Building Social Skills for Children with Autism

Building social skills for children with autism is crucial for an autistic children's inclusion, relationships, and overall wellbeing. However, social skills often require intentional teaching for autistic children to learn appropriate social conduct.

What Are Social Skills?

Social skills enable effective, suitable interaction with others through learned expected behaviors. This skillset includes capacities like:

• Play skills - sharing toys, taking turns

• Conversation skills - eye contact, listening cues

• Emotion skills - recognizing feelings in self and others

• Social problem-solving - resolving peer conflicts

With strong social skills, children understand how to act across various social situations from playdates to parties. This fosters positive friendships, reciprocal conversation, and a sense of belonging.

The Social Skills Challenge in Autism

By nature, autistic children long for friendships and communication. But social skills deficits frequently accompany autism, making socially suitable conduct difficult. For example, an autistic child may bluntly take another's toy without asking, violating social norms. They struggle to pick up on and follow unwritten social rules.

For neurotypical kids, regular socializing builds skills naturally. But autistic children require intentional teaching to overcome challenges understanding subtle social cues and the perspectives of others.

Intentional Techniques to Teach Social Skills

Here are research-backed techniques to intentionally build social skills in autistic children:

1) Reinforce positive social conduct with praise and rewards

Generously praise each instance of appropriate social behavior while specifically describing what they did well. Pairing tangible rewards like stickers can further motivate skill-building if needed. This consistently marks desired conduct to encourage repetition.

2) Use social stories and videos to introduce and review situations

Social stories present new skills simply, then ask comprehension questions. Reviewing videos of their interactions highlights strengths and areas for improvement from an outside perspective.

3) Role play scenarios to rehearse skills through repetition

Break down multi-step situations to role play skill components like responding to teasing. Practicing builds unfamiliar skills through low-pressure repetition. Guiding them to take peer roles also builds empathy.

4) Ensure consistency across people and settings

Use consistent prompt delivery for generalizing skills. Also rehearse skills in various settings for transfer. While social skills pickup takes time, persistent practice optimizes learning.

With intentionality and consistency, these techniques can unlock social capacities crucial to autistic children's inclusion, friendships and wellbeing.

References:

Scattone, D. (2007). Social skills interventions for children with autism. Psychology in the Schools, 44(7), 717-726.

Karkhaneh, M., Clark, B., Ospina, M. B., Seida, J. C., Smith, V., & Hartling, L. (2010). Social StoriesTM to improve social skills in children with autism spectrum disorder: A systematic review. Autism, 14(6), 641-662.