Teaching social skills to children with autism

Paper

Persons with autism encounter difficulties in social interactions. Learning about handwashing, making eye contact, being interested in playing with other children, recognizing and understanding your own emotions and the emotions of others, and expressing desires and needs in an acceptable way are just some of the areas where a person with autism could face problems. Learning social skills can be stressful for these persons, so they often resist. Teachers must, therefore, use methods and techniques that prompt children to acquire social knowledges and become motivated to use the knowledge outside the school environment. In the article, I list some strategies with positive effects: visual support, structure, role play, worksheets, rewarding desired behavior, and negative consequences for inappropriate behavior. Visual support enables children to follow with ease the order of performing a particular activity. Steps shown in pictures enable children to predict what follows and to understand with ease the course and the duration of activities, and they reduce the anxiety children experience. Experiential learning plays an essential role with autistic children. Replaying different scenarios with a puppet and role play allow children to experience how they can act in specific situations. In order to master a certain emotion, a child must initially recognize the feeling she is experiencing and understand what triggered it. A child with autism can be taught social skills; however, we must serve as a good role model, especially when behavioral problems surface.