From Zero to Sixty Teaching Social Skills to Children with Autism Spectrum Disorders

Working with children with Autism Spectrum Disorders is an experience unlike any other. Children with Autism Spectrum Disorders are extraordinary and unique in such a profound and positive way. They are gifted, intelligent, creative, and sensitive. Despite their many gifts and talents, a great majority of children with Autism Spectrum Disorders, or ASD, lack the expressive language skills needed to verbalize their distinct talents. Individuals with Autism Spectrum Disorder are concrete thinkers and can excel when information is presented to them in a visual manner. Routine and scripts are also essential educational components. Included within this realm are picture systems and social stories. Social stories provide the individual with ASD a connection to the deficit area by providing a concrete example. Years of experience working with this population has shown the more specific and concrete the example, the better the outcome will be. Stories should be related to common experiences an individual with ASD can relate to because the familiarity of the situation will provide the needed connection to foster learning. Within the learning process of attention, encoding, rehearsal and performance familiarity through connections with newly learned information is paramount. The reason for this is the rigidity in thinking Autism Spectrum Disorders creates. When presented with a new or unfamiliar situation, an exorbitant amount of anxiety is often experienced simply because the new information and/or experience are a break in routine and/or are unfamiliar. This anxiety can result in the illustration of behaviors the non-disabled peer finds strange, thus furthering social isolation and reinforcing the stress and new environment as stressful. In order to break this cycle of stress-> repetitive/ritualistic odd behavior -> reinforcer, it is imperative social skills interventions transpire. Social stories geared toward common experiences and shared problems that the population of individuals with ASD is presently experiencing. Each chapter contains a topic relatable to students with ASD in secondary education, primarily middle school. Each chapter contains activities students can use to describe their problems and/or experiences, illustrate their understanding of the concept, and rehearse newly learned information. Answer keys are provided at the end of the book. Answers to the individual questions will vary. The answer key should be used as a guide for instruction. Once each child is able to identify the antecedent (what caused the behavior or problem), they will be able to learn and apply replacement behaviors deemed more socially acceptable, thus increasing social aptitude.