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A few people have asked about the book we are using with my DD9 (Gifted with Asperger's) so I finally located the title, I plan to purchase my own for over the summer.

The Social Skills Picture Book: Teaching play, emotion and communication to children with autism
by Jed Baker, Ph.D.

from Future Horizons Inc. 800-489-0727

Hope it helps!

Thank you. I'll try getting it via Interlibrary loan first to see what it's like before I buy it.

I use that at school when working with kids. I find it a very useful book with kids that have aspergers, but also with kids just helping them to build on skills. The pictures and simplification of steps in social interactions are great!

There is also a version of this book for high schoolers too. http://www.amazon.com/Social-Skills-Picture-School-Beyond/dp/1932565353/ref=pd_sim_b_3 We found this appropriate for use with our middle schooler too.

Has anybody read, or used, this one

The Unwritten Rules of Friendship: Simple Strategies to Help Your Child Make Friends ISBN 0316917303

Yes, I am reading that one, 'Unwritten Rules' right now and trying some of the suggestions with our ds8. It seems good, pretty straight forward and the examples seem to help in illustrating the point with ds.

I have mainly used it to suggest to ds a few scenarios to see if he feels he fits them.
Mostly I see him as a child who gets on a subject or an annoying activity and won't let up, I think he gets stuck because he doesn't have any way to 'back out'. I think he agrees with this, but there are more layers, too.
They have specific suggestions for each scenario, phrases to use when a kid has gotten himself into an embarrassing corner which normally would produce more awkward behavior. So, while I can't say ds is learning loads yet, it is good for me to have ways to respond when I hear about or see a situation where ds is irritating people because of his lack of social adeptness.
We also have him signed up for a class during the summer with other boys around the same age and hopefully one in the fall at school. Basically the counselor said that this takes learning and loads and loads of practice so we are trying learning from a lot of angles and moving ds into some activities like boy scouts which should provide a lot more opportunities to reinforce the skills he's trying to learn.

thanks chris1234 - I just ordered a copy.

My little'un (little'un - the 9yo is only 8 inches shorter than me) just doesn't know how to act with his peers. He's okay with elder kids and adults. I saw him the other day at cubs go up to a group of his mates and just stand outside the group. Eventually he hits one of them to start a game of tag, and got chased all over the field by a few of them. It's almost like he doesn't know how to get himself into the group - an adult would mostly just say "hi guys" and join in.

There are always issues which seem like he's being bullied but I think he either misreads the behaviour of his peers or doesn't know how to respond to a bit of banter and horseplay between the lads.

So I hope this book will give me some help
Thanks again

Yes, my ds does things like that too: the other day he was running around with a paper airplane at the bus stop, I wasn't there but my sister said she pulled him aside because he was running it just about into other people's faces. She said he stopped right away but when I asked about it, he said, 'Well they all really hate me, so why not irritate them?'
Of course we had a quick conversation about how if someone doesn't like you it doesn't mean they hate you, and how engaging in irritating behavior is not going to get him far in the friends department. He's not like this all the time, but the bigger the crowd the more likely he is to pull one of these odd behaviors.

There is a section in the book about how *not* to join a group - and how to join a group. Good luck to you, I am curious to know how things go for him.

chris1234 - he just came home from school with a 'banged head' note and an enormous lump on the back of his head. Seems he was messing around on a brick wall trying to make some boys laugh!

I will try and let you know how it goes

Thanks

paul

Oh, no! Poor guy
Please do pm/post back, if you feel like it. As we get into this group class I can let you know if that seems like a hit/success...
It seems the two things to remember are: yes, kids can usually learn these skills and ways to get good attention (yay!) but it will take a while (grumble).

Hi, I am posting back to describe this class that our son has just completed. Hope this is not too long-winded.
While the boys got together, the parents met to discuss parenting ideas and issues that our kids were/are having.

This was an abbreviated version (6 wks) of the longer course they hold during the school year. (30+ wks).

For the parents part, I'd say it was definitely helpful. They'd start each session by asking the parents to describe the week, or the homework we'd done with our sons and how it went. And then we'd learn a new technique for handling various issues.
Some of the subjects - good communication skills, conflict resolution, self-esteem.
Certainly many of these areas could have been covered for weeks, but even the brief look at each one was helpful. For us, the communication skills section and the section on positive reinforcement were great. I know I'd read a bit about some of these techniques in books here and there, but it was good to hear some further explanation and examples.

For ds, I think he enjoyed being with the other boys, they'd always get a good-behavior/participation prize or two at the end of each class. The homework was engaging and ds never complained about doing it. I think he learned a few new skills, and may be seeing more *why* it's important to practice good communication.
He told me, 'I know most of this stuff, I just choose not to do it', but I think he's already seeing some good results with just a bit of effort.

I think I 'see' him better now; before I couldn't really pin down his issues with making/keeping friends other than he can be a 'pest'. Now we have defined this a bit better, he has issues with respecting other people's personal space, stopping when people say 'stop' and not hogging the conversation. Oh, and his sensitivity can lead to him feeling slighted during what other kids would consider normal interaction.
Now we have some key phrases we can use to help him stay on track, and with practice hope he'll make these into habits.

Hearing someone other than me talk about some of these techniques such as positive reinforcement (through the use of a token/rewards jar) has helped with both ds and Dh. Dh seems more open to reading about additional techniques and using them. He was willing to go, willing to listen but much less willing to consider using the new things we learned. Then we had a really really successful weekend with ds9 and 4 of his boy cousins, and I think dh's opinion has definitely shifted. (He is by nature an extreme pessimist).
It never occurred to us to use tokens/rewards for practicing good social skills, never had the social skills sort of boiled down/presented in bite-size pieces to make prioritizing 2-3 of them even possible.
Definitely recommend the shorter class, the longer one I think we are going to hold off on, and take what we've learned for now and try to run with it.

I'd enjoys some of the tips you learned in the class. My children don't go for the external (prizes) reward. They prefer internal (good feeling) rewards. So I'd be interested in the other tips they gave.

Here are a couple of the conflict resolution methods described, haven't had need to deploy them yet:
the disagreeing parties are asked to list out every single possible solution to a problem, without preconceived notions, and then discuss the likely outcomes of each and then together pick the best one. Have not tried this method, but it is good to have ds exposed to the concepts.

Conflict resolution method 2 - person 1 says 'I have a concern' and lists concern, such as 'you haven't started your homework and it has to get done.'.
person 2 is then allowed to state their concern, such as '
I hate it, it's boring', whatever. Everyone's concern is considered valid, the child is allowed to have 5 or 10 minutes to brainstorm to try to come up with a creative solution. If they can't come up with a solution, the other person is allowed to come up with one.
This is supposed to help both people feel heard and that can go a long way towards bring people together to a solution.

One tip for practicing not interrupting, which we tried in the parents class and was sort of excruciating but funny too (and I'm pretty sure I've read this one before): the person speaking holds a small thing like a ball or salt shaker, if others want to speak they have to have the token object to be allowed.
We tried this with hilarious results at home, it was enjoyable anyway.

Wasn't sure if your main concerns are social skills or other issues...hope some of these help.

thank you!