Description
These sample pages come from How to Talk with Friends: A Step-by-Step Social Skills Curriculum for Children with Autism & Asperger’s.
About How to Talk with Friends: A Step-by-Step Social Skills Curriculum for Children with Autism & Asperger’s.
Making friends and maintaining friendships is a struggle for learners with Autism, Asperger’s and similar social skills challenges. Often these children lack the conversation skills needed to communicate and engage with their peers.
This hands-on manual is your step-by-step guide to helping your learner build strong conversation skills.
Weekly social skills lessons emphasize the entire spectrum of skill acquisition, from structured practice to generalization in the natural environment. Lessons are scripted for easy delivery and all required materials are included, making this resource suitable for both parents and professionals.
Easily adaptable for both group and individual use, students learn how to:
- Begin a conversation by asking about their friend’s interests.
- Respond to a friend with appropriate comments, follow-up questions, and follow-up comments.
- Track the movement of a conversation topic and avoid getting stuck on his/her own special interest topic.
- Appropriately change a topic during a conversation without dropping it in like a bomb.
- Signal interest with eye contact and body orientation and also interpret a friend’s face/body messages.
- Begin and end a conversation smoothly.
Children learn and practice these key social skills while playing games, doing crafts and hanging out with their friends or family. The focus is on extended practice to ensure mastery.
The manual is organized into two parts. Part 1 provides the background information you need to run a successful social skills group or teach an individual learner. Individual chapters cover the course content and structure, preparation, and course delivery and assessment.
Part 2 contains weekly lessons. Each lesson provides step-by-step instructions for pre-session preparation, session delivery and assessment, and parent communication. The social skills lesson is scripted to ensure high-quality delivery even with inexperienced coaches. All materials for delivering the course are contained in the Appendices.
Children with ASD can learn to engage with peers. This easy-to-use manual is the guide you need to ensure their success.
Reviews from Amazon:
“Great book! I use it to teach basic group interaction and conversation skills. Helps break down those steps in a relatable way. The children I have used it with are not diagnosed as on the spectrum – but struggle socially.”
“This is an invaluable resource for teaching children with autism what a conversation is or any child that is struggling to make friends. It gives detailed information for facilitating the groups and also parent handouts and evaluation sheet. I feel that parents and teachers who read this book will be better able to assist children with social skills, even if they do not lead a formal group setting.”
“As a parent, I do not have a group to work with, I did the group by using her father and her as the two having the conversation. I think it has helped the entire family dynamic and increased overall communication.”
“For SLPs in private practice, this book is a blueprint to facilitate a social language group. For SLPs working in schools, this book provides great ideas to use in therapy–not only for students with Autism, but those with intellectual delays, language disorders, and non-verbal students who rely on augmentative alternative communication devices.”
“I love the layout of the book, and its content. Each lesson is outlined very clearly, the activities are great, and it even includes data sheets!
The author’s goal was to target the tweens (too advanced for basic social skill curriculums but not quite ready for teen programs). I think she succeeded in this.
Overall, this book is a great tool for teaching and developing conversation skills :)”
“Wow! This is truly an excellent resource! The format is fantastic; very easy to read, great layout with shading and highlighted parts that make it easy to follow and read. This is a very comprehensive guide and very practical. Written in layman’s terms so that anyone, from the most experienced professional to the “newbie” can easily follow along and implement this program. I am truly impressed with this book and I highly recommend it. I would like to see it used in schools and rehab centres everywhere.”
