiquette schools teach is exactly that. So are most "job training" programs in the US ("don't smell bad, don't insult your interviewers, etc." -

A lot of what etiquette schools teach is exactly that. So are most "job training" programs in the US ("don't smell bad, don't insult your interviewers, etc." - it's really a big joke; I recommend Lafer's The Job Training Charade if you want to understand what's going to happen to the US work force and economy in the next 20 years). Your example of skills training for autism is probably the best. There's also the self-help and pick-up/dating coach industries. Every single corporate team-building workshop. Basically all of psychology. Social skills can certainly be taught through formal education (and programmed into robots, too). They do need to be practiced also, but claiming they're not like other kinds of information is the same baseless anthropocentrism argument the conservatives keep pulling out to deny that people weren't like apes, evolution didn't happen, god exists etc. etc.