Hi,
I'm in a quandary about DD9's social skills group and am trying to work on some alternatives. Her current school is great but required (at the time of admission last Spring) that she participate in a social skills group. The problem is that while she's apparently doing well socially in school (with the support of the teachers and the other kids, thank goodness :), this group has not gone so well. It's a group for elementary age girls. DD is I think on the autism spectrum but does not have a formal diagnosis; mainly she has some social skills issues, so a group would be good if it were positive rather than a negative experience. However, this group is run by a psych who frankly seems a little young and not too familiar with spectrum kids, and IMO she doesn't seem to 'get' DD. DD has gotten in trouble several times, for example, for not participating in the conversation when (she tells me later) she was trying hard to not interrupt, which is one of her main goals for school and home (and is listed on her checksheet for this same group). Another time she got in trouble because they were playing a board game and DD changed her mind about where to move a piece (before the next move) but another kid told her she was cheating, so DD got upset, saying that wasn't a rule and she wasn't cheating (she's very serious about honesty and also very competitive) and got in trouble with the psych for arguing about it. (At home, if this happens, we say, that's okay for this time, but going forward the rule is [x]--and this was not chess, because she knows those rules very well.) But it was a Big Deal for the psych that DD argued about it, and DD came out of the group crying and very upset herself. I understand the perspective of the other kid and the psych, but just don't think that was the way to handle it--and DD comes away mainly thinking that they are all against her. So she and I discussed this afterwards and talked about how she should deal with it in the future (i.e., assume that it is not okay to change a move without permission, using your words/ discussing what should happen calmly if there is a disagreement, etc.), so hopefully she learned something from that. However, it really seems like the group is not functioning to help her learn social skills, but rather creating issues of its own that we now have to coach her to deal with outside of the group. This seems backwards to me, and this is what seems to happen in this group almost every time. I tried discussing it politely with the psych but didn't really get anywhere, so I don't think it's going to change. I mean, for a kid on the spectrum, is it useful to put them in situations where they don't understand what they're supposed to be doing, or they don't follow through, and then have them be in trouble for that? Maybe it is in some way, but it feels a lot like last year in school where the teacher just didn't get DD and she just always felt bad about herself.
Since she's doing well in school from what we hear from the teacher, and since I don't think she is really learning much from the group, I'd like to figure out something else to do. I've contacted one of the local homeschooling groups (which we can meet up with in the Summer) and an autism group that meets about once a month, so I would be trying to work on her skills in those settings (by coaching, etc.). Also I am thinking about working through the "Raise your child's social IQ" (Cathi Cohen) book this Summer as suggested awhile ago by the Davidson people, and I found a game on Amazon called "The Art of Conversation" that looked useful for practicing dinner conversations. My sister had an interesting suggestion about picking a front-page newspaper story every day and having a 'water cooler' (informal) conversation about it with her kid to practice. And of course we can keep doing playdates every now and then, and more of them if possible, but I guess whether any of that is 'enough' will be judged by any issues she has in school, which in turn will depend largely on how she gets along with her peers and teachers--and so is essentially beyond our control or ability to influence.
I guess I'm just wondering 1) whether people think this kind of social skills group experience is useful for a kid on the spectrum and 2) whether anyone has tried any other resources (books, games, online stuff, etc.) that might be helpful, because unless I start to think differently about this group I'd really like to drop it and hopefully have something of substance to tell the teacher and school as to what we are doing instead.
Thanks for listening. Sorry as usual for my rambling stream of consciousness post.
