As my daughter approached the age of four, I realized that her social skills were not developing as I had hoped. Her home-based program adequately addressed many important skills, but the social ones seemed to be lagging behind. I started to look for solutions.
The Beginning of a Social Skills Program
This consultant brought me the book Autism Aspergers: Solving the Relationship Puzzle–A New Developmental Program that Opens the Door to Lifelong Social and Emotional Growth to review. The book was written by Steven Gutstein from the Connection Center.*
Teaching social skills is very difficult and complex, because there are so many components and levels. I had been looking for a solution and decided that Connection Center may work. In 2002, when my daughter was 4 ½, we traveled to Texas to learn about the RDI (Relationship Development Intervention) program. Through what we learned there, combined with the help of our new ABA Consultant, we customized a program to work with my daughter on her communication and social skills.
When we teach our children math skills, we do not jump first into multiplication. We know that there are many preliminary skills that need to be acquired prior to being able to master multiplication. For some reason, this same principle is not always considered when teaching social skills. If you have a home-based program, it seems like play dates are often recommended before any thought is given to the preliminary skills that are needed to be able to master a play date.
Nonverbal Communication
Many children with autism, ADHD, Sensory Processing Disorder, or a number of other special needs do not pick up on nonverbal communication, such as facial expressions, gestures, eye contact, and the tone of your voice. Research shows that at least 60% of communication is nonverbal.
Facial expressions show emotions. Gestures can be used for emphasis or functionally, such as for pointing. Eye contact can be interpreted as interest in what is being said. The tone of your voice can compliment your message by conveying emotion. If a child misses the nonverbal, he is not able to interpret situations correctly and thus his social interactions will suffer.
As you can see, nonverbal communication is comprised of many components. Each of these components, tone of voice, gestures, facial expressions, etc., can mean different things depending on the situation, the person, and how they are used in combination with each other. This makes it very difficult to teach to a child.
Initial Activities for Teaching Social Skills
An initial step to teach your child nonverbal communication skills is to teach him to pay attention to you–the speaker–for information. Try to limit your verbal communication, so that your child is forced to reference you for information.
Set some toys out for you and your child. While you are playing, work on getting your child to reference you. When your child glances at you, point to something or do something he would have missed if he had not looked up. Here are a couple ways to get his attention:
- Emphasize certain parts of your speech by changing your speech pattern. When you are speaking, insert a deep sigh or take a deep breath. You can also hesitate right before saying a word or stretch out a word. Experiment with what works best with your child.
- Pretend you can not speak and use nonverbal communication to interact with your child. If you want, you can explain that this is a game and ask your child to not use his words too. You will need to be very animated and increase your use of gestures.
- Pretend you can speak but you can not hear. This will force your child to figure out how to interact with you using nonverbal communication.
- Use unanticipated sounds or actions to get your child’s attention. You can insert a meaningless word into your speech or start whispering at some point. For actions, you can make an exaggerated facial expression to get your child’s attention.
These activities may seem a bit silly at first, but over time you will be comfortable with them and experience their benefit. They will help your child to learn to reference you more when you speak. These activities will also help increase eye contact, since your child is required to look at you for information.
These skills will be critical to your child’s social success. The more he understands gestures and tone of voice, the better he will be able to interpret social situations. These activities are also effective with improving a child’s eye contact in a more natural way. These are good preliminary skills for social situations.
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*Connection Center is now known as RDIconnect. Their program has changed since my experience.
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Well said, Danette. Seems that these techniques are similar to what is used by parents with typically-developing babies, but when the baby does not respond, parents don’t know where to go or what to do. So important to persist and to consult with professionals (who bring good resources and books).
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So true, Barbara! I am a believer in building a team of professionals to help with a child with special needs. Parents need to find good resources, ask the questions, and find what will work best for their child. We need professionals and their expertise like you! Thanks!!
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