Teaching Social Skills to People with Autism

Abstract

Optimizing social skills development is an important goal for families of children with autism spectrum disorders. This is a compact book edited by Andy Bondy (codeveloper of PECS) and Mary Weiss (a Board Certified Behavior Analyst) written to assist families and clinicians toward that goal. It consists of chapters written by experts in the field and is a valuable resource on available evidence-based practices for social skills development. The first chapter opens discussion of teaching social skills, the elusiveness of the term “social skills,” the need for an assessment of a child's social behavior, and identification of potential target goals. It highlights the importance of prioritizing the child's treatment plan with consideration for age, general skills, environment-appropriate goals, family priorities, ease of acquisition, individual interests, and flexibility in sequencing. Specific interventions used in teaching social skills development are then discussed, including strategies such as time delay, most to least prompting procedures, script fading procedures, audio taped scripts, incidental teaching, video modeling procedures, and pager prompts. One intriguing parenting program discussed in the book is the Sunny Starts program. It focuses on improving parent-child interactions through play and is targeted toward toddlers and their parents. It encourages parents to look for opportunities for social attending, such as the toddler's eye gaze and body movements and to identify their child's preferences and interests to help sustain their interaction. The program teaches parents to work through the acronym “DANCE”: Decide, Arrange, Now!, Count, and Enjoy. Parents first “Decide” if this is the right time to engage in play. Then, they “Arrange” their environment for the play. “Now!” refers to reminding parents to respond immediately with an enthusiastic affect when their child displays approximations. “Count” refers to parents monitoring goal responses, and finally “Enjoy” reminds parents to consider adjusting their teaching moment to ensure that both the child and they are happy. Another teaching modality described is the Claremont Autism Center's Social Skills group program, which targets higher functioning children with autism. This includes Naturalistic teaching strategies, peer mediated strategies, video modeling, scripts, self-management, and parent training. It focuses on the benefits of teaching social skills in small group settings, simulating learning among same-aged children, and providing an opportunity to practice skills with peers. Strengths of this book include that it illustrates the various strategies available in teaching social skills and highlighting the evidence behind these strategies. Many teaching strategies work within the framework of applied behavior analysis, moving toward teaching in a more natural setting, and identifying the child's intrinsic motivation to increase social behaviors. Most of the strategies discussed target children with autism, and not adults, although they may be adapted to the needs of adults with autism. Strategies may not be applicable to all children with autism. For example, when using video modeling to teach social skills, the prerequisite skills of generalized motor imitation, attending to a video, and delayed imitations of actions must be met. Ultimately, there is no single teaching modality that can address all the needs of a child's social skill development at once. This book helps to emphasize the importance of choosing social skills that are meaningful to the child and family, having a strong understanding of the goals set, developing a strategy to monitor progress, and finding ways to generalize learned social skills to broader settings. It also discusses the role of support in the home, the community, and in school with a life course perspective. Although many clinicians acknowledge the importance of social skills programs for individuals with autism, they can also benefit from a deeper understanding of the available evidence-based practices and how to maximize utility of such programs across settings. Although this book may be too advanced for parents without formal training in behavioral interventions, clinicians treating children with autism can guide families through the principles described in the book. They can ask more insightful questions about the nature of their child's social skills program and how social skills are reinforced in different settings. They can offer direction on other ways to teach children social skills and ultimately help improve outcomes.