Teaching Social Skills to Individuals Diagnosed with Autism

A ‘free for all type of social group does not benefit children with autism. Most children with autism in these ‘free forall’ social groups appear to be very lost. They do not understand speaking freely; they do not understand what is expected of them or how to act in these ‘free forall’ social groups. So, it is important for us to keep in mind that a very structured schedule of these groups needs to be provided in order for us to teach more skills and for us to benefit these children diagnosed with autism.

Joyce Tu EdD, BCBA-D 

Abstract 

There is evidence of great success with social skills programs for increasing appropriate social interactions in individuals with autism. Joyce Tu advocates for such programs by identifying research-based practices that should be included in social-skills programs and strategies that practitioners and parents may use to help their clients without access to such programs. Through an understanding of Skinner’s Verbal Behavior, she descriptively identifies how to teach autoclitics to enhance social, verbal behavior. 

Learning Objectives

What you’ll learn in the course and be able to do afterward 

1. With a complete definition of social skills, you will be able to  list two types of social skills assessment tools; identify social, verbal behaviors and social nonverbal behavior; describe what strategies work best in social settings. 
2. Given the prior research of social skills groups, you will be able to  structure a schedule of effective use of time during a social-skills meeting. 
3. After this course, you will be able to define and give examples of effective implementation for each of the following interventions:  social stories, correspondence training, video modeling 
4. With a complete description of verbal behavior, you will define autoclitic; dentify three characteristics of autoclitics; explain three teaching methods for teaching autoclitics. 

Partnership

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