4Real Forums: Autism and Social skills

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Topic: Autism and Social skills

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KC in TX
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Joined: Aug 05 2005
Location: Texas
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Posts: 2621

Posted: March 09 2010 at 10:07pm \| IP Logged

I'm thinking it would be helpful if some of my son's friends were taught how to help steer his conversations away from the constants. How would I do this? I'm sure our ABA therapist would be more than willing to help. I know I'd need to do this without his presence.

Do you think it's a good idea? I don't necessarily want to spotlight his special needs but as the other boys are getting older and more cognizant of his "differentness" it's harder and harder for him to interact.

I'm at a serious loss on how to proceed.

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KC,
wife to Ben (10/94),
Mama to LB ('98)
Michaela ('01)
Emma ('03)
Jordan ('05)
And, my 2 angels, Rose ('08) and Mark ('09)

The Cabbage Patch

mom3aut1not
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Joined: May 21 2005
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Posts: 757

Posted: March 10 2010 at 1:16pm \| IP Logged

KC,

I would take a two-prong approach. I would talk to the boys (with their parents' permission of course), using one or two of the newer books (maybe a book like Can I Tell You About Asperger Syndrome? by Jude Welton) to help them understand his difficulties. I would also talk to my son (and he probably will resist this idea-- perhaps a social story would help) about how most people have a limited interest in such and such a topic. I would also encourage him to talk to his father or me about his interest if it is sufficiently esoteric.

Later on, you might teach the "escape clause" -- a phrase inserted into a conversation to give the NT person a chance to escape the topic since ASD people have a lot of trouble discerning when they are boring the living daylights out of someone.

If his interests are not too esoteric (like the kid who loved to talk about the volume of Volvo engines and albinism), perhaps he could find some like-minded souls to talk to? My oldest ASD child (along with her father) went online to discuss Tolkien in a newsgroup. It was good for her, and we had no problems. Now she is madly knitting all the time, but that interest actually gives her something to discuss with strangers!

My middle ASD child really has trouble with odd topics so this is an area where we are still working. My youngest ASD child has no clue, and we don't want to inhibit him too much yet -- his language skills are hard won. We do try to gently tell him that the other Cub Scouts are not fond of Blue's Clues. <sigh> He doesn't understand why, but then we try to distract him with something the other boys do like.... legos, Mario Bros., etc.

Have you seen any of the books by Jed Baker? I love his books.

HTH a bit.

In Christ,

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Deborah

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