Social Behaviours of Children with Autism 1: The Challenges in Communication

What are some of the challenges faced by children with autism when it comes to communcation and social interaction?

Scenario 1:
Jeff is 7 years old attending primary one. Although he has the desire to talk to his peers, he always has difficulty initiating conversations with them. His peers think that he is weird as he is always talking about things that don't make sense to them or he will be regurgitating the same comments everytime he tries to strike up a conversation with them.

In this case, although Jeff is socially aware of the pleasure in seeking companionship, he does not possess the mental flexibility nor social skills to keep up with the demands of a social setting. Furthermore, his understanding of social interaction is very basic - talk to someone and that person will talk to you. He is unaware of the many intricate details that come along with conversation due to his inability to process abstract concepts. These include emotions and the mental processes of individuals - how do they like being talk to, what kind of things they like to talk about, how they might react to certain topics or people and ETC.

Scenario 2:

John has a couple of friends in his class who would try to include him in their play activities whenever they could. There are times when John plays well with them although he does experience difficulties in catching up with them during conversations. However, John also has many episodes of temper tantrums and meltdowns resulted from various instances such as losing in a game and sudden changes in the games' objectives or rules. As a result of these episodic meltdowns, John's classmates are at times apprehensive of including him in their activities. 

Here, we see a child who is unaware of social rules and having difficulties controlling his emotions when things do not go the way he expects. As discussed in previous posts, behaviour is a reaction. Everyone will have a reaction, but the level of it depends on how we are able to control our actions that may be detrimental to us and the people around us. That being said, learning to express one's feelings calmly is a skill and concept that needs to be taught and practiced. Children with autism may take longer time than others to master such behaviour because the idea of having to put aside the immediate emotion they are experiencing is very abstract as compared to acting out instantly once an emotion is experienced. Furthermore, as above, because a child with autism has difficulty thinking in another person's perspective, they may see little reason in not expressing their immediate emotions through action. Finally, as many children with autism have difficulty expressing their emotions, acting out may be the next best option to show how they are feeling at the moment.

Scenario 3:

Henry likes playing by himself. Whenever other children try to play or talk to him, he would either ignore them or walk away doing his own things. Even if he is within the group, he tends to keep to himself doing his own play instead of joining in. At first, children were intrigued by his lonesome and "hard-to-get" personality. However, as time goes by, they lose interest in engaging him in their activities and go seeking out other more responsive new friends. 

In this scenario, the child seems to not understand the meaning in communication or social interaction. Play is very basic to the child and he is happy to be self engaged. Social understanding is at a minimal as he finds no need to engage the attention of others as long as his interest is fulfilled. He find no meaning in the world of others as he has not been exposed to the benefits of social interactions. Fundamental skills such as langauge joint attention may also be lacking leading to low interest in the world around him through expression of language and social cues.

Scenario 4:

Jessica is often being teased by her classmates for talking weird. Whenever she tries to initiate a conversation with them, they will try their best to shun her. These incidents lead to her possessing very low self esteem . She loses confidence in keeping up with her social skills as she reasons that people are going to make fun of her anyway if she tries. She begins to keep to herself more not just in social settings but also at home. This has resulted in other behaviours such as fear and anxiety attacks to be in new surroundings or when surrounded by new people.

In this case, it will be more of public education that is lacking. Often, students with autism in classroom get little support from the adults because they belong to the minority in a culture where the majority's well-being are being looked after first. Of course, that is not to say that all students with autism are being neglected in the classroom but it does show time and again that it requires substantial amount of resources such as manpower and educational materials in place to provide adequate assistance to the students of the minority. In this scenario, the classmates could be informed about what autism is about and how it may affect the langauge and communication skills of their classmate who has autism. Yet, discussion about autism in open settings remains a stigma to many adults, resulting in a 'don't ask, don't tell' attitude. This in turn allows the children with autism to be misunderstood as misfits within a classroom setting which in the first place, should be supportive and encouraging of learning and equipment of life skills.

In the upcoming post of this series, we will be looking more into these above described scenarios. What can be carried out to deal with the challenges faced by these children? If your child is facing any difficulties described above, what strategies and teaching methods can be put in place to help your child to develop better social and communication skills?

Till then, if you have any concerns or suggestions, please email me at davensim@triumphantkids.com. i look forward to your correspondence.

Regards,

Daven

www.triumphantkids.com

 

Suggestions to Observing Your Child at School.

Ways to observe your child in school.

There are a few ways to observe your child in school and here are two suggestions.
1) Watching the child from a distance seems to be the common method employed by most professionals. The observer is able to observe the activities and events within the classroom and around the child without distracting the class.

2) Participating in the classroom activity together with the child facilitates understanding of what the child is not coping well with. The child having the immediate opportunity to express difficulty in certain task or to give face to face feedback about a particular problem encountered may be valuable to the observer. It may however be essential that the observer is someone whom the child does not know personally so that the former may be introduced to the child as a teacher aide for the day. The role of the "teacher aide" may be to support only the child being observed, or to support the class in general. The advantage of being a support only to the child is that the observer has immediate and direct information and feedback regarding the child. The advantage of being a support to the class in general is that the observer gets a clearer understanding of how the children work and socialize with the observed child in the classroom settings and within various circumstances and situations.

Who should observe?

Anyone from the professionals to the child's parents or care givers are suitable to observe the child in school. It could even be someone whom the child is not familiar with. This at times actually could be a good choice as it allows the child to be observed from a new perspective, eliminating possibly any observer's bias since the observer has little understanding of the child's progress level. This may then raise the expectations on the observer to be more thorough and alert in his or her observation.

However, whoever it is that is carrying out the observation, it is instrumental to have the goals and objectives of the observations set out and/or written down before the observation period. For some ideas of objectives, refer to previous post - http://triumphant-kids.blogspot.com/2012/01/observing-your-child-in-school.html

Some suggested steps to carrying out an observation.

1: Set the necessary information of the observation. How long is the observation period going to be? What observation technique is going be used?

2: Contact and inform the school personnel, usually the principal and the child's class teacher, to request for days when you could go down to observe the child in school and in class. Provide all the information that you have such as observation period and observation techniques so that they could provide the best possible arrangement to your request.
You should have your goals and objectives for the observation set and written out before you contact the school. This will give them the general idea of what your specific purposes are and this information may help them in facilitating your observation goals.

3: Inform the child's parents of your goals and objectives for the observation. Very often, parents will have their own set of goals for the observer to follow through. Sit down and discuss what are common between both parties and what could be added or made redundant for now.

4: You might want to arrive earlier than arranged, perhaps 15 minutes to get prepared. It will also be helpful if the class teacher or principal could brief you on the class routine and maybe some rules around the school compound that have be to be observed. It will also be a good time to formally introduce yourself and to arrange possible follow up action after the observation.

5: Take notes ( on paper or mentally. Sometimes it is not possible to move around with the children and take notes at the same time if you are participating in class activities).

6: Pay attention to any instructions and feedback from the class teacher while class is in session. This is especially important when the observer is participating in the class activities.

7: The observer and the teacher together with the principal should have arranged for a meeting after the observation period ended. This is when the observer report and feedback on his or her observations. Feedback should be relevant to the goals and objectives set for the purpose of the observation. The class teacher and principal at this moment should also have their own opinions and feedbacks to contribute. Make notes of these as they should be relayed back to the parents or caregivers in the observation report.

8: Report to the parents about the observation. Provide useful feedback and suggestions to deal with issues highlighted in goals and objectives of observation.

9: Further learning programs for the child can then be drawn up.

10: Contact with school with necessary further actions to be taken as requested by the parents, suggested by the observer and agreed upon by all parties.

What are some of the difficulties that may arise during an observation? Be sure to watch out for the next blog post as I will be discussing some problems faced by observers at times in a naturalistic observation setting.


www.triumphantkids.com Email me at davensim@triumphantkids.com

Observing Your Child in School

What exactly are we looking for when we are observing a child in his or her school? Here are some suggestions for when carrying out an observation.

1) Your child's behaviour in school and how is he responding to the expectations of the people and environment around him. How well is he coping with the resources available and given to him.

2) Difficulties and challenges your child may be facing in the classroom and out of class settings.

3) Your child's interactions with peers, teachers and other adults involved in his or her learning environment.

4) Your child's self help level. Is he or she independent in going through the steps of toileting? Does he or she know where to get food, where to eat and clean up after himself or herself? ETC.

5) How his or her peers respond to your child. How peers talk among themselves about your child. Do they initiate conversation or play time with your child? Are they helpful? If not, why is this so?

6) Any feedback given by your child's teaching team or even peers.

For more detailed advice on what to look out for during a school observation, feel free to email me at davensim@triumphant.com

Next post, we will be looking at the few methods you could use to observe your child at school. Till then, do email me with an enquries and questions that you may have.

Cheers!