psst...excuse me..

I have a 5 year old little sister and she is a ball of energy. She's very enthusiastic, loves talking, constantly asking questions, loves soccer and she thrives on social attention. She's constantly urging us to look at things that are interesting to her and asking us questions about it. She's constantly engaging us and seeking to share her excitement. I am always so amazed with her.

My amazement lies in how hard we work to teach these skills to children with autism. Yet, my five year old sister has learned social contingencies just through observation. It is truly incredible. Once again, like everything else, I start breaking it down in my head. In learning social contingencies there's so many pre-requisite skills a child must have for example, eye-contact, generalized imitation skills, pointing, labelling, responding to initiations, following rules, giving/receiving directions and most importantly, learning the value of social contingencies.

To illustrate my point better, here's another story about my sister.  Yesterday, at the grocery store,  she saw a man in a wheelchair. She stared at him briefly and then pulled me aside to make sure the gentleman in the wheelchair was not looking at her. She pulled my arm down so she could get closer to my ear and whispered, "why is that man in the chair?". How does a typical 5 year old know that if she says that loud, she might offend him or hurt his feelings? Where has she learned to whisper? or to pull my arm down discretely to get my attention making sure the gentleman was not looking at her? Where has she learned this social contingency? Through observation, imitation and perspective taking.

Children diagnosed with autism invariably experience difficulties with social skills (McConell, 2002). From an early age children diagnosed with autism find it challenging to initiate and maintain social interactions with peers and adults. This impairment in social interaction in one of criteria used to diagnose autism ( American Psychiatric Association, 2000).

Important social skills that a child with autism should know are:

1) Conversational skills ( commenting, asking questions, imitating, initiating conversation, joining in)
2) Co-operative social behaviors (helping others, including others, following directions/rules)
3) Non-verbal skills (giving/receiving affection, smiling, Identifying emotions)
4) Pivotal behaviors ( eye contact, joint attention, perspective taking, empathy)
5) Play skills (turn taking, sharing, sportsmanship, pretend play)

Every social skill intervention used should be individualized to a child's needs. If a child has limited verbal repertoire, perhaps it will be more useful to teach you child eye contact, smiling appropriately, getting attention appropriately, sharing, joint attention, empathy, helping other, waiting, etc. If your child has significant language, social interaction can be more focused on play, sharing, joint attention, sportsmanship, etc. For the next few days, I will be discussing each component of social interaction and will be giving you an overview on how to teach your child specific skills based on your child's verbal repertoire.

Any comments and questions are welcome !

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