Help on High Functioning Autistic, Social Skills

[BusyMommy]

I was wondering if anyone out there could give me some tips on programs that are helpful in teaching social skills to Autistic children. My 8-DS has high functioning autism and is really struggling with his social skills and repetitive behaviors.

[JFSinIL]

http://www.thegraycenter.org/

 

Carol Gray has written many books of simple, easy to use Social Stories for all occasions. Check out the above link for more info! I think she has videos, too. Here is a ink directly to the bit on the website with the books:

 

http://www.thegraycenter.org/store/index.cfm?fuseaction=category.display&category_ID=2&CFID=1588656&CFTOKEN=65249705

 

If you search for social stories at Amazon you will find heaps of books by Gray and others!

[BusyMommy]

Have you tried these yourself and saw improvement? I have purchased multiple things and don't want to invest anymore unless I get actual feedback from an actual user.

[Pam H]

Yesterday, our ST was here and she related to me part of a recent conference she attended. The guest speaker was Taylor Crowe. He's a 26yo young man with autism. One of the things his parents did was to ask all of the teachers, friends, parents of friends, coaches, etc. to help them with social situations. They must be trusted friends, etc. They just said, "If my ds does something that out of the ordinary or strange, please just tell him what the right way to handle that situation socially."

[JFSinIL]

I know of, through our local yahoogroup for parents of kids on the spectrum here in Illinois, kids who have benefited from use of the Gray materials. It depends, I think, on the kid - my guy could care less about learning social skills :-( (he is not Aspergers, but LKSV/PDD/NOS - an alphabet soup unto himself! :-)

[dalynnrmc]

I found a fantastic resource at our library in a book titled "Navigating the Social World." It's subtitled something similar to 'a curriculum for those with HFA, AS, and other similar disorders.' It actually has step-by-step lessons and exercises about operating in the social world; the first lesson is about helping the child to recognize the emotion of being happy. It's great. We haven't yet been able to implement it (trying to get all of our "regular" school work done on a regular basis before adding this), but I'm excited about it and can tell that it will be effective with my children.

 

I can't recall the author off the top of my head... Dr. Jeanne or Jenine or Jeannie or something like that.. maybe Atwood? Apologies.

 

Ah, nevermind. Found it at Amazon - hope it helps! (By Dr. Jeanette McAfee with a fwd by Dr. Tony Attwood)

[Laurie]

For high functioning children, I'm not sure you have to buy a lot of "special needs" (and often over -priced) stuff. I've always purchased "regular" children's etiquette books at the bookstore that are age-appropriate for my children. (I've made up our own "social stories", but I've never bought anything to do this.) Another book that is helpful to have is a dictionary of idioms/expressions...this has helped my dd learn to recognize (and not take literally) some common expressions.

 

I don't believe that they're going to learn "social skills" in a vacuum, so we do our own "community therapy". They learn to talk to people in real-life situations, and although they still aren't socially outgoing by any means they're getting better at talking to people in real-life settings...the lady at the video rental store, the man at the coin shop (my ds is a coin collector), etc. Senior citizens are often good listeners, bless their hearts!

 

Besides learning rules of etiquette /conversational skills, I really want my children to have COMPASSION for others so we do our own little service projects. We also talk a lot about The Golden Rule, bullying, etc. My dd (10) still likes Highlights magazine, so the monthly feature "Goofus and Gallant" is another good resource for us. And of course my dc fight with each other so our home is a great learning lab for conflict resolution!

 

I've also been buying books about autism and Asperger Syndrome for my dc to read to help them better understand their strengths and weaknesses. If you're interested in titles, let me know and I'll hunt them down.

[teachmom3]

The trick is that these must be written correctly, or they can backfire. One can't just simply put one's own agenda onto a piece of paper, change it to first person, and expect the child to own it.

 

I'm no expert in this. Our child was (and is) very compliant, so with our social stories we could almost do what I just said above not to do, and they would probably still have worked.

 

Social stories were a useful tool our ds with hfa when he was younger, although we did not use them as extensively as others have.

[happygrrl]

For high functioning children, I'm not sure you have to buy a lot of "special needs" (and often over -priced) stuff. I've always purchased "regular" children's etiquette books at the bookstore that are age-appropriate for my children. (I've made up our own "social stories", but I've never bought anything to do this.) Another book that is helpful to have is a dictionary of idioms/expressions...this has helped my dd learn to recognize (and not take literally) some common expressions.

 

 

 

This works for us as well. We have been going through a manners book and rehearsing the situations where the manners are applicable, and it has made a difference (my ds is an aspie and likely has other undiagnosed issues. It's a wild ride, isn't it?:))

[JamBerry]

You might want to look into RDI (Relationship Development Intervention, http://www.rdiconnect.com). RDI addresses the core deficits of autism, such as experience sharing, flexible thinking, dynamic analysis, etc. It begins with simple participation in simple co-regulatory activities, with a more experienced Guide (usually the parent) leading the less experienced Apprentice. Co-regulation preceded self-regulation in NT development, and physical co-regulatory activities are the prototype for much more complex co-regulatory activities such as a mutually meaningful 2way conversation with someone. RDI goes way beyond being a social skills program, but it most definitely develops social skills (and social reasoning and social relating and thinking and collaborating and more).

 

There's also a great yahoo group for folks using or learning about RDI that a group of veteran parents started up, if you're interested: http://groups.yahoo.com/group/Autism-remediation-for-our-children/

And there's another great yahoo group for folks who are homeschooling and doing RDI (RDI is VERY homeshcool friendly): http://groups.yahoo.com/group/HS-RDI/

 

HTH

Pam

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