Strategies to support and develop social skills for students with autism spectrum disorder
School community
Supporting social interaction is important and part of the educational plan for a student with autism spectrum disorder. Students diagnosed with autism spectrum disorder often have a desire to interact with others but do not have the skills to participate appropriately or do not know how to use these skills in appropriate situations. Students with autism spectrum disorder may become aware of their social weakness, which results in them avoiding social interactions despite their desire to communicate with others. Some may engage in attention-seeking behaviors to connect with others until they build the skills they need for social interaction. Represents the development of social skills including: proper timing, attention, Sensory integration and communication. These skills can be built to improve social skills and competence to interact with others.
Some strategies to support and develop social skills for students with autism spectrum disorder
- The teacher must enhance the social skills of the student with autism spectrum disorder through verbal praise and physical reinforcement if necessary to form socially appropriate behaviors.
- The teacher must model social interaction and role-playing with students with autism spectrum disorder.
- Imitation and motor skills as well as verbal behavior skills should be taught.
- Skills that are relevant to the social context should be taught, such as, If everyone is standing, you should be standing too!
- Break social skills into small parts and then gradually teach these skills through social interactions. The teacher can also use visual aids to teach social skills.
- Many students with autism spectrum disorder have strengths that must be taken into consideration when teaching social skills. The teacher can use these strengths to motivate the student to engage in social interactions. like a sense of humor, memorization skills, Strong visual skills.
- The teacher can identify students who have strong social skills and pair them with students with autism spectrum disorder. Therefore, they must be provided with communication strategies to reach the targeted goal, but be careful not to strive for the student to have access to natural interactions as much as possible.
- Create small groups and introduce some topics or activities with students with autism spectrum disorder. Example, He placed a box containing a set of questions such as “The most recent movie I saw was…….” It can be useful for students who tend to talk about the same things all the time as in this case the teacher can provide support and motivation and remind the student to answer the questions through visual means.
- The teacher should focus on learning social skills during activities that do not challenge the child. Example, Conversational turn-taking may not occur if the student has poor fine motor skills and speaking while using scissors.
- Peers and students with autism spectrum disorder should be supported in structured social situations, By setting behavior expectations in advance. Example, First teach necessary skills such as how to play Uno individually and then introduce them in a social situation with peers of students with ASD.
- The science of empathy and reciprocity in social interactions. The individual needs to be able to adopt the other’s perspective and adjust the interaction accordingly. Therefore, individuals with autism spectrum disorder may struggle to demonstrate their ability to empathize due to the challenges they face. This can be taught by educating the student, providing vocabulary in appropriate situations through comments, awareness of feelings and emotional states, and recognizing other people’s facial expressions and non-verbal cues.
- Use social stories and social cartoons as ways to describe and define social rules and expectations.
Ref