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Social
Skills with Students that have Autism
For the past month I have been
observing and participating in a social skills group with students that have
autism. The school social worker
conducts the group with the entire class.
The teacher and the two teacher aids also assist the school social
worker to run the group. The purpose of
this group is to help students with Autism build social skills.
A few weeks ago I participated in a
social skills activity that appeared to engage the students. The activity came from the electronic book
Building Social Skills (2006) written by Danny Pettry. What I liked about the activity is it helps
people with Autism to make a connection between words that are related to
social interaction. Since students with
autism struggle with understanding sensory information this activity helps them
to understand the meaning of the words they hear from others. What was also fascinating to observe was once
the students understood what social skill the group leaders wanted them to
demonstrate they could then complete the task.
When referencing the National School
Social Work Practice Model, this activity falls under the practice feature of
implementing evidence based education, behavior and mental health
services. Though I have been in the
group for only a few weeks, the school social worker has debriefed with me
regarding student progress. Specifically,
when discussing outcomes, she identified two students that were non-verbal last
year. Both of these students can now
respond to questions from teachers which is a measurable outcome. Though those two student’s progress cannot be
directly connected to the social skills group, as previously stated, the
students could demonstrate the social skill the group leader was asking them to
complete once they understood what task they were being asked to accomplish.
References
Pettry,
Danny. (2006). Building Social Skills
through Activities. Retrieved from
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