Developing Social Skills: Practical Ideas for teaching children with Autism Spectrum Disorder and other developmental delays

by Sue Larkey, Gay von Ess

There are many books on Social Skills ... this book is a 'gift' for busy teachers and family in complex environments, that know they need to teach social skills but also know it needs to fit into their hectic schedule. Written by teachers for teachers and anyone implementing Social Skills into their programme. Full of photocopiable worksheets, images, plans to SAVE YOU HOURS and also 100s of ideas of how to introduce 'micro' social skills teaching moments that get results. This book is a starting point for teaching and encouraging social interactions and skills.It will be a useful concrete and visual resource which when coupled with videoing, roleplay and modelling will help early childhood and primary age children with an ASD tobetter understand the social world around them.Use this book as a workbook for yourself and to make a social skills handbook for thechild you teach. Space has been left in the How to Teach column in each section foryou to add other ideas to help teach and reinforce a particular skill. Photocopy oradapt the social scripts to meet your child's particular needs.REMEMBERWhen introducing a social script the adult will need to go through the script with thechild several times the first day. The story should be readily available to the childonce introduced and should be revisited each day for at least a week. Then the adultinteraction with the story can be gradually faded out, but the story must remainavailable to the child. It is a good idea to print or photocopy a copy of each story sothat both home and school are using the same approach.The worksheets in this book should be adapted and presented to the child on a numberof occasions. Including particular issues occurring at school or home will increase therelevance of the activities and thus their value.It is critical to keep in mind that learning social skills is a life-long activity for all ofus. The social behaviours expected of a three year old are quite different from thoseexpected of a seven year old, a teenager or an adult. Although some formal time needsto be allocated for teaching social skills in the classroom, all adults (teachers, otherschool personnel and parents) need to be conscious of utilising opportunities as theypresent themselves, to teach and reinforce appropriate social behaviours. Spending 10minutes daily to point out either appropriate interactions or review something thatwent awry is the most valuable gift an adult can give children with an ASD.

104 pages, Paperback

Published July 1, 2010