Sharing My Overview On Social Skill For Children With ASD

Social interactions are a problem for all children with ASD, no matter what their cognitive level happen to be. They don't initiate interactions as much as typically developing children do.


Children with ASD have difficulty interpreting tone of voice, gesture, and body posture. They find other children's motive, intentions and emotion difficult to understand. Their communciation may be one sided, repetitive, and lacking in true reciprocity. Some children with ASD may talk too much, while others may be passive and quiet.


At each stage of development, there are new social challenges to meet, just like my little STAR. I have to count on SLT, OT and special educators to direct teach him on some social ideas and rules to him or help him engage in social problem solving. Direct teaching of social rules and strategies, and later on, active problem solving are some effective ways of approach that my little STAR may benefit more consider his attentional learning style and strength in 1-1 learning.


Making use of social stories to explain and illustrate social rules and concepts, so as to help him learn to deal more appropriately with a social situation that is problematic for him. It can be written with supporting pictures as well as words, whatever will make the ideas clear to the child, given his language level.


In classroom where group is concern, it is important to observe and seek opportunity to offer the children interaction challenges such as :-


1) Teach him to stop consistently doing something when asked to do so. Able to wait for peer in a group activities.


2) Encourage the child to pay attention to other peers by saying "look", asking "what" question to arouse his interest in social interaction and share soe of his time together.


3) Create awareness and understanding that he can ask for help when havjng trouble socially.

4) Teach him how to expand his language and use of sentence construction to benefit from a group situation with other children.


I am hopeful that once he understands that to change a social situation, he will need to be willing to make some changes in his own behavior and to continue elevate his social skills and reinforcing his group learning road map. He may take more time than other children to acquire the social skill set but does the educational system able to accomodate him with more time he needs.


Whatever form of intervention takes, they are guided by the child's cognitive strengths and weaknessess, as well as his social skill's deficit. Acknowledging the child's learning style, using his strengths to compensate for or remediate his weaknessness is what make the social skill intervention effective.


Once the child acquires the social skill, we may encourage him to use it often until it become fluent or natural, only way out is through repeated and frequent practise. Once he crosses that milestones, I believe that he will be able to pay attention to other children and their reaction and have confidence to apply them on new situation.


Winners Statement;-


" Down the road of life, you can either see obstacles coming and run the other way, or you can take these obstacles as they come, fight your way through them, and be stronger because of them."

Coping With Parental Stress

I had a great time once again attending to parent communication night for end of Term 1 tonight.


One of the topic shared was that of Parental Stress and ways of coping.

Really useful and informative which I shall take this blessing to recall & share:-

1) Not all stress is bad, there are healthy & unhealthy stress


2) Stress occurs when we have to adapt to change in our environment, in a life event or situation, whether the change is positive or negative


3) Stress is subjective which varies from every individual


4) The most common factors that can increase stress include lack of predictability, lack of control(or choice), or putting too much pressure on oneself over a prolong period

5) Increased stress and inability to cope often result in one of two broad response to fustration: fight(agression or anger) or flight(depression or withdrawal)


6) Continue stress can take its toll on us physically and actually wear down the immune system, resulting in deterioration in health and making us more vulnerable to illness


7) some TIPS to over come STRESS

T: Take stock to understand and recognize the symptoms of stress in yourself as parents and in your child
I: Innoculating against stress by focusing on helpful techniques of preparation, relaxation & rehearsal to alleviate stress symptoms for parents themselves and their child
P: Possess time, stress is inevitable but how you cope with it is more important:- attitude, expectation & beliefs
S: Strengthen relationship to understand and build trust to enhance co-operation and support.


We can take a significant step to reduce stress by increasing our knowledge about the special education process which in turn can help increase the feeling of empowerment. By knowing what to expect(predictability), parents can gain greater control over their child's educational possibilities by being a pro-active member of their child special education team. Understanding their child's disability and how to effectively manage behavior problems can also be instrumental in reducing potentially stress situation.

8) Some of the common resourceful ways of reducing stress include:- reading, sharing, positive self reflection, listen to music, connecting to positive people, religion, "me time" indulging in doing things you desire or feel happy about, doing volunteer or charity work etc...

9) There are inappropriate ways of coping with stress which involve withdrawal, avoidance, denial, acting out and blaming others.


10) Positive ways of coping with stressful experience results from looking at the stressful experience as a learning experiences. Knowing what to expect and preparing for the expected are healthy ways of using stressful experiences to motivate change in a positive way.


Winners Statement:-
Accept that some days you're the pigeon, And some days you're the statue.