Search This Blog

Teaching Interpersonal Relationship Skills: Tips for Parents of Kids on the Spectrum


"In any type of social setting, my daughter (high functioning) is very withdrawn and will rarely speak to anyone unless they speak to her. How can I teach her to be just a bit more social in a way that fits her comfort level?"

Because Aspergers and high-functioning autistic (HFA) youngsters often have difficulty perceiving the “ins and outs” of typical social interactions, your daughter may feel uncomfortable or be pegged as socially “awkward” when it comes to conversation with friends, family, teachers, etc.

Navigating the “ebb and flow” of everyday interactions can be an art for anyone – but it can be especially precarious for a child on the autism spectrum. However, with parental support, these young people can grow to learn ways to improvise and improve the quality of those interactions.

Some Aspergers and HFA kids appear shy and withdrawn, rarely speaking unless spoken to. Others may dominate the conversation with lengthy discussions about their special interests. Your youngster may reflect these traits at different times, or generally fall somewhere in between. The social skills you teach your youngster now will have long-term benefit as he matures through the teenage years and into adulthood. Learning how to develop social circles and relationships that can lead to true friendship is important to your youngster's future successes and mental health stability.

The youngster who appears shy and withdrawn often wants to “fit-in” and get along with others, but doesn't know where to begin. Similarly, the youngster who is overly verbal knows how to talk circles around a particular topic and may think that everyone has the same degree of interest such that they are spellbound. This youngster also doesn't realize the “give and take” of social interactions and needs some help with interpersonal relationship skills.

How Parents Can Teach Interpersonal Relationship Skills—

1. Use cartoons to teach relationship skills. Your youngster may respond well to understanding social conversation when his favorite TV cartoon show is involved. It is best to record the cartoon on DVD so that you can start and stop the show and highlight “good versus inappropriate” conversation styles. Help your youngster to reinforce what he's just seen by drawing it out on paper. Suggest that you both modify the conversation a bit.

2. Teach “conversation-starters” and “conversation-enders.” Many kids on the spectrum have terrific rote memories if they are able to create images of situations to best “match” the conversation “starter” or “ender.” To begin, partner with your youngster to break down, in writing and pictures, lists for each area. Here are a few sample conversation starters and enders:
  • “Good morning Mr. Smith.”
  • “Hello” or “Hi”
  • “Hey!”
  • “How's it going?”
  • “What are you doing after school?”
  • “What did you do over the weekend?”
  • “What did you watch on TV last night?”
  • “What's up?”
  • “I gotta go now.”
  • “I'll catch you later.”
  • “I'll see you tomorrow.”
  • “I'll talk to you after school.”
  • “See ya Friday.”
  • “Take it easy.”

Sit down with your youngster and come up with additions to the list above. What do your child’s favorite cartoon or TV characters use as conversation starters or enders that are socially acceptable and fit well on the list? Talk about how no one “owns” these conversation starters or enders – anyone can use them!

3. Teach your child to provide “feedback” to the other person during conversations. Feedback is a response to conversation starters or enders initiated by someone else. Providing feedback may include responding with a question in order to elicit more information from the other person. Tell your child that providing feedback is like building a sky scraper. Each piece of the conversation adds layers to the foundation either person began. When the conversation changes topic, the process of building the sky scraper starts over. Providing feedback is always a useful tool to “fall back on” whenever your child is uncertain of what to say. For example:
  • “Awesome!”
  • “Cool!”
  • “I don't know what that is – tell me more!”
  • “I never heard of that before. Can you explain it to me?”
  • “I'm sorry about that.”
  • “That's interesting!”
  • “That's really neat!”

4. Teach your child how to “interject” in an appropriate manner. Interjections are socially acceptable alternatives to interrupting conversation. Your youngster will need to appreciate, through words and images, that it is considered rude to interrupt in conversation, but there are ways to “interject” without being rude. You and your child can identify when this works best (usually during a conversation lull or when someone has stopped talking). Interjections may include:
  • “Can I say something now?”
  • “Excuse me, please.”
  • “May I add to what you're saying?”
  • “Pardon me for interrupting, but…”
  • “Can I tell you about something similar that happened to me?”

Some of these statements might be too formal for a young person and would be better suited for an older teenager. Perhaps you and your son or daughter can come up with other statements to add to this list (ones that are more your child’s style).

Mistakes and unexpected circumstances are bound to occur, and these will require private and respectful debriefing to explain. With time, you and your youngster can modify and adapt his “bag of conversational tricks” to become adept in carrying on a good conversation.

5. Find opportunities that are available in your community by which you can support your youngster in making contacts to build on his special interests (e.g., passion for insects, astronomy, Japanese animation, etc.). If you are uncertain, start by pursuing the following:
  • After-school activities sponsored by your school district
  • Community classes such as arts and crafts, or martial arts
  • Community projects or special celebration days
  • Opportunities offered through local television and radio stations
  • Opportunities offered through the newspaper or local circulars
  • Programs and special events offered by your local historical society or museums
  • Programs and special events offered by your local library
  • Special events sponsored by local athletic leagues

One of the most powerful ways to connect with others with similar passions is through the Internet. The possibilities are endless. Your youngster may learn more about other children of the same age, beyond just the passion they share, by locating them on a map and learning about the local industry, economy, and more. The youngster passionate about Japanese animation may even have the chance to communicate with someone of that culture. They can compare notes and exchange ideas about the video games each is developing.

6. Consider forming a group for children with Aspergers in your community. These groups provide a forum for unconditional acceptance in a safe and comfortable environment. Such groups do not advocate exclusion from neurotypical kids; rather, they are an opportunity for some kids to learn social skills in a place where it's perfectly acceptable to mess-up as you learn and practice.

Your local school district or county human service program may be able to tell you if any such group already exists in your town - or a neighboring town. Most likely, moms and dads previously unconnected will want to meet to discuss the similarities of their lives, but the focus should stay on supporting the kids to meet their individual needs in a comfortable atmosphere.

7. Don’t force your child to be more “social” and “conversational” than he is comfortably able. “Social” should be defined differently for each person, depending on that individual’s needs. You, as a neurotypical parent, may value many friends as a mark of being socially successful. Some Aspies, however, are content with just a few, select friends.

Most kids on the spectrum are not social butterflies …don't wish to be …and never will be. Unless they want to become more out-going, such individuals may simply be completely comfortable with a small group of close-knit friends. As a mother or father, you can arrange to expose your youngster to a variety of people within a range of environments and circumstances. Your youngster will guide you to those with whom he feels connected and wishes to know better.

By

Aspergers Teenagers and Problems with Depression

All teenagers experience depression from time to time due to the normal pressures faced during adolescents. Also, people with Aspergers (high functioning autism) experience depression occasionally due to dealing with the symptoms associated with the disorder. So, little wonder why a teenager WITH Aspergers may have more than his fair share of depression symptoms.

Click here for the full article...

By

Helping Your Child on the Autism Spectrum to Cope with Frustration

"If things are not the way my son (high functioning) wants/needs them, we often hear swearing or he will just ignore me when i ask what is wrong (like he expects me to mind read)....i think he finds it difficult to put his feelings into words, so it often pours out in yelling and abusive names. Any suggestions?!"

Does your high-functioning autistic (HFA) or Asperger's child seem to experience more than his fair share of frustration? And does he often slip into a meltdown once he’s frustrated? If so, then read on…

Most kids on the autism spectrum go through peaks of frustration throughout their childhood. Younger ones often express their frustration in tantrums. At that point, many of them learn the word “frustrated,” and moms and dads and teachers help them to find compromises and alternatives and to develop at least some degree of “frustration tolerance.”

In the preschool years, further triggers for frustration emerge (e.g., comparisons with peers, new expectations, observations of older kids - especially siblings - and grown-ups, etc.). A youngster may be prone to frustration if he has minor delays in some developmental area, if he has easily succeeded at many things and does not remember the process of learning them, or if he is developing a somewhat perfectionistic personality style.

How your child deals with frustration is influenced by how you react to it. If you model an unhealthy response to the frustration you experience in your life (e.g., with impatience, anger, etc.), your child may learn that this is an appropriate way to deal with frustration. If you are calm, positive, and look for solutions when you get frustrated, your child will likely adopt this approach to frustration.

Here's how parents can help HFA and Asperger's kids cope with frustration:

1. Explain that everyone, including grown-ups, feels frustrated sometimes. Talk about the process people go through of not being able to do something and then practicing and getting better at it.

2. Give lots of encouragement for small accomplishments. If a youngster reaches a plateau with a new task, celebrate how far he has come. Reassure him that, in his own time, frustration will diminish, reappearing occasionally as a signal of his hard work.

3. Help them develop a strategy of taking one small step at a time in approaching new things.

4. Identify how your child expresses frustration and the activities (or social situations) that tend to elicit it.

5. Instead of recognizing that failure is temporary, an youngster on he autism spectrum often concludes, “I’ll never succeed.” That’s why encouragement is by far the most important gift you can give your frustrated youngster. Take his dejection seriously, but help him look at his challenge differently: “Never,” you might reply, “is an awfully long time.” Eventually, he’ll learn from your encouraging words to talk himself out of giving up.

6. One of the first mistakes that many kids on the spectrum make – and that moms and dads often encourage – when faced with frustration is to just increase their effort (i.e., do whatever they are doing - more and harder). But then they are violating the Law of Insanity: doing the same thing and expecting different results. When frustration first arises, rather than plowing ahead, your youngster should do just the opposite (i.e., step back from the situation that is causing the frustration). For example, if your youngster can't solve a math problem or learn a new sports skill that he is practicing, he should set it aside and take a break. Stopping the activity creates emotional distance from the frustration, thus easing its grip on them.

7. Provide alternatives to unacceptable expressions of frustration. Since frustration is a form of pent-up energy, doing something physical to burn-off the negative energy often works quite well. Going for a brief - but brisk - walk, jumping up and down for a minute or two, or some other physical activity helps to semi-exhaust the child so that little energy is left over for tantrum-behavior (e.g., throwing things, yelling, hitting, etc.).

8. You can help your child learn to soothe himself by demonstrating patience and self-control, and by suggesting self-calming strategies (e.g., cuddling with a favorite stuffed animal, singing a favorite song, taking a break and doing something fun, beginning the task again with a smaller step so that there is a first success to build on, etc.). Your long-term goal is for him to learn to recognize when he’s frustrated and what he can do about it on his own.

9. You can help your youngster hold on to his sense of self-worth by helping him remember his past successes – and the struggles that preceded them. Put his current struggle into perspective by recalling other times that he thought he’d never succeed, until he did. Help him learn to notice the strengths that he can count on to help him triumph — guts, determination, endurance, careful observation (no matter how fledgling some of these qualities may still be).

10. You can help your youngster recognize that learning involves trial and error. Mastering a new skill takes patience, perseverance, practice, and the confidence that success will come. To a young person, achieving success, whether it’s writing his name or hitting a baseball for the first time, can seem monumental.





==> My Aspergers Child: Preventing Meltdowns and Tantrums
By

Aspergers in the Elderly

Although Aspergers has been around for many years, it was only classified as a distinct condition in 1992. This means that many elderly folks could not have been diagnosed as kids because the signs and symptoms were not recognized.

There is evidence that Aspergers can run in families, and elderly folks may become aware of their condition when a younger family member is diagnosed. Moms and dads normally read up on the signs and symptoms and may recognize the same signs in their older relatives.

Grown-ups with Aspergers present with similar signs of the condition as do children and teens. In some cases, the problems may not be quite as pronounced as the grown-up may have developed coping mechanisms.

Elderly folks with Aspergers normally display the following symptoms:
  • Social interaction is difficult, and the Aspie is normally too detached or too intense. They struggle to understand the full meaning of relationships, and sexual issues may be a problem. Some are unable to distinguish between date rape and seduction.
  • Obsessional interests are common, and the Aspie may work in a position that is related to this interest. Computers are frequently the focus of attention. Collectibles (e.g., stamps and coins) are also favored. Some elderly folks with Aspergers may also be obsessed with trains, airplanes or other forms of transport.
  • Elderly folks often like routine, and Aspergers may magnify this to extremes. They may have rigid routines and become unsettled and difficult if they are pressed out of their comfort zones.
  • Communication problems are common, and the Aspie often engages in long-winded, one-sided conversations, not realizing they are boring the other party. Information may be shared in a lecture-like manner and with little or no facial expressions. Body language is weak and eye contact poor.

While some older folks find a diagnosis helpful, others refuse to accept it and prefer to carry on as they have been for years. Accepting a diagnosis means the individual will often look back and examine past actions and decisions. For an elderly man or woman set in his/her ways, this may be an alarming prospect.

Currently, there is no single diagnostic tool for Aspergers that is universally recognized. A family member may read an article about Aspergers and the elderly and see the signs in an aged relative. If the subject is broached, it is possible the potential Aspie will visit a doctor for confirmation. An evaluation may include a review of childhood behavior, analysis of school reports if available, and a questionnaire. Even if medical opinion is not sought, the knowledge that signs and symptoms of Aspergers are apparent can bring relief and understanding in some areas.

A firm diagnosis of Aspergers in an elderly man or woman may be met with resistance - but can be helpful. Even if the Aspie does not want to change or alter his/her behavior and routines, it can be comforting to know there is a reason behind the behavior.



COMMENTS:

• Anonymous said...   As long as you are not struggling in a particular facet of your life, then receiving a formal diagnosis does not matter, however if you are struggling, a psychotherapist can help, and if you have health insurance...it is generally covered.
• Anonymous said...   I had struggled my whole life in many facets. I no longer struggle now because I accept I am different. Now I can happily dance to my own tune. I hope others are as lucky!!
• Anonymous said...   My dad is 65.... I think he has aspergers.... My eldest son is 23 yrs old and was diagnosed aged 10 with aspergers /adhd and I see so many similarities in them.... It has made it easier having my son to understand my dad if that makes any sense?....
• Anonymous said...   National Autism day is coming up soon in April - not sure of the date. I think there might be T Shirts available. Anyone know?
• Anonymous said...   Same here ... But I have a hard time justifying the expense of a diagnosis when I'm not sure what it would do for me.
• Anonymous said...   That is my point. I can't afford to get a diagnosis privately and don't feel inclined to go through the stress of trying to get diagnosed through the health service. I know I'm Aspergers and I can live my life accordingly now.
• Anonymous said...   The hard part if finding trained professionals who understand enough to give you any guidance or help.
• Anonymous said...   Yes my Father is 92! with Aspergus.
• Anonymous said...  . It was classified in the U.S. as a distinct condition in 1994 in the DSM-IV (with an update in the DSM IV-TR in 2000) and in the ICD-10 (also in 1994). However, it was a distinct condition that was diagnosed in Europe in the 1940s onward. What's more, prior to Asperger Syndrome being added to the DSM or the ICD, childhood schizophrenia was the diagnosis most often given. With the addition of AS in the DSM and the ICD, the number of diagnoses for childhood schizophrenia decreased at a similar rate to the increase diagnosis of Asperger Syndrome.
• Anonymous said...  I was diagnosed in adulthood. No help or understanding in schools colleges or work.
• Anonymous said...  Just so that you know, the most Aspie of us who lived life without the diagnosis have been living as mimics for our whole lives. I would mimic the behaviour of "normal" people my whole life and that's how I managed to get where I am now. I was beat up a lot during my childhoood and still suffer some bullying by "atypicals" to this day but I still find that aping behaviours seen in "typicals" help me in everyday life. I feel bad for those Aspies who cannot mimic!
• Anonymous said...  My little boy is now 5. After he turned 2 he started regressing and showing signs of autism. When I was going through the lengthy process of getting him diagnosed, I recognised a lot of likenesses between his actions and behaviours and my own, both as a child and indeed right through my adult life. After we got him diagnosed (he is low functioning, non verbal), I couldn't help but listen to the nagging voice telling me to find out more about myself. I have taken the Autism Quotient test time after time over a period of time and constantly come out with a score of 47. I have found out as much as I can about Aspergers and I am yet to find a facet of my personality which doesn't map over as typical Aspergers. Every action and decision of my adult life can be explained with Aspergers, and the fact that I have always felt that I am different to what is classed as the 'norm'. I didn't go to school for the final year, so sat no exams, but even with that, I sat an IQ test with around 8 work colleagues when I was in my late twenties and even though some of them had masters degrees in technical subjects, I still scored higher than all of them with 146. I am not inclined to pursue a diagnosis, but let me assure you, now that I understand myself, it's like the weight of the world is lifted from my shoulders instead of beating myself up (emotionally) every day.

Post your comment below...
By

Aspergers Teenagers and Feelings of Low Self-Worth

"My son (high functioning autistic) has been spending his summer vacation pretty much isolating in his bedroom playing computer games.... has no friends... no desire to find a friend... says 'people don't like me anyway, so why try'. How can I help him develop some confidence and self-esteem?"

Click here for the answer...
By

Helping Your Child Deal with Stress

"How can I help my little man (high functioning autistic) reduce his stress. He's usually excessively concerned about many things. Currently his main stressor is worrying about a week long summer camp coming up soon (but after that, it will be something else)."

Click here for the answer ==>  
By

Revealing Your Child's Diagnosis To Extended Family

"How should we go about telling my parents (and other family members) that our son has been diagnosed with autism (high-functioning)? They have always thought his behavior was odd. We believe strongly they should know so they can help to one degree or another with his special needs."

Click here for the answer...


More resources for parents of children and teens with High-Functioning Autism and Asperger's:

==> How To Prevent Meltdowns and Tantrums In Children With High-Functioning Autism and Asperger's

==> Parenting System that Significantly Reduces Defiant Behavior in Teens with Aspergers and High-Functioning Autism

==> Launching Adult Children with Asperger's and High-Functioning Autism: Guide for Parents Who Want to Promote Self-Reliance

==> Teaching Social Skills and Emotion Management to Children and Teens with Asperger's and High-Functioning Autism

==> Parenting Children and Teens with High-Functioning Autism: Comprehensive Handbook

==> Unraveling The Mystery Behind Asperger's and High-Functioning Autism: Audio Book

==> Highly Effective Research-Based Parenting Strategies for Children with Asperger's and High-Functioning Autism

____________________

Do you need the advice of a professional who specializes in parenting children and teens with Autism Spectrum Disorders?  Sign-up for Online Parent Coaching today.

____________________
By
Subscribe to: Posts (Atom)

ASD: Difficulty Identifying and Interpreting Emotional Signals in Others

Autism spectrum disorder (ASD) is a complex neurodevelopmental condition that affects an individual's ability to communicate, interact w...