Lack of understanding social interactions, and lack of ability to understand how others feel in a given situation are marks of autism though.

My impression is that what people are accusing of being "pedo comments" are more a result of him not really understanding power dynamics between people, and not understanding the lack of judgment that kids and young teens have, to the point of not really understanding that a kid is literally incapable of sexual consent.

I also heard he walked back a lot of comments after having talked to a psychologist that laid down some hard facts for him regarding the matter of sexuality and the psyche of kids.