Building Social Relationships

Book Description

Parents and professionals often ask how to teach social skills and how to design social skills programs for children with ASD. Often they are seeking answers to basic questions such as “where do we start” and “what strategies do we use?” This book addresses the need for social programming for children and adolescents with ASD by providing a comprehensive five-step model. The model incorporates the following five steps: assess social functioning, distinguish between skill acquisition and performance deficits, select intervention strategies, implement intervention, and evaluate and monitor progress. This model will also show you how to organize and make sense of the myriad of social skills strategies and resources currently available to parents and professionals – it is not meant to replace other resources or strategies, but synthesize them into one comprehensive program.
Excerpt:

This is the point where I share some sobering news: There is no single intervention strategy that will teach the child with ASD to be successful socially! But don’t fret, several strategies can be used in combination to teach the child to be successful socially. The social skills strategies that I implement primarily come from a behavioral, cognitive, cognitive-behavioral, and social-learning theory perspective.

In the field of autism spectrum disorders, we professionals sometimes spend so much time arguing about what path to take, and not to take, that we often leave parents confused and frustrated regarding available service options. In social skills instruction a multitude of effective intervention strategies can be used to enhance and foster social success for children with ASD. The trick is to select strategies that are most effective for a given child’s needs. Interventions that work for one child may not work well with another child. I spend countless hours reviewing the social skills strategies and programs that are on the market, searching for strategies to add to my ever-expanding intervention tool chest. In reality, it is a notebook of strategies and ideas that I keep. I recommend that you do the same.