Social Skills Training for Children and Adolescents with Asperger Syndrome and Social-Communications Problems

Rating:
Summary: The best social skills book for our family
Review: As a parent homeschooling a child with Asperger Syndrome, I've bought about a dozen books to help me teach my child social skills. This one is the most useful I've found. Most books on this topic are aimed only at teachers and are hard to adapt to use at home with one child; that's not the case with this book. While the book includes instructions for school personnel and describes how to teach the skills in classrooms and small groups, it is relatively free of educational jargon and doesn't waste too much space on things that useless to me, like reproducible handouts for the children to take home to their parents.

The skills are broken down into small steps and are very specific, which is helpful with my literal-minded child. As a socially adept adult, I sometimes have trouble finding ways to explain social conventions, like the 'Two-Question Rule,' as Baker calls it: 'When others as you a question and you answer it, you can ask a similar question right back.' I'm sure I do this every day ('How are you?' 'Fine, how are you?'), and yet it would have taken me ages to find a way to sum this up for my child.

The skills are broken down into six categories: Conversational Skills, Cooperative Play Skills, Friendship Management, Self-Regulation, Empathy, and Conflict Management. The skills range from 'Maintaining Appropriate Physical Distance from Others' to 'Giving Criticism in a Positive Way'. Each skill is covered on two pages. One page lists guidelines for following the rule, and includes a small fill-in-the-blank space where children can plan when they will try out the skill and later report how it worked. The facing page lists suggested activities for teaching and reinforcing the skill.

I was also pleased to find that Baker's The Social Skills Picture Book covers many of the skills in Social Skills Training, so I have been using the picture book as a companion to this book. Actually seeing photos of children using the skills (or making mistakes) helps to fix the rules in his mind.

Rating:
Summary: The best social skills book for our family
Review: As a parent homeschooling a child with Asperger Syndrome, I�ve bought about a dozen books to help me teach my child social skills. This one is the most useful I�ve found. Most books on this topic are aimed only at teachers and are hard to adapt to use at home with one child; that�s not the case with this book. While the book includes instructions for school personnel and describes how to teach the skills in classrooms and small groups, it is relatively free of educational jargon and doesn�t waste too much space on things that useless to me, like reproducible handouts for the children to take home to their parents.

The skills are broken down into small steps and are very specific, which is helpful with my literal-minded child. As a socially adept adult, I sometimes have trouble finding ways to explain social conventions, like the �Two-Question Rule,� as Baker calls it: �When others as you a question and you answer it, you can ask a similar question right back.� I�m sure I do this every day (�How are you?� �Fine, how are you?�), and yet it would have taken me ages to find a way to sum this up for my child.

The skills are broken down into six categories: Conversational Skills, Cooperative Play Skills, Friendship Management, Self-Regulation, Empathy, and Conflict Management. The skills range from �Maintaining Appropriate Physical Distance from Others� to �Giving Criticism in a Positive Way�. Each skill is covered on two pages. One page lists guidelines for following the rule, and includes a small fill-in-the-blank space where children can plan when they will try out the skill and later report how it worked. The facing page lists suggested activities for teaching and reinforcing the skill.

I was also pleased to find that Baker�s The Social Skills Picture Book covers many of the skills in Social Skills Training, so I have been using the picture book as a companion to this book. Actually seeing photos of children using the skills (or making mistakes) helps to fix the rules in his mind.

Rating:
Summary: for children under 12
Review: this book seems to target children under 12 years of age. It has very few pointers for adolescents. this book tends to be aimed at the education profession rather than parents.

Rating:
Summary: Down to Earth approach
Review: This struck me as a competent down to Earth book on social skills training. Largely the book outlines the relevant skill on the left hand page and then provides an explanation of the purpose of the skill and how it can be best developed on the right hand side. It reminded me up to a point of the Boystown Teaching Basic Social Skills manuals.

The positives of the book are that a great number of important skills are covered and the strategies for teaching and reinforcing them are presented. These features will definitely grab teachers desperate in most cases for some guidance.

In my opinion, the negatives are that not every skill is reducible to the format of the book. Many skills are more subtle and difficult to learn, and practice, than others. Also many communciation skills are primarily nonverbal and that needs to be emphasised when dealing with AS adolescents. These issues could have been addressed at greater length in the book and given the intended audience more theoretical work could have been introduced. One final quibble I have is grouping those with AS and social communication difficulties together. I think this is a mistake. AS has a distinct set of diagnsotic criteria. Social communication difficulties can arise from a variety of non AS related sources. Boundary blurring is not something I favour.

Many teachers and therapists will find this a practical book. It is not as linguistically geared up as work by say Rinaldi, but it is very accessible. Ultimately no one book is going to work with every child or group. However, I think this book in common with a few others is moving in the right direction.