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Posted (edited)

I've gone through this book twice with my older two autistics and they really enjoyed it and communicated that they learned a lot. But with my oldest entering his teen years and being the only boy, dh wants to be more intentional about teaching what will help ds be more successful socially and relationally. But dh needs it all spelled out for him, because dh is ALSO autistic (and ADD with some significant EF struggles) -- so he's hoping to navigate some of this WITH ds, but he needs a roadmap (i.e., some good books) to guide him. He can't just wing it, because he's still learning all this stuff himself (he scoffed at the part of the book that talked about nonverbal communication and body language, convinced that no one could EVER tell someone else's mood "just" by their body language.... and then looked at me flabbergasted when I disagreed with him!! lol)  It needs to be something he can just start and do - not a lot of training or prep involved. We have a lot of social thinking stuff (books, games, etc.), but dh would prefer something more like the "Secret Book" - lists of rules and explanations of each.

It's been a long time since I read Grandin's Unwritten Rules of Social Relationships, so I don't know if that would be a good fit or not. But I feel like we need a 10 volume set of stuff like the Secret book of Social rules, but in even more detail (an entire book on hygience, an entire book joking with people and sportsmanship, etc.) Does anyone have suggestions that would be good / open-and-go for an older autistic looking to mentor/work with a younger (teen) autistic, but needing some guidance?

ETA: After scouring other threads, I also have these on my goodreads list for them:
Social Rules for kids: The top 100 social rules kids need to succeed
The social skills picture book: for high school and beyond
Been there, done that, try this!
The Fine Art of Small Talk: How to start a conversation, keep it going....

Edited by 4KookieKids
Posted
1 hour ago, 4KookieKids said:

convinced that no one could EVER tell someone else's mood "just" by their body language...

Maybe your dh needs to back up and work on his interoception. 

https://www.amazon.com/Talk-Step-Step-Conversation-Conversational/dp/1942197322/ref=sr_1_3?crid=2W2BD8I2IH9R1&dchild=1&keywords=talk+with+me+mataya&qid=1633147402&sprefix=talk+with+me%2Caps%2C182&sr=8-3  Your lists look better than mine, lol. I've got this, but it's a framework. Have you thought about hiring an SLP to work via tele on conversation? Might be blind leading the blind for dad to be doing this. I will say this Mataya book connected dots for me on how narrative language and conversation connect.

1 hour ago, 4KookieKids said:

an entire book on hygience, an entire book joking with people and sportsmanship, etc.)

I guess those haven't been issues here. We enrolled him in sports with good coaches, so they modeled good sportsmanship. You could try the Y for that, anything recreational or intro. For hygiene, so far ok there too. We just buy products and require their use. Jokes are harder, because they involve social thinking, language, etc. 

Have you looked at the book lists at the Social Thinking site? I admire your enthusiasm. 🙂 

Posted
9 hours ago, PeterPan said:

https://www.amazon.com/Talk-Step-Step-Conversation-Conversational/dp/1942197322/ref=sr_1_3?crid=2W2BD8I2IH9R1&dchild=1&keywords=talk+with+me+mataya&qid=1633147402&sprefix=talk+with+me%2Caps%2C182&sr=8-3  Your lists look better than mine, lol. I've got this, but it's a framework. Have you thought about hiring an SLP to work via tele on conversation? Might be blind leading the blind for dad to be doing this. I will say this Mataya book connected dots for me on how narrative language and conversation connect.

I'll look into these. Thanks!

9 hours ago, PeterPan said:

Have you looked at the book lists at the Social Thinking site? I admire your enthusiasm. 🙂 

We have a bunch of the social thinking materials at home, but I'm not sure what book lists you're referring to?

9 hours ago, PeterPan said:

Jokes are harder, because they involve social thinking, language, etc. 

Yes, I know jokes are hard. And I feel like they're really becoming a problem, because he's trying to be funny so much more often, and things often fall flat. Or worse, they're just hurtful/offensive, and we have to correct and explain what went wrong. And he just gets really down/discouraged, feeling that no one gets him or his jokes, and then withdraws. It's a bit heart-wrenching, because we know he's trying so hard.

Posted
16 minutes ago, 4KookieKids said:

We have a bunch of the social thinking materials at home, but I'm not sure what book lists you're referring to?

They sell books beyond their curriculum that are books to hand to the person, books to read with the person. Use their pull down menus and you'll see. A lot of those were in our library system.

 

17 minutes ago, 4KookieKids said:

Yes, I know jokes are hard. And I feel like they're really becoming a problem, because he's trying to be funny so much more often, and things often fall flat. Or worse, they're just hurtful/offensive, and we have to correct and explain what went wrong. And he just gets really down/discouraged, feeling that no one gets him or his jokes, and then withdraws. It's a bit heart-wrenching, because we know he's trying so hard.

Again, what about some SLP hours? 

We did a book on practical jokes when ds was younger and it got him over that hurdle by showing him what good humor was. https://www.amazon.com/Pranklopedia-Funniest-Grossest-Craziest-Not-Mean/dp/0761189963/ref=sr_1_10?dchild=1&keywords=pranks+for+kids&qid=1633182850&s=books&sr=1-10  Here's the one we used, but there are plenty more books like this. 

I also did some looking into jokes, how you'd teach them, what the categories were. You can google it and I can see if I have some of the links. 

Do you know what kind of jokes he's wanting? There was a stage where my ds just wanted a joke, so he'd say something that didn't even make sense. That, for him, what a language deficit. When we worked on the auditory processing, he finally started processing the *bits* of language (phonemes, pitch, etc.) enough that he could actually get why word play and language based jokes work. NOW his jokes that are language based are funny.

The challenge is if the jokes are more toward social thinking, irony, sarcasm, etc. that's more rough. But can he do word play jokes? Is it possible that's an area of weakness for him that would be easier to remediate? 

My ds was hyperlexic for a while (a dyslexic hyperlexic, yes, lol) and Cartwright talks about the difficulties of jokes in her book Word Callers. But in our house the understanding of jokes came naturally with enough auditory processing work. It's not gonna help with SNL, haha, because those are on a different level and about all kinds of social thinking and inferences and references. But kid jokes are often just language.

  • 5 weeks later...
Posted
On 10/1/2021 at 11:11 PM, PeterPan said:

Maybe your dh needs to back up and work on his interoception. 

https://www.amazon.com/Talk-Step-Step-Conversation-Conversational/dp/1942197322/ref=sr_1_3?crid=2W2BD8I2IH9R1&dchild=1&keywords=talk+with+me+mataya&qid=1633147402&sprefix=talk+with+me%2Caps%2C182&sr=8-3  Your lists look better than mine, lol. I've got this, but it's a framework. Have you thought about hiring an SLP to work via tele on conversation? Might be blind leading the blind for dad to be doing this. I will say this Mataya book connected dots for me on how narrative language and conversation connect.

I guess those haven't been issues here. We enrolled him in sports with good coaches, so they modeled good sportsmanship. You could try the Y for that, anything recreational or intro. For hygiene, so far ok there too. We just buy products and require their use. Jokes are harder, because they involve social thinking, language, etc. 

Have you looked at the book lists at the Social Thinking site? I admire your enthusiasm. 🙂 

Kerry Mataya is my dd’s social skills group coach. 🙂

Posted (edited)
2 hours ago, drjuliadc said:

What did you do for auditory processing?

Go to therapro or proedinc and order their kits. We also have an SLP now who is doing some stuff. 

 

Edited by PeterPan

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