What are some other tools or approaches that can help autistic children develop crucial social skills?

Expecting autistic children to master skills based entirely on the neurotypical perception range that is rather different from autistic perception norms, is NOT REASONABLE!

A rational approach teaches us autistics to recognize moving ahead that our version of obvious will never magically align to neurotypicals. Then we can find ways to navigate around inevitable neurotypical-biased social interaction relatability problems, instead of our foolishly attempting to unrealistically recognize or use neurotypical perception based social subtext.

Autistic natural sensory ranges are absolutely not faulty, but they are always autistic. They are not wired to pick up neurotypical instinctive perception patterns any more than the reverse. Autistic senses are already are too busy picking up normal autistic perception ranges, and yes they are substantially different from many common neurotypical perceptions from birth. Most do perceive much of the same human environments, but with very different biological versions of perception sorting, priorities, and thought mechanics.