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Planning Ahead to Maintain Skills During Summer Vacation
Summer is coming and it’s time to start preparations. We know most children with autism spectrum disorder (ASD) benefit from a structured schedule and environment, so much so that they usually know their schedule better than the adults who care for them. But what happens come summer? Schedules...
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Summer Vacation: A Prime Opportunity to Develop Social Skills for the Workplace
For many students, the end of the school year represents a time to relax, celebrate the change of pace, and enjoy leisure time. However, each year, there are many individuals who approach the end of the school year and find that this is a time of transition; a time for entering the unfamiliar world...
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Summertime Games and Simple Strategies to Reinforce Social Skills
Summertime is fun time for most children. School routines give way to relaxation, perhaps at summer day or sleep away camp – and there’s no studying. While most typically developing children welcome this, it can become problematic for children with autism spectrum disorders (ASDs). That’s why...
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Social Skills Groups Benefit Children and Parents
Social Skill Groups with toddlers and parents offer many advantages. These small groups provide parents the opportunity to talk with families who share similar concerns and a place to practice new skills to help their children. In the group, there is a sense of community and understanding. It is a...
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Using Relationships to Support Children with ASD
Working with children, whether as a parent, teacher, or caregiver, is an inherently social process. This is no different when we are talking about children on the autism spectrum. In order to impact children with ASD, the adults in their lives need to employ a set of activities, strategies, and...
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Training Peers Improves Social Outcomes for Some Kids with ASD
Children with autism spectrum disorders (ASD) who attend regular education classes may be more likely to improve their social skills if their typically developing peers are taught how to interact with them than if only the children with ASD are taught such skills. According to a study funded by the...
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Focus on Video Modeling Techniques for Inexpensive, Fast and Customized Solutions for Improving Social Skills
When my sister and I began Social Skill Builder in 1999, we were looking for a way to bridge the social language gap to help kids with ASD, Asperger’s and other learning disabilities achieve success in social situations. Social Skill Builder has created a series of learning tools that use videos...
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Computerized Health Games to Promote Social Perceptual Learning in Autism
Many individuals with autism spectrum disorders (ASD) struggle to read nonverbal social cues, such as facial expressions, and often have difficulty recognizing a person's identity from their face. New computerized video games being developed by the Center for Autism Research (CAR) at The...
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A Look Inside the Hidden Curriculum
The hidden curriculum is assumed knowledge - the expectations, rules or guidelines that are not directly taught because they are universally known (Garnet, 1984; Hemmings, 2000; Jackson, 1968; Kanpol, 1989; Myles, Trautman, & Schelvan, 2004). It also addresses the incongruities of how skills...
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Using Typical Peers as Role Models to Help Improve Social Skills for Children with Autism Spectrum Disorders
Children diagnosed with autism spectrum disorders (ASD) typically display great difficulties in social communication and social interaction skills. These skills are core deficits which quite often impede their interactions with peers and adults. Children on the spectrum often fail to interpret...
