Can learning difficulties affect social behaviour?

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Not sure if ''sociology'' is a word, but I can't think of another word for this.

I was just wondering. I don't mean it affect how they socialise the same as us - I just mean can their learning difficulties sometimes make them come across as horrible people, even though they weren't trying to be horrible?

I have a cousin who has learning difficulties. She fell behind at school in every lesson, and needed extra help with her learning. She always could make friends better than I could, (although she was a shy person), but she never seemed to mix with the right people for her. I could tell she struggled a little bit (not as much as me), and she wasn't seen on her own as much as me, but she always had found it hard to follow conversations, because she never knew as much as what other children of the same age did, because of her learning difficulties.

I also knew another person with learning difficulties, and she was very awkward to get along with (I'm not friends with this girl any more because of it). Although I can be socially awkward, I still know what's right and what's wrong to say to people, to avoid hurting their feelings. I learnt that a long time ago. But this girl always said nasty things, and she jumped from one friend another (when she knew she had chased her current friend away, she moved onto another friend straight away). She seemed good at finding and making friends, but she just could not keep them without saying upsetting things - then she always wondered why she had no friends. And she never knew how to empathise either. If somebody had a problem, she would just yell, ''oh stop moaning!'' and not care, but when she had a problem (usually what she brings on herself) she would yell, ''can't you see I'm upset?! !!'' And then would ramble on and on about this problem she had most probably brought on herself.
I stopped being friends with her immediately, because even I figured out that she did not seem to know how to treat friends properly. I'm the other way around - I struggle to make friends, but when I do somehow make friends, I know how to keep them, but sometimes I can be ''too nice'', and then I get took advantage of. But when I am being toom advantage of, I immediately know it, and I come away from their friendship. But this girl seems to know how to find and make friends, but is always a bit too assertive with them, and she bosses them about until they get fed up.

So do you think some people with learning difficulties have some sort of clash with socialising too? I think it does a bit. Also people with learning difficulties can be very immature. This girl (who I just mentioned) was very immature for her age. She is 21 now, but acts like a 13-year-old when it comes to friendships.

(I'm just thinking aloud, as usual) My ex gf had similar characteristics to the girl in your example. Her behavior as you described reminds me more of a person who has other personality traits besides learning difficulties, say, lack of reciprocity and empathy and total absence of acknowledging thereof may indicate some schizophrenic disorder IMHO, I'm not sure, I should make a little research on the subject.

On the other hand, I can see how learning disability could affect the ability to socialize with people. If they see you know less than them (books, themes, academic knowledge in general) and at the same time you are behind of them knowing about actual events too (social news, tv shows, sport events, gossips, politics, etc.), it's not at all unlikely they reject you because of it, especially when you try to be bossy with them.

In my case, I would say my memory doesn't retain so much academic knowledge, even more likely I can't recall informations from my memory in time during a conversation, and the second type of knowledge in the above paragraph in almost totally foreign to me. I had often been wondering in my life if this would be the reason I can not sustain conversations like others can, or I just don't know how to deal with people. I'm unsure, right now I would say both.

My cousin is dyslexic and naturally extroverted, but due to learning issues she had bad social skills until the age of 10 when she had the official diagnosis of dyslexia. After that her social skills improved dramatically in little time. Now she is still a woman with amazing social skills.