Contextual Interpersonal Calibration (CIC): An Iterative Method for Autistic Adults Decoding Implicit Communicative Codes in Neurotypical-Dominant Environments

Abstract

Contextual Interpersonal Calibration (CIC) is a method for autistic adults decoding implicit communicative codes in neurotypical-majority environments, formalized here as an explicit, iterative alternative to communicative intuition. The method proceeds through a recursive cycle of observation, local hypothesis, register selection, and falsification, tracked across six operational variables including cognitive cost. CIC positions itself relative to Communication Accommodation Theory, single-case ABAB experimental design, and Bayesian models of social inference, combining elements of each into a procedure usable in real time without training in any of the three fields. The method functions as a bridge rather than a permanent adaptation: it represents only the autistic person's half of a relational approach, with reciprocity from the interlocutor tracked as a variable subject to the same falsification discipline as any other hypothesis. CIC is presented as an operational proposal grounded in nearly fifty years of the author's own recursive practice; the literature cited documents the communicative problem it responds to and the theoretical precedents the procedure draws on, rather than validating the procedure's own efficacy.