Reinforcing social skills at school

Parents of children with autism do all they can to help their loved ones at home. But when they are at school, which is usually 6.5 hours a day, these children are among their peers. They may often find themselves outside peer circles because they don't know how to interact with them on a social level. Such a situation is compounded inside school environment because of how rapidly conversation topics and gestures or expressions on people's faces change. Conversations could be accompanied with sounds of laughter that might distract a child with autism from listening well. Many other sensory triggers such as other children moving around, different groups doing different things, children seemingly breaking classroom rules by sitting or standing on tables, others talking at once and yet some others tossing stuff and so on can affect how the child with autism receives messages from his peers. Children with autism spectrum disorder often approach and respond to their peers and adults inappropriately as well. One reason they do this is because they are unable to read another person's body language. They might also be sending out unintended body language of their own, for example, looking away from the speaker because they felt anxious. They might be standing too close to show their interest in the speaker and so on. The teacher and educational assistant in the classroom or in the playground area during recess could keep an eye on the social behaviour of a child with autism while among his peers by grabbing teaching opportunities and by redirecting him or her towards appropriate behaviours whenever the opportunity presents itself. Prompts, praises and suggestions at appropriate times could go a long way towards helping a child with social skills at school. Depending on the frequency of these opportunities, the child would gradually be able to hone his or her way out of his isolation and into some form of social interactions at school. Once he or she is able to handle some of these demanding social skills on their own, they will move on to the next phase of establishing friendships for longer periods of time and at other environments such as birthday parties and other social gatherings with their peers.