Children with autism suffer from a triad of impairments
Autism symptoms include:
Social deficits: Tips for parents of autistic children
Children with autism have difficulties with social situations they lack the ability to understand social etiquette.
Making and maintaining friendships is an issue for autistic children also.
They lack the ability to understand other people’s emotions, which can make them appear rude and aloof.
They will be bluntly honest with you, do not ask unless you want an honest answer and do not ask them to lie!
Autistic children prefer to be on their own and are often referred to as “being in an autism own world”
Some communication deficits: Tips for parents of autistic children
Children with autism avoid eye contact. They lack the ability to understand wit, sarcasm, humor and jokes.
Autistic children also find starting and maintaining conversations difficult, and lack the ability to read facial expressions and body language.
Imagination and interaction deficits: Tips for parents of autistic children
Autistic children have difficulties with pretend play, preferring to be alone.
They lack imagination and can be found sorting their Lego into colors or sizes rather than pretend play.
They find interactive lessons at school difficult.
Autistic children have issues with turn taking and sharing, also lining up and asking or answering questions.
You may see other autism symptoms in your child, all autistic children are different and their autism symptoms will vary. However all will have the triad of impairments.
There are autism resources available to help autistic children find coping mechanisms.
Autism social skills are not learned naturally by autistic children. They need to be taught directly.
For example: Does your autistic child have difficulties with taking turns?
This is an example taken from a social skills story written for a 7 year old autistic boy.
“At home and sometimes at school, I play games, sometimes I play board games like snakes and ladders, and sometimes I play card games like snap”. This is the first line in the autism social skills story that is now in place.
Autism social skills stories are designed to give the autistic children clear information focusing on the main issues, the autistic child is finding confusing or stressful.
Situations like Mother’s Day; autistic children do not understand WHAT Mother’s Day is, why it is celebrated and what is expected of them and from them.
Autism social skills stories can help explain what Mothers Day is and why our Mum’s are appreciated on this day.
By implementing social skills stories an autistic child can be helped with autism social skills directly.
Visit www.autismsocialstories.com/mothers_day for immediate download of Mother’s Day social skills stories which you can implement to help your child understand.
Research suggests that preschool autistic children do not develop play in the same way as a normally developing youngster.
Preschool autistic children do not interact in the same way as a normally developing child and are not as likely to want to explore their environment.
What is autism?
Autism is a disorder affecting the brain- some of the symptoms of autism are:
Social deficits
Communication deficits
Imagination and Interaction deficits.
So how does this affect preschool autistic children play?
To begin understanding autism play, we first should look at what is meant by play…
Play is spontaneous
Play is imaginative
Play should be fun and enjoyable
Play involves an active role by the person playing
Play can be solitary or with another person
“Preschool autistic children and what is autism”
So how will the symptoms of autism affect the act of play in autistic children?
In normally developing children the use pf play helps with development, for example:
Play has various stages…
Sensory stimulation a baby stimulated and attracted for example to a cot mobile or baby gym.
Exploratory play a youngster playing with Lego, or a cardboard box even. This is how a child begins interacting with their environment. With autistic children this inquisitiveness is missing.
Physical play this includes actually touching others for example, rough and tumble, football and interactive pretend play.
Social play this includes wanting to play with other children, for example on the playground, at the park etc.
Pretend play Make believe play, all normally developing children will engage in pretend play, this is part of development.
Play is a natural process a normally developing child goes through. It helps them explore their thoughts, feelings and interact with their peers and their environment.
In autistic children the need to play and be inquisitive is missing
Autistic children prefer their own company and lack interest in their environment; they preferrepetition to imagination and compulsive play.
Preschool autistic children may not stimulated by a bright colored cot mobile, or play gym, do not want to engage in pretend or rough and tumble play. Lack the inquisitiveness for exploratory play and do not understand why or how to engage in pretend play.
When preschool autistic children begin preschool the differences in behaviors of a normally developing and an autistic child can become apparent.
There are ways as a preschool teacher or parent you can help the autistic child manage their behaviors and experiences at preschool by implementing autism social stories…
Research suggest autistic children respond well to autism social stories and therefore they can be introduced into daily and preschool lives affectively-giving the preschool autistic child clear coping mechanisms and instructions on how to interact with others and perform everyday tasks.
For example how to “pretend play”, “say hi”, “share toys” or perform tasks such as tooth brushing, visiting the doctor, starting preschool and so on…
Autism social stories are available in printable format making sharing them with all responsible in your autistic child’s care easy.
Implementing autism social stories is easy and effective. Research shows autism social stories are widely used with positive affects and results.
For immediate downloads visit one of these main autism sites:
Autism tools can be downloaded and used for various situations and activities.
Teaching social skills to kidswith autism; can be made easier by using the appropriate autism tools…
Kids with autism will need to be taught autistic social skills directly, unlike a normally developing a child, the autistic child will not easily gather social skills from their environment.
An autistic child will lack interest in the activity’s of those around them, and will not have the ability to “mind read” or read the body or facial language of those they come into contact with, neither will they easily understand slang words, nick names and jokes.
Autism tools to help the autistic child or adolescent cope with and understand their environment and those they come into contact with; are downloadable, in the format of autism social skills stories…
Kids with autism rarely initiate imaginative or pretend play with their peers and prefer solitary play. They lack eye contact and find holding and maintaining conversation difficult.
Autistic social skills are taught using autism social skills stories. Teaching Social Skills to Kidswith autism; autistic social skills such as “Having a good conversation”, “Pretend play”, “Friends” and being a good sport.
Research shows kids with autism respond well to autism social skills stories.
These short pieces of text are pictorially rich; kids with autism are visual learners and find the images in autism social skills stories easy to understand.
Autism social skills stories arm the autistic child with instructions in language they will understand. That will help them make sense of any situation, or event, activity they are struggling with or finding stressful.
To download suitable, pictorially rich autism social skills stories immediately visit:
Autism spectrum disorder is a life long disability, present from birth or early childhood. There is no cure for autism spectrum disorder.
Autism disabilities affect more boys than girls. In general autistic spectrum disorders surround problems with communication, behavior and social awareness.
Listed are some of the main autism disabilities you will probably have noticed:
Unable to cope socially
Communication difficulties
Stimming-self stimulation
Obsessions with an object or thing
Lack of eye contact
Preferring to be alone
Repetition
Unable to make and maintain friendships
Lack of social understanding often miss-reading facial expressions and others body language
Short concentration span
Need for sameness, no spontaneity
There are different kinds of autism:
Aspergers syndrome for example often referred to as high functioning autism, this set of autistics will often have a higher than normal I.Q.
But autism disability is more often present among lower I.Q. groups such as those with learning disabilities.
The term Autism Spectrum Disorder (ASD) is used because Autism varies from person to person. Around 25% of people with ASD will have an accompanying learning disability.
Those autistics that have an average or above average I.Q. will often be diagnosed as asperger syndrome.
However despite the different kinds of autism, all autistics with an Autism Spectrum Disorder will have problems in the areas of Communication, Social Skills and Imagination.
As with autism disabilities all asperger individualswill have problems in at least three of the same areas:
Social communication
Social understanding
Imagination
There are methods and techniques already being used with huge success to help in these social areas: ABA is one method used.
There are also social skills stories Research suggest that autistic and asperger individuals respond well to social skills stories.
Autism social skills storiesand asperger social skills stories are used effectively for situations and experiences that the autistic individual will come across in daily life, as well as planned situations like for example a wedding, new baby or a visit to the dentist.
Autism social stories are used for all areas where the individual needs help and guidance.
For example: during puberty, at school, preschool, around the home and hygiene issues.
Autism social skills stories are an excellent resource providing clear concise social cues. Explaining both in text form and visually by the aid of appropriate images and pictures the event, situation or skill the autistic individual may be struggling with.
They can be easily implemented and used both in the home and at school, college or the workplace.
To download and begin implementing autism social skills stories immediately to help with autism disability, visit one of our many sites and gain access to these valuable tools
A normally developing child learns in several different ways:
Visually through sight
Auditory through hearing
kinesthetically through touch or manipulation.
Mainstream schools will normally include a variety of learning techniques, the children will learn visually through reading books and texts. They also learn through listening to their teachers, and through touch or manipulation for example tech., art, textiles etc
Kids with autismspecial needs students they will nearly always be visual learners. However some kids with autism may also be kinesthetic learners and may well benefit form their teacher or helper actually guiding their hand while they undertake tasks.
So with that in mind an autism special needs teacher will need to asses each autistic child individually to determine which method of learning they appear to prefer.
The special needs teacher will then be able to steer the lesson planning for that child to suit their particular method of learning and therefore build on their individual strengths.
One very important thing to remember when planning lessons for the autistic child is their need for repetition Autistic children like repetition and sameness. So this needs to be Kept in mind when setting lessons.
As with a normally developing child autism learning disabilities, can be enhanced by the introduction and implementation of autism social skills stories
Autism social skills stories are used as a tool for teaching kids with autism and special needs vital social information and skills.
By introducing autism social skills stories you will enhance learning skills in the autism special needs student.
Autism learning disabilities can be helped by these excellent visually rich autism social skills stories. They are easily implemented and can be adapted to suit all children.
Social Stories are an excellent autism resource for teaching and re-enforcing vital social skills to people with autism and other disabilities on the spectrum.
Autism social skills stories give the autistic person accurate information about any situation that maybe struggling with, find confusing, or stressful.
The social skills story will describe in detail the situation and give focus to a few key points: these are the important social cues
For example the social skills story will give information about the event, and the reactions the individual might expect to occur in the situation. Plus it will give the actions and reactions that might be expected of them, and why.
The goal of autism social skills stories is to increase the autistic persons understanding of events and situations, therefore making them more comfortable in the situation, as well as then suggesting some possibly appropriate responses to the situation.
An individual with autism is believed to lack the theory of mind or mind read, they do not understand or are unable to read body language or facial expressions.
With autism a person lacks any understanding that others have their own thoughts, feelings, plans, and points of view. This inevitably can lead to stress and confusion.
An excellent autism resource for helping autistic people gain vital social skills is the use of autism social Stories. Which address the theory of mind deficit by providing the autistic person with some insight into the emotions, thoughts, feelings and behaviors of those around them.
The social skills story provides information in a well structured and consistent manner. This makes them excellent autism resource for kids with autism.
Kids with autism are visual learners, therefore a social story with appropriate images and pictures can prove worth its weight in gold!
Especially when dealing with social skills the autistic child is struggling to understand like toileting, potty training etc. the visual images and text in the social story can provide the vital social skills information needed.
Social Storiesgive the autistic child direct contact with the appropriate social skills information, through pictures and text as opposed to speech or observation, which appears to be a noticeable weakness in autism and aspergers syndrome.
To view an example autism social skills story and download autism social skills stories for your autistic child or young person…visit us immediately at:
It is perfectly normal to make a judgment about a person as soon as you meet them. We judge their hair, face, voice even their stance and quickly decide what we like and dislike about the person, before we even get to know them…We can read a persons body language and realize if they are happy, sad, pleased to see us or angry
People with asperger syndrome can find it harder to read the signals that most of us take for granted.This means they find it more difficult to communicate and interact with others which can lead to high levels of anxiety and confusion.
Asperger syndrome is a form of autism.
Autism is a lifelong disability, which affects how a person makes sense of the world.
How they processes information and relate to others. Autism is often described as a spectrum disorder.
This isbecause autism spectrum disorder will affect people in different ways and to varying degrees.
Asperger syndrome has been described as the ‘hidden disability’.
….Because the asperger person will look normal to the outside world. The individual with asperger syndrome will have difficulties in three main areas.
They are: Social interaction, Imagination and communication difficulties
You may have heard them referred to as “the triad of impairments”
Whilst there are some similarities with autism, those people with Asperger syndrome will present less difficulties with speaking and are often of average, or above average, intelligence.
With the right support, encouragement, and social aids people with Asperger syndrome can lead full and independent lives.
One such support you can give an asperger person is in the form of printable asperger social stories
Research has shown that asperger social stories can be regarded as a valuable part of an asperger person’s life Giving them the social know how that the condition renders them without.
Making social acceptance easier and less stressful Asperger social stories are used as a tool for teaching and re-enforcing appropriate behaviors and social skills.
To access and immediately download suitable asperger social skills stories visit one of our many sites PLUS grab your free report Managing your autistic child’s behavior from:www.autismsocialstories.com
Astonishingly up to 50 percent of autistic children will never develop speech, whilst the others will develop some form of early communication skills.
However, kids with autism rarely engage in effective communication.
When we think of speech - language; we are referring to a body of words, the formations of sounds, as well as the structures and forms used to construct speech.
Communication on the other hand can occur either verbally through speech or non-verbally through the use of spoken words, gestures, signs, or by pointing to printed words or symbols.
Thus communicating with autistic siblings effectively, we must firstly be able to understand why we need to communicate with others, have the desire to communicate, have somebody to communicate with, have something to communicate about, and have a means of expressing ourselves.
As children develop, they begin to explore their environment and start to understand the cause and effect around them. For example when they are thirsty they can point to the fridge or a cup…When they are wanting a cuddle or are tired they may raise both hands to picked up.
With autistic children - autism communication, sometimes this inquisitiveness is missing, the lack of interest in their surroundings and the lack of effective eye contact make learning communication very difficult.
By the time a non-verbal autistic child starts school, they may already have seen a speech therapist to establish a program to aid with the development of effective communication. The speech therapist will need to determine some appropriate objectives and goals, a base level of communication will be established by carefully observing the child within the school setting.
In certain cases it may be necessary for the autistic child to learn a new form of communication. For example the child may cry or scream when they need something and this is their form of communication. But this is not going to be effective in a classroom full of children. There fore new forms of communication will need to be established.
Social skills stories can be used as a form of autism communication…for communicating with autistic siblings.
Autism social stories are short but descriptive pieces of text with appropriate pictures and images to support the story - or instruction. So for example if the new skill is to help the autistic child understand the need for quiet reading at school, the appropriate autism social story would be selected and implemented.
Theautisticsocial skillsstory will pictorially show as well as the text the reason why the children are expected to be silent, who is expecting them to be silent and why also the consequence of not being quiet and the consequent or reward for being quiet.
Autistic children tend to be visual learners, which is why studies have shown that autism social stories are an excellent aid in developing good foundations for behavior and social skills for autistic children and adults.
As well as excellent tools for helping develop communication skills.
To obtain appropriate autistic social skills stories that will aid with the problem of communicating with autistic siblings please visit us NOW at:
Have you ever stopped to consider how often you use visual supports during the day? How about when you look at a TV Guide, use a recipe, look at a map…
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All of these are visual supports. Yes of cause we could live without visual supports, but just consider how limited our lives would be…no internet, newspapers, maps etc!
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A similar rule applies to autism, autistic people also need visual supports, and pretty similar to the visual supports we ourselves use “everydayâ€.
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Visual supports in autism include visual timetables, autism social stories, communication systems, PECS, flashcards and other visual supports used for autistic coping strategies.
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As we are already aware autistic children and people think and learn visually.
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Therefore, it is essential that “visual supports in autismâ€, is given great consideration. Autistic people have difficulties with communication, and sometimes will lack the ability to speak, or their language may be restricted.
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Which in itself can cause problems, but when this is coupled with their lack of social awareness also, it can prove to be a recipe for social mistakes.
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Social mistakes can cause embarrassment and stress, which can lead to anxiety and sometimes trigger violent or aggressive outburst, which then can become a vicious circle.
One excellent tool is the use of autism social stories. Social Stories can be used for teaching social skills to children with autism and related disabilities.
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Social skill stories present appropriate social behaviors for situations, which include answers to questions the autistic person will need to know to interact appropriately with others…for example, answers to who, what, where, when, and why.
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Autism social stories can provide an individual with accurate information about those situations they may find difficult or confusing.
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The social story will describe the situation in detail and focus is given to a few key points. These are the social cues…the events and reactions the individual may expect in the situation, the actions and reactions that might be expected of them, and why.
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Using Autism social stories will increase your child’s understanding of why things happen and why they are expected to act in certain ways or do certain things, like washing their teeth, or using public toilets.
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You can see an example social story at www.autismsocialstories.com Studies have shown autistic people respond well to social stories. Visually social stories can be pictorially rich and colorful-giving the autistic person clear social cues and prompts for managing and understanding the situation, task, event or activity.
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Immediately download and begin using appropriate visual supports in autism such as autism social stories, to help your autistic child, teen or adult find appropriate coping strategies for all situations they find stressful, confusing or difficult.
To view an example social story and immediately download appropriate autism social stories visit us at:
More often than not autistic people will have social impairments and lack the ability to “mind read†or understand what others maybe thinking. They will not have the ability to understand body language or facial expression. Something we as a whole take for granted.
Social impairments become apparent early in childhood and continue through to adulthood.
Autistic children will pay less attention to social stimuli, they will probably smile a lot less and won’t be interested in engaging with others, they may also respond less to their own name.
You may find your autistic toddler for example, will give less eye contact, may respond less to his/her name, not be as cuddly and is more likely to communicate by pulling on your hand and leading you to what they desire.
By the ages of between three to five years old most normally developing youngsters will understand facial expressions, body language and non-verbal communication skills…and most definitely learnt how to manipulate their parents!…
Autistic children are less likely to exhibit any social understanding, they will almost certainly be less likely to approach others spontaneously, imitate and respond to emotions, and still not grasp the concept of turn taking.
However, autistic children do form attachments to their primary caregivers, parents, and teachers. They will undoubtedly display less attachment than that of a normally developing child though.
Children with less severe Autism Spectrum Disorder, like aspergers or mild autism may be more likely to form stronger bonds, but as they grow older studies have shown they perform slightly less on tests of face and emotion recognition.
Making and maintaining friendships often proves to be difficult for those with autism. For them, the quality of friendships, not the number of friends, predicts how lonely they are.
Autistic children like all normally developing children do need friends…and as a parent or teacher of an autistic child there are ways in which you can help them understand the importance of being a good friend. As well as helping them learn the skill of making friends, something again we take for granted, as an autistic person this skill does not come naturally, but needs to be learnt.
As a primary caregiver, parent or teacher, you can help by introducing the idea of autism social stories as a technique of explaining how we make friends, why we need friends and how to then maintain those friendships in easy to understand language.
These valuable short pieces of text are an excellent tool which you can use with your autistic child to help them understand and control situations.
Appropriate autism social stories are well written in the first person and will have images and or photos showing your autistic child in a clear helpful manner how, why, where and when they should do something. They will give the appropriate responses the autistic person may expect and also the responses they themselves should expect from others.
As more and more special needs students with autism are coming into mainstream regular classrooms, teachers are faced with the challenge of meeting their needs as well as the needs of all students within their classroom.
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So how do teachers cope with autism in the classroom? Autism and classroom accommodations need to be put in place before the autistic student starts school.
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Nurturing the parent-teacher relationship is key. A meeting with the child’s parents should be held prior to the start of the school year. Parents can help identify the pragmatic skills in the autistic child, learning patterns, current cognitive skills, and the behavioral techniques that are used with the child.
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All autism classroom accommodations should be noted and all the appropriate adults in the child’s care team should be involved, like school speech therapist, occupational therapist, special education teacher.
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Students with autism will often struggle to express what they need or what they don’t understand.
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Autism in the classroom can be helped by using visual cues around the classroom, for example above the bathroom a picture of a toilet, sink with the written word on show also. Using visual cues can help the autistic child quickly identify certain areas, without feeling frustrated.
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Pictures and words should be used all around the classroom to help identify areas such as where coats and lunches are stored, pencils are sharpened, and books are put on the shelf.
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As well as visual cues the teacher should have the appropriate autism social stories
….Autism social stories are designed as a tool for helping parents, teachers of autistic children better cope with challenging and often frustrating behaviors.
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Social stories will act as a best friend to the autistic child…helping them cope with all the daily activities in school, as well as helping with all classroom accommodations and as an aid in pragmatic skills in autistic children.
One of the biggest problems for autistic children is difficulty insocial interaction.
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This problem is heightened by their difficulties with speech and language. Autism also seems to create problems with the ability to mind read, or being able to tell or guess at what another person might be thinking.
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Normally developing children will observe others and guess, through a combination of tone and body language, what the other person may be thinking or feeling.
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However, with autism this naturally developed skill is missing and so the ability to predict what another is feeling or thinking is not there…
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This lack of being able to mind read can lead to social mistakes even for those with high functioning autism….And of cause social mistakes may lead to the autistic person causing hurt feelings, asking inappropriate questions, acting oddly or generally open themselves up to hostility, teasing, bullying and social isolation.
Quite often parents and educators of children with autism feel unable to communicate and interact with their autistic child.
Sometimes the autistic child may appear not to hear what has been said to them, they will often fail to respond to their name and can sometimes be indifferent to any attempts of communication with them.
By careful observation it can often be determined which way the child communicates, in this ways the educator or parent can build on this strength.
For example, if the child is non-verbal, rather then communicating with them by using words, try using gestures. The child with autism may use some of the following to communicate: crying, taking the adults hand to the thing they want, looking at what they want, reaching, using pictures and echolalia.
Echolalia is the repetition of other people’s words and is a common with the autistic child. Some autistic children will constantly repeat a rhyme or something they heard on TV.
Echolalia is a good sign it means speech is developing, in time the child may repeat something that was said to them, like drink or toilet.
Developing communication with your autistic child will be a slow process, but eventually you will make progress.
Autistic children tend to be visual learners, using pictures and images is a good way to communicate what you are expecting of them or wanting from them.
For, example at dinner time a picture or image of the family sitting around the table and a plate of food will tell the child it is time to eat.
These short pieces of text, normally one page long will have pictorial cues as to what is happening and what the child is expected to do. In time the autistic child will recognize the stories and will naturally re-act in the way the story intends them too.
For example…Dinner time a social skills story may have a picture of the family sitting around the table…a plate, cutlery, maybe a cup, some food…The adult can show the autistic child the story with the colorful images and they can then read the short descriptive pieces of text will pointing to the appropriate image.
…These autism social skills stories are normally printable so they can be used time and time again, in-fact they can be used for every situation you need help with.
These social skills stories can become like a best friend to the autistic child giving the clear and precise instructions of how to act in all situations, Plus they are a fantastic communication device for a parent-giving you the tools you need to help communicate with your autistic child.
Autistic children on the whole have issues when it comes to making and keeping friends.
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Sometimes they can find themselves as the targets for bullies, because of their lack of social understanding and on occasion’s odd behavior, language and unusual pre-occupations and tendencies.
Their lack of understanding and ability to respond in socially expected ways to nonverbal cues can lead to conflict or being ignored by others. Children with Asperger’s syndrome will sometimes be extremely literal and may find interpreting and responding to sarcasm or banter difficult….And may well not understand what has been said or done.
Therefore, the sooner an autistic child learns how to make appropriate friendships the better. It can help reduce problems, like bullying and lead to better relationships with people who aren’t on the spectrum.
It is easy as a non-autistic person to forget how complex social skills are;
For example:
• How to enter into other children’s activity
• How to allow another child to enter into your own game or activity
• Knowing when someone needs help, and how to find help, also how to get help from others.
• Giving and receiving compliments at the right time.
• Understanding about positive criticism, when and how to give.
• Being able to accept and handle criticism from others
• Accepting the ideas and suggestions of others, and what to do with them
• Controlling negative situations and turning them into a positive
• Learning how to act appropriately at home and in public
• Understanding body language, and facial expressions
• Understanding and using “nick namesâ€, appropriate use of words, like swear words, or rude gestures and words.
• Taking part in conversation.
• Managing disagreement with compromise instead of aggression or emotional outbursts
• Accepting not everybody will agree with you, and recognizing peoples opinions can at time vary.
• Empathizing with others in both positive and negative situations
• How to leave an activity or situation without causing offense.
Non-autistic children will learn these social skills in an unconscious and intuitive way, by observing and interacting with everyone around them.
However with autism these skills are not normally learnt in such a way, and need to be learnt in a more definite manner.
Using autism social skills stories can increase your child’s ability to make and maintain friendships-by giving your child clear social cues on how to get and keep a friend.
 Plus how to act in all situations and activities, making your child more confident and ultimately helping them to make those friendships they need to fit into their environment.
We all need friends, a food friend can be like gold dust, and by using social skills storiesyour autistic child can maintain normal friendships.
To obtain specific and even personalized social skills stories for your autistic child
Astonishingly up to 50 percent of autistic children will never develop speech, whilst the others will develop some form of early communication skills.
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However, autistic children rarely engage in effective communication.
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When we think of speech – language we refer to the body of words, the formations of sounds, as well as the structures and forms used to construct speech.Â
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Communication on the other hand can occur either verbally through speech or non-verbally through the use of spoken words, gestures, signs, or by pointing to printed words or symbols.
To communicate effectively, we must firstly be able to understand why we need to communicate with others, have the desire to communicate, have somebody to communicate with, have something to communicate about, and have a means of expressing ourselves.
As children develop, they begin to explore their environment and start to understand the cause and effect around them. For example when they are thirsty they can point to the fridge or a cup…When they are wanting a cuddle or are tired they may raise both hands to picked up.
With autism sometimes this inquisitiveness is missing, the lack of interest in their surroundings and the lack of effective eye contact make learning communication very difficult.
By the time a non-verbal autistic child starts school, they may already have seen a speech therapist to establish a program to aid with the development of effective communication. The speech therapist will need to determine some appropriate objectives and goals, a base level of communication will be established by carefully observing the child within the school setting.Â
In certain cases it may be necessary for the child to learn a new form of communication. For example the child may cry or scream when they need something and this is their form of communication. But this is not going to be effective in a classroom full of children. There fore new forms of communication will need to be established.
Social skills stories can be used as a form of communicating with a verbal and non-verbal autistic child.
Autism social stories are short but descriptive pieces of text with appropriate pictures and images to support the story – or instruction. So for example if the new skill is to help the autistic child understand the need for quiet reading at school, the appropriate autism social story would be selected and implemented.
The social skills story will pictorially show as well as the text the reason why the children are expected to be silent, who is expecting them to be silent and why also the consequence of not being quiet and the consequent or reward for being quiet.
Autistic children tend to be visual learners, which is why studies have shown that autism social stories are an excellent aid in developing good foundations for behavior and social skills for autistic children and adults. As well as excellent tools for helping develop communication skills.
A good source of these excellent tools can be found at
It can be very difficult to motivate an autistic child, mainly because of their lack of imagination and communication skills..
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A person’s motivation is mainly influenced by their experiences, their desires and imagination…As well as past experiences, learning, and history.
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Therefore motivation and interest come from past experiences and the desire to learn and have new experiences. Â Challenges which trigger memories of past anxieties or failures will mostly stimulate avoidance reactions and self-preservation responses.
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Motivating an autistic child can be helped by understanding the child’s interests or preoccupations, fascinations however bizarre you may find them!…Use these interests as the bases of expanding the child’s sometimes limited area of interest.
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Try and avoid any tasks that trigger anxiety in the autistic child…these will only lead to avoidance.
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Give re-assurance and keep the tasks small to begin with…Give reinforcement regularly…Make the task milestones very small to begin with, then give positive reinforcement…Gradually increase the milestone to be reached before positive reinforcement is given.
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Keep a record of all anxiety triggers and how they were dealt with…what positive reinforcement was used?
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Make certain everybody included in the child’s care is following the same strategy.
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Create or obtain good social skills stories to help explain to the autistic child what they are doing for example a school trip or play, Christmas, making cards…The social story should be pictorially rich, most autistic children are visual learners.
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Autism social stories are an excellent tool for helping an autistic child make sense of the world around them…giving them clear social cues as to how to act, what is expected of them, why we do certain things and what others are expecting of them..
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They will explain why things happen and what they need to do..For example a new school, house, car, holiday etc..
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Obtain pictorially rich autism social stories now from
It is not un-common for an autistic child to become aggressive as they enter the teenage years, whether this is due to hormonal changes or the rebellious onset of teenage years as a child becomes more independent of their parents we don’t know…
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However as your child grows and enters the teenage years, if you are finding aggression a problem there are a few ways you can find help.
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Autistic aggression can be sudden and quite out of the blue, one of the first things you need to remember is the safety of the child as well as his/her peers and any other person within the vicinity.
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You will need to first of all determine what is causing these violent aggressive outbursts.What sort of signals do they send before an upset? Can you read his/her body language to know when he/she is becoming upset?
What sort of things are causing the behavior? Are the outbursts connected to school work? To how he/she is feeling physically? To the amount of sleep he/she had? To the clothes he/she wearing, or the clothes of a peer, or maybe teacher? To a scent/smell? To who is near him?
Some experts will suggest not to react to this behavior…however this can be hard and certainly easier said than done. So what do you do when faced with an autistic teenager who is becoming increasingly more aggressive?
People with autism tend to be stronger visually than auditorally. This means they take in information better that they can see, rather than what they can hear. Unfortunately, we as parents, helpers and teachers are talkers. We will talk to explain, we talk to connect. And when we are upset, we tend to talk even more.
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An autistic teenager, even one who is highly verbal, when under stress will have increasing difficulties understanding what it is you’re saying. Â Thus when he/she does not respond appropriately, the chances are you will talk even more trying to make them understand, which will actually compound his/her stress even further, rather than decreasing it.
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It may well be a good thing to remember when a situation arises it’s better to talk less, far less than you would want too. In fact, ideally do not talk. During the outbursts, anything you may say will do little other than aggravate the situation.
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Instead, when you do need to speak, try and keep your sentences short and blunt – a mere one word would be best. You could then couple the words you use with visuals or hand signals.
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Try and remember that your autistic teenager will take in information better when it is visual (i.e. what he/she can see), rather than what he/she hears.
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Because of the problems many autistic and asperger kids have making sense of the world, they often appreciate having rules and expectations set out clearly for them. Â Autistic people respond well to repetition and sameness. Therefore it has been found that they will respond well to, “The rule is…”. Â This simple technique can have a great impact in many situations.
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“Establish rulesâ€.  You will need to make them clear and precise.  Then stick them in every place that your autistic teenager will go to. It won’t work if you simply tell him/her the rules or discuss them - they have to be visual.
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You may well want to consider doing the same thing with the consequences you’ve set up for rule infractions. Therefore when you feel an incident or outburst may be building, rather than issuing verbal warnings, tap on the visually posted rule.
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Also remembering autistic people are visual learners a visual concise timetable should also be put in place if it has not already been done.
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Plus social stories should be introduced. They are an excellent tool for letting a child know what is going to happen and what is expected of him. Thus taking away some of the anxiety triggers that can cause the outbursts. When using social stories ensure they are pictorially rich showing the autistic teenager visually what is expected, “The rulesâ€, and giving them clear cues for behavior and what is expected of them in any given situation.
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These short pieces of text can be like the autistic teenagers best friend not only are they visual but there is text to accompany the images giving your aggressive autistic teenager clear social cues for their expected behavior, giving them the rules and possible consequence of inappropriate behaviors.
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By using the techniques set out above and the introduction of social stories, aggressive outburst should be kept to a minimum.
To immediately download autism social stories visit
Getting a hair cut for most of us can be quite a pleasant experience. We look forward to the time out, chatter and being pampered.
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From an early age we take our normally developing children along to the hairdresser or barber. Where they sense the relaxed calm atmosphere, and will generally pick up on the body language, given off by customers in the shop enjoying a haircut.
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However, if your child is autistic this normal everyday activity can be a distressing and painful experience.
The first thing to consider is why?, an autistic child may not understand the need to have a haircut, why should they want to get their hair cut when to them it is just fine the way it is…
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They will not understand the need to go to this strange and smelly place and sit in a chair that to them may feel uncomfortable and wear a gown from material that may be harsh and hurt their skin.
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A simple hair wash…using smelly shampoo that may be offensive to their oversensitive noses, the feel of the shower spray on their head can cause discomfort. A towel around their neck again could feel uncomfortable, abrasive and harsh. The act of rubbing the hair dry could cause anxiety triggers also.
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Then brushing the hair, maybe the hairbrush is the wrong color or too hard… The scissors may actually hurt their head as they cut the hair, the noises going on around them the low drone of the hair clipper. The noise of people talking, sudden laughter, all noises we can block out as background noise…to an autistic child these noises can be over powering…the sharp clatter of scissors a blow dryer…
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The smell of hair products, perfume, deodorant, aftershave…can all be over powering to an autistic persons senses.
Having an autistic child is never going to be easy and a normal everyday thing like a haircut is always going to be difficult…However, there are some steps you can take which may help make this activity a bit easier to cope with..
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Try taking along a toy or portable DVD player a distraction of some sort, to distract away from some of the sensory happenings around them.
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Get your self autism social stories and begin to implement these before the event, get your autistic child used to the idea of getting a haircut by reading the social story to them.
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A good autism social story will explain to your child why we need to visit the hairdresser and what we can expect when we get there as well as what other people will expect of them.
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These valuable short pieces of text can actually help parents better cope with this and other challenges having an autistic child brings up.
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Get social skills stories for getting a haircut and others from
Being a teenager is a difficult time, being the parent of a teenager is also a challenging time. But if your teen is autistic, this can be not only challenging but very difficult…
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For a start how do you explain what will happen to their body. What resources are there available to help you, and how do you access these.
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Then there is the hormonal changes, an increase in hormones can sometime trigger seizures in autistic teen’s so you will need to be aware of these. Not all seizures involve falling to the ground and shaking…This kind of seizure is not that common. A lot of seizures are noticed as absences, a blank stare, etc. if you think your autistic teenager may be experiencing seizures of any degree, however small, l you should take them along to your G.P. to be checked out.
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Being a teenager is quite confusing, you’re no longer a child, with this comes the pressure of exams, growing sexuality, peer pressure, and all the other things that come with the onset of your teenage years.
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At school and at home your life begins to take on new dimensions, you begin to start planning a career and mapping out a future for yourself. The teenage years are a very social time, relationships are formed and people treat you more grown up.
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For an autistic teenager, this time can and will be stressful. Their friends will mature and expect them to mature with them… If your autistic teenager has high functioning autism or asperger, chances are they attend a normal school. They will have formed friendships with normally developing children of their own age.
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This is where autism social stories will be of benefit to your autistic or asperger teenager, a social story can and will explain all the changes happening to their bodies as well as the changes to their friends bodies.
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Why for example all of a sudden they need to use deodorant, maybe people are beginning to complain they smell…Susie might not now be happy to allow them to sniff her hair. Maybe your autistic or asperger teenager is female; a social story can explain menstruation and how to cope with the onset of periods.
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Social stories will cover puberty; swear words, taking care of themselves and so much more. Autism social stories are used by many parents to help their teenager better prepare and manage the teenage years.
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An excellent source of specially written social stories just for the teenage years can be found at:
Autistic children will respond better when their day is structured, and their teachers are firm but gentle.Many autistic children are visual thinkers; which means they think in pictures or images, and language is secondary. So for example when speaking to an autistic child it can sometimes help to demonstrate the word; like clap as well as saying the word you can clap your hands; Or jump you could jump too.
The autistic child can visually see what the word means and can replay this in their own mind like a dvd replay.
Another thing to remember is not to string a long list of instructions together, autistic children may have problems remembering this. If they are able to read it would probably help them if you were to write the instructions down for them to refer to when they need to.
The thing to remember here is if the autistic child is a visual thinker a long verbal list will be easily forgotten. Break the list up into smaller more easily managed chunks and wherever possible add visual clues.
So for example when teaching an autistic child about feelings, it will help to have visual clues for them to refer to, this can be achieved by using printable social stories.
Even for a normal child learning how to interpret expressions and reading people’s minds(theory of mind) can be confusing; but for an autistic child this is almost impossible.
Autistic children do not have the “theory of mindâ€, which is the ability to read mind’s or understand facial expressions and body language. They will often say exactly what they mean or see, so don’t be offended by their sometimes abrupt and seemingly rude observations at times….
Using printable autism social stories is a good mean’s of explaining feelings to an autistic child, by giving them visual cues on what is expected from them, and what they can expect in certain situations.
For example “nick names†autistic children may have difficulties understanding why we have pet names for each other, or why their friends may call each other odd names! Printable autism social stories act as means of explaining this and helping the autistic child understand why people use nick names.
There are many different social situations and tasks a normally developing child will accomplish easily. Which an autistic child may need that little bit extra help to achieve, this is where finding appropriate and age relevant social stories can be a must.
A good source of autism social stories, for all area’s can be located at
www.autismsocialstories.com – for a wide variety of issues, including autism and going to the bathroom, or for more specific social stories, visit:
There are many factors you need to consider when deciding on the right time to start toilet trainingwith your autistic/ asperger child.
Concentrate on one behavior at a time; you will find it very difficult to attempt to alter two sets of behavior issue at a time.
Ideally, everyone working with your autistic child should begin the toilet training at the same time….And will follow an agreed approach.
The first sign that a child might be ready to start toilet training is when they start to become aware of needing to go to the toilet.
You may notice some changes in their behavior patterns, appearing distracted or fidgeting when they are wet or have soiled themselves. Or maybe they have started to tell you when they need changing.
A lot of parents use autism social stories as an aid to toilet training, these short descriptive pieces of text can act as a guide giving your child clear concise cues as to what is expected of them and what they can expect in return, when learning this new skill.
The “Fun Package” includes:
“The Healthy Eating Guide”
