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Social Skills for Teenagers and Adults with Asperger Syndrome
This resource provides practical strategies for helping teenagers and adults with Asperger Syndrome to navigate social skills, friendships and relationships at home and in the community. The author offers advice and useful strategies for tackling day-to-day problems such as visits to the dentist or the doctor, searching for a job, sorting out personal finances, going on vacation, and dealing with public transport, as well as more intimate topics such as dating and acquiring and maintaining friendships. The chapters are structured around real-life scenarios and the challenges they present, followed by step-by-step solutions and suggestions. A final section provides a set of practical self-help tools, which encourage the reader to note down answers to the questions posed and record personal reflections. This accessible guide will be essential reading for teenagers and adults with Asperger Syndrome and their families, teachers, therapists, counsellors, carers, social and health work professionals.
208 pages, Paperback
First published August 15, 2008
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159 people want to read
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Displaying 1 - 6 of 6 reviews
May 26, 2019
Mixed feelings about this book:
What I like: the step-by-step guidelines (e.g. in chapter 2) could be quite useful and helpful. The coverage has also extended beyond social skills to include family relations, care for one's physical and mental health, planning for education and training, and many more (although this could be a liability; see below).
What I don't like: the approach is somewhat academic and not that accessible--e.g. trying to define every single concept including "children", "adults", "social skills", etc; rather lengthy introductions and explanations of basic background research, and relatively short discussions on skill-development; and pretty rigid structure following exactly the same pattern (issue - example - explanation - solution). These might be favoured by some readers, but also feel rather mechanical.
In addition, the author's background is in Education but not in Psychology, and the book is largely based on secondary research. Some of the anecdotes collected in the book are concerned with young children, not really teens or adults. The broad scope of the book, albeit an advantage, has also significantly limited its discussion on "social skills" per se--the author might have stretched the topic a bit too far to cover many potential issues facing people with AS/ASD. This may come as a disappointment for people looking for a book that intensively focuses on the development of social skills. More important, part of the book seems to have included both Asperger's Syndrome and (low-functioning) Autism, and some of the coping mechanisms introduced by the author might be more suitable for people in the low-functioning end of Autism, but perhaps a bit too basic for those on the high-functioning spectrum?
Overall, it may help people with AS/ASD understand and deal with the common challenges in everyday life, but there exist some issues that have limited its practical value and intellectual rigour.
What I like: the step-by-step guidelines (e.g. in chapter 2) could be quite useful and helpful. The coverage has also extended beyond social skills to include family relations, care for one's physical and mental health, planning for education and training, and many more (although this could be a liability; see below).
What I don't like: the approach is somewhat academic and not that accessible--e.g. trying to define every single concept including "children", "adults", "social skills", etc; rather lengthy introductions and explanations of basic background research, and relatively short discussions on skill-development; and pretty rigid structure following exactly the same pattern (issue - example - explanation - solution). These might be favoured by some readers, but also feel rather mechanical.
In addition, the author's background is in Education but not in Psychology, and the book is largely based on secondary research. Some of the anecdotes collected in the book are concerned with young children, not really teens or adults. The broad scope of the book, albeit an advantage, has also significantly limited its discussion on "social skills" per se--the author might have stretched the topic a bit too far to cover many potential issues facing people with AS/ASD. This may come as a disappointment for people looking for a book that intensively focuses on the development of social skills. More important, part of the book seems to have included both Asperger's Syndrome and (low-functioning) Autism, and some of the coping mechanisms introduced by the author might be more suitable for people in the low-functioning end of Autism, but perhaps a bit too basic for those on the high-functioning spectrum?
Overall, it may help people with AS/ASD understand and deal with the common challenges in everyday life, but there exist some issues that have limited its practical value and intellectual rigour.
March 8, 2011
I have a problem with most social skills books I have seen. They seem to talk more about functioning in every day situations more than they do about social skills. I agree that functioning in everyday situations is important, and, in a way, is social skills, but I think Ms. Patrick missed the boat a bit. She does share some good social skills and tips for functioning, and I think that the book would be very helpful for most teens or adults with Asperger's Syndrome, but I would have liked to see more detailed descriptions of actual social interchanges and some of the actual skills that govern social interchanges for "neurotypical" individuals. I wouldn't hesitate to recommend this book to someone with Asperger's Syndrome, or to anyone who is wondering how to help another person with the disorder out. I just wish that there was a better resource out there for the detailed rules of social interactions. I'll keep looking.
May 10, 2012
A useful guide to social skills for adults and teens with asperger's syndrome. Some of the insights into why and how we do certain interactions were useful. Others were things I already knew, but going over them again was helpful.
A lot of things I struggle with were detailed in this book, and while a lot of the solutions given involve practice and aren't an instant fix, I feel like I benefited from reading it and would recommend it to others with aspergers.
Borrowed from the library.
A lot of things I struggle with were detailed in this book, and while a lot of the solutions given involve practice and aren't an instant fix, I feel like I benefited from reading it and would recommend it to others with aspergers.
Borrowed from the library.
September 21, 2014
This was ok, but more geared towards teenagers. I didn't think the advice was as helpful to adults. Especially adults that are set in their ways.
June 25, 2015
Definitely one of the books I'm keeping somewhere visible
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December 7, 2018I read the Swedish translation, which doesn't seem to be on Goodreads. This is not a bad book, but it's more geared toward teenagers than adults, despite the title.
Displaying 1 - 6 of 6 reviews