I'm autistic, diagnosed at 45. At 4, I didn't really understand anything about the world. I could communicate factually, in that I could easily transfer information in both directions, but I didn't play particularly imaginatively and I had no idea about interpreting emotional signals; as a result, most interactions with others were fairly unsuccessful, and with other children my age it was a complete disaster. I was, however, starting to figure out that I could learn about these things from TV and film, so for most of primary school I was quite obsessed with watching adult-level films (kids' TV was useless for that). I had no more than two or three friends in the whole time I was at primary school.
I also had to be taught how to function in the world, and my mother taught me scripts and the beginnings of masking (autism has run in her side of the family for a long time, and the consequences of being discovered in those days were...extreme) for all the common social interactions. From basics like "hello" to more complex stuff like weather-related small talk etc, I learned it all by heart. I was a voracious reader, so she'd pick out books that had a lot of that kind of interaction in them, but had also been made into TV shows and films - so I could relate the words that I could remember to the physical nature of the interaction.
Worth noting that I was the stereotypical mathematically-gifted kid, and I have a gift for conceptualising systems (computers, electronics, mechanics etc).
Secondary school gave me a chance to change my approach - I figured out that some skills were more socially advantageous than others, so I put a lot of effort into putting the ones I already had (playing guitar, and maths) front-and-centre to make myself useful to other kids, which made me quite popular. A few years later (around 14) I realised that, socially-speaking, alcohol is an amazing leveller - put bluntly, everybody's an idiot when they're drunk, and my social shortcomings became invisible in a large group of similarly-afflicted folk.
Secondary school was probably the most successful period in my life, up until recently. I got straight As, I had an active social life, I'd assembled a great set of scripts and masking strategies that could get me through any social interactions, I had a part-time job on the side, I even went abroad with my friend group a couple of times, and I was generally very happy. In fact, I even managed to fool my mother into thinking that I'd grown out of it.
When I went to university, I completely fell apart. I couldn't cope with the loss of the social group I'd spent 7 years building. I coasted academically, to the point where I barely graduated. My social skills atrophied, I couldn't deal with making new friends (I couldn't even find a group to latch onto - there were simply too many people to even figure out where to look). Fell into a deep depression and even half-heartedly attempted suicide. It took me years to get over that, and I survived that time by masking more heavily than I ever have in my life.
So, in answer to your question...yes, it gets better. Sometimes, it gets much better - but don't get complacent, no matter how good it gets...any big change can be catastrophic without careful management. If I'd known about my autistic nature, I would have put a lot more effort into smoothing the changes in my life. I got overconfident, as did my parents, and it nearly cost me dearly.
Hope that helps a bit. Obviously, there's a lot more to say, but...not in a forum post ;)