Social Skills
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Currently, my 3 yo son is in a preschool disabled class with a home ABA program. He isnt getting any intensive social skill practice in either setting. His language is just now starting to really take off. Receptive language is excellend but he is still pretty much at the beginning stages of abstract language (no question asking, moderately communicating for purposes other than wants/needs). Should I be waiting until his expressive language becomes more advanced or should I be putting him in these situations now to try to enhance these skills? He currently has no motivation to engage other children and I see this as an area that will need a lot of intense focus for many years to come. In fact, he will go up to a child and push them rather than use his words to communicate a desire to engage. How do you know when its the "right time" to start getting your child involved in either social skills groups or activities with typical peers? For those of you that worked on this with your kids- do you have any advice as to what types of experiences were most effective? I only wish if I could go back when we were doing full time ABA that we incorporated more social and expressive language...I guess the thinking back then was lets teach her the skills of talking , build her receptive and comprehension and then the social kinda came last and it still lingers even though academically she is advanced she is behind socially..I see major lack of motivation in the social area even though we have done ABA playgroups for 2 years...RDI sounds like a good therapy for motivating interactions and wished we used it more along with ABA they both seem like a good blend of what our kids need.. I will be playing catch up with her social for a long time and not sure she will ever catch up I think if your child even wants to go up to other kids that is a good sign..his methods may need tweaking but his desire is the main component missing in my child.. I would address your concerns with your BCBA and get some programs started in this area..it is the last residual one for us and the absolutely hardest! Good luck!Humans start on social skills the minute they are born, so you do not at all need to wait for your child to be speaking to develop social appreciation. But don't just put him in typical situations and hope that he'll pick things up from the other kids. He might become terribly overwhelmed or might not be able to take it all in. If ASD kids could just absorb being social from being around typical kids, most of us would not be here on this board. As Shelley said, RDI can be a nice social compliment to the skills that ABA emphasizes. RDI is a program wherein parents learn how to foster social interaction in their child. That is how typical kids learn - first from mom & dad and family and then, when they are more confident and adept, kids reach out and "practice" ever more on new people. RDI teaches you, the parent, how to be a social mentor to your ASD child. We have discussed it a lot here. If you're interested, I can help you find the threads, or you can search for "RDI" and a lot will come up. We've been doing RDI with our younger son since January and even though he is not yet verbal, he has become very expressive and very communicative. We have been teaching him how to interact and now he initiates with us and with new people. He is very attached to us and his eye contact is that of a typical kid now. He also references us facially more than ever. These are all building blocks to language. Remember, speech is only as good as the communication it's built upon, so I encourage you to foster communication and emotional connection in your child right now. Meaningful speech will flow out of that. Don't let his limited expressive language stop you from showing him how to engage with you and the world. RDI can guide you through this process. If your son can tolerate small steps, I would start working on it now. My son sounds similar to yours in language skills. We do a home ABA program and floortime. Our floortime consultant is currently working with our ABA team to help him with social/play skills. We are adding a peer once a week for 30 minutes into his ABA program and are also doing a social skills group this summer. I just try to come up with simple goals that I know he can tolerate for each situation. He isn't in a school setting right now, so I have to find it in other ways. He goes to a swimming class and other places where he is exposed but not overwhelmed with other kids.I wouldn't wait either, but the fact that your son is in a social setting (preschool) is certainly a step in the right direction. In this way, he learns to be in the presence of other people and experience things together, which are basic social skills. Interaction is more advanced, and your son will likely need direct teaching in that area. Elementary schools are notorious for not taking social skills seriously, not putting them in the IEP, and not seeing those skills as part of their educational mission. Preschools are probably a little more responsive, since even typical children that age are learning social skills. If I were you, I'd push the preschool to include some social goals in the IEP. Here are some of the general areas you might cover (source: http://www.untangleautism.org/iepgoals.htm):
Good luck with everything! Social language is not necessary for social skills. As the above posters pointed out, that starts from DAY ONE. However, kindergarten readiness social skills are ones that are SO relevant to school, your District should give you NO trouble in starting there. A BIG social skill necessary for kindergarten is the ability to take turns with peers. You might want to start there. I also think RDI is great. |
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