• Recognize that the target for anger may not be linked to the source of that anger.
• Be aware that student may feel very uncomfortable with eye contact.
• Work to expand the student’s reinforcer and leisure activities repertoire; work to increase social reinforcers and activities.
• Pair existing reinforcers with new activities to expand repertoire.
• Explicitly and frequently teach social rules and skills, such as turn-taking and social distance.
• Break down social skills into non-verbal and verbal components.
• Explain rules / rationales behind social exchanges.
• Target perspective-taking skills.
• Teach student to accurately label his / her own emotions.
• Use cartoon conversations, coping comics, and thought stories to teach social responses.
• Be aware of teasing by peers; teach and rehearse appropriate responses to bullying.
• Explicitly teach discrimination between private versus public behaviors.
• Provide modeling and role-play opportunities to teach social skills.
• Program for generalization of social skills across all contexts.
• Build social interactions around common interests.
• *Social Stories can be used to teach social skills to children with autism. A situation, which may be difficult or confusing for the student, is described concretely. The story highlights social cues, events, and reactions that could occur in the situation, the actions and reactions that might be expected, and why. Social stories can be used to increase the student’s understanding of a situation, make the student feel more comfortable, and provide appropriate responses for the situation. We recommend that you incorporate visuals into the stories as well. These visuals can be drawings created by the student, imported images from Google, picture symbols / icons, or photographs.
Examples of Social Stories:
