One of the diagnostic criteria for autism is social impairment. This is often evidenced by the child’s inability to pick up on emotional cues or perhaps not understanding that what is being said by another person does not match that person’s facial expression as well as not demonstrating joint attention.
Research reported in the Journal of Neuroscience states that not only do children with autism have trouble understanding social cues, but they often have ‘atypical gaze’ often focusing on another person’s mouth or another part of their face in isolation, instead of taking in the entire expression.
Theory of Mind
Even those with Asperger’s Syndrome can have trouble with theory of mind – understanding another person’s perspective and has been linked to problems with social cognition. A recent study also discovered that deficits with the theory of mind could also lead to problems with emotion regulation.
Social Interventions That Can Help Your Child
Most early intervention programs focus on teaching pre-academic skills with the goal of mainstreaming children with autism into regular classrooms. In addition, when the child enters school, social skill interventions do not normally end up on the IEP. However, some researchers believe that social skills are a learned behavior and increased interactions may occur with specific training and opportunities to practice these skills over time.
Recent research has noted that parent participation programs not only provide therapeutic benefit to the child, but parents themselves exhibit decreased stress, increased signs of competence in raising their child and higher levels of affect. The child benefits because their parents bring a level of commitment, availability and personal expertise that are unmatched by therapists. It is usually recommended that the parent receives training and checks in with a mentor periodically to assure the child is progressing and seeing what other strategies can be employed to help the child flourish. Some programs to be considered are:
1. Pivotal Response Training (PRT) – A strategy used heavily in ABA programs; PRT allows the child to select the stimuli and the parent reinforces reasonable child attempts at responding. If you are interested in a step by step instructional book, I recommend Behavior Intervention for Young Children with Autism: A Manual for Parents and Professionals.
2. Floortime – Created by Stanley Greenspan, MD it is a method that suggests adults meet children at their developmental level and build on their strengths. Floortime aims to help children reach six developmental milestones: self-regulation & interest in the world, intimacy or engagement in human relations, two-way communication, complex communications, emotional ideas and emotional thinking.
3. Video Technology – New research suggests that virtual worlds can help children with autism develop social skills beyond their anticipated levels. A program developed by the Echoes Project is showing great promise. Years ago parents were using Webkinz to help their children engage online.
4. Music – Music engages children and encourages social interaction. There are music therapists across the country that help children with autism. For more on how music can help with autism, please read The role of sensory integration in the diagnosis of autism and Music therapy shown to help children with autism.
5. Social Competence Intervention – SCI uses a combination of activities inspired by theater and drama and helps to improve the understanding of body language, facial expressions, and tone of voice, enhance children’s abilities to respond to others in socially appropriate ways and acquire practice social skills such as dealing with teasing and sarcasm. This is particularly helpful to children with Asperger’s.
In my experience, children who are eating a nutritious diet, have gone through chelation (if they are showing with high metal levels) and supplementing with the right vitamins; attend better and tend to progress quickly through this program and mainstream both academically and socially.
References
http://www.jneurosci.org/content/32/28/9469.full.pdf
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/22642342
http://education.ucsb.edu/autism/documents/VernonKoegelDautermanStolen2012AnEarlySocialInterventionforYoungChildrenwithAutismandtheirPa.pdf
http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2011/10/111021074534.htm
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/22187107