Tuesday 7 August 2012

Social Behaviours of Children with Autism: Dealing with Challenges 1

In the last post of the series, we came up with 4 case scenarios of challenges faced by children with autism when it comes to communication and social interaction. Upcoming posts, we are going to make use of these four scenarios to come up with some strategies and approaches to teach some social skills to help deal with the difficulties faced by your child.

For the ease of flow in this post, we will first recap each of the scenarios briefly and then look into the strategies suggestions.

Scenario 1:
Jeff, a boy of 7 years old always has difficulty initiating conversations with his peers. They think that he is weird as he is always talking about things that don't make sense to them or he will be regurgitating the same comments everytime he tries to strike up a conversation with them.

Strategies and Approaches
1) Increase the child's understanding of social situations. Social stories might help in exposing the child to various social settings that children might find themselves in. As social stories provide a concrete visual intepretation of social situations, the child is able to grasp the concept of social interaction more adequately. Social stories also provide a platform for parents and caregivers to explain to much better effect than explaning it verbally as many children with autism are more visual than auditory learners. If you are thinking of what social stories to use regarding social settings and interaction, The New Social Story Book by Carol Gray and Tony Attwood may be helpful in helping you get started in finding stories that address issues such as social understanding and friendship skills.

2) Improve on the child's comprehension skills. Use stories that focus on social comprehension themes. For example, stories that contain themes such as
  • Children with shared interests playing together
  • Sharing common goals (such as during play)
  • Saying hello and talking to new friends
  • Good and not good ways to talk to friends
  • Things some people like and dislike
While being read to, the child may be taught to answer questions using the 'wh' questions such as
  • What is the main character doing?
  • What does the main character want?
  • How does the main character feel?
  • Why does the main character feel this way?
  • What happened next?
  • How would you feel if you are the main character?
  • What would you do if you are the main character?
By doing so, you not only help improve your child's comprehension skills, but also train him to think from another person's perspective. Indeed, in order for effective social interaction and communication to take place, thinking from the other's perspective is a very important skill to master.

3) Teaching specific kinds of behaviours is crucial. As known from the scenario, Jeff is having difficulty maintaining conversations with his peers due to his lack of topic in engaging their interests. While stories can help the child with identifying emotions through comprehension, it is also important for him to have the skill to begin and maintain communication with his peers through language.

Discrete trial learning may be helpful in this case. For example, the adult can teach the child in a one to one setting, some conversation starter. These may include

  • Asking the adult a question about what the activity he is engaged in.
  • Complimenting the adult
  • Ask a question about what the adult likes doing
  • Make a comment about something that the adult might like such as movies, music or games.
Once the child is adept at using these conversation starters with an adult, the skill is then generalized across different people. Also, role playing can be carried out. The adult and child may take turns to pretend to be the friend being approached for a conversation. With the role reversal task, the child not only has to try and engage the other party with a conversation starter, but also be engaged in a two way communication when he is being appraoched.

As a resource to teach specific social behaviour, Jed Baker's "The Social Skills Picture Book Teaching play, emotion, and communication to children with autism" is a great book to have as it uses photographs that illustrate children engaging in real life social situations. It also includes practice questions pertaining to the pictures to target specific appropriate social behaviour and communication skills.

4) Engage the child with play and games. Games are great ways to teach social cues and rules. Start off with just one adult and the child. Then increase the number of adults over time. Once the child is adept at following the rules and cues with the adults, bring in an additional child and so on. Teach the child basic courtesy rules such as asking to join in and asking another person to join in the game. Games are a great way for communication between persons as they are all involved in one goal - having fun. Games encourage interaction in less obtrusive and less demanding manners through turn taking and sharing. There are many books out there that provide various different ideas for games with children on the spectrum in mind. For example, "101 Games and Activities for Children With Autism, Asperger and Sensory Processing Disorders" by Tara Delaney is divided into 10 chapters covering such areas as engagement, communication and social sense.

Do you have any questions regarding the suggestions listed above? Or do you have any comments as to how to provide some tried and successful solutions to the challenges listed by the above scenario? Please do not hesitate to email me at davensim@triumphantkids.com.

In the next post of the social behaviour series, we are going to carry on providing suggestions for the problems brought up in the other case scenarios. So please do come and visit soon!

Regards,
Daven


www.triumphantkids.com

Suggested Reading List:

New Social Story Book - Carol Gray & Tony Attwood 

The Social Skills Picture Book Teaching play, emotion, and communication to children with autism - Jed 
Baker

101 Games and Activities for Children With Autism, Asperger and Sensory Processing Disorders - Tara Delaney



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