For a child with Autism, social interaction skills are difficult. Most importantly, a child with Autism may have difficulty forming healthy relationships with peers, displaying socially acceptable behaviors and are often perceived as strange and thus isolated. This isolation and vulnerability because of a need to belong, often places children with Autism in a situation where they are more susceptible to bullying. Teaching a child with Autism effective social-emotional skills, play and leisure skills, theory of mind and perspective taking, or perhaps to “mind read” can help these children identify whether their friendships are fun and loving or a form of sarcasm and humor.
The Assessment of Basic Language and Learning Skills (ABLLS) is an assessment that takes into account a child’s current skills and helps to identify areas that may prove challenging and/or prohibits a child from learning new skills. In helping to teach a child social interaction skills, the ABLLS provides the following domains: Play and Leisure and Social Interactions. The Play and Leisure Domain of the ABLLS assesses the child’s individual and group play skills. Using this domain, children with Autism are taught to manipulate toys as they are designed, and engage in interactive play with a variety of peers, upon other skills. These skills are important because children with Autism are taught to engage with others and play appropriately. Being able to interactively play with a variety of peers limits isolation and children with Autism contact natural reinforcement through a sense of belonging. The social interaction domain of the ABLLS addresses skills such as being appropriate near peers, showing interest in the behavior of others, sharing, eye contact, greetings, and how to adjust behavior through peer feedback. These skills and many more offered in this domain are critical for a child with Autism because they teach socially acceptable behavior. Learning how to adjust behavior through peer feedback is an especially important skill because it teaches children with Autism the concept of theory of mind. Theory of mind is a concept that describes empathy; other people have feelings, attitudes, and personal thoughts. This concept is currently absent in a lot of children with Autism but developing this skill is crucial to identifying when, how, and why it may or may not be appropriate to socially interact with others based on their nonverbal communication, behaviors, and actions. Perspective taking in turn can help children with Autism bond with others emotionally while learning to attend to their own and others’ emotions, personality, and how to process their role in a social situation.
Developing play and social interaction programs that teach many of the skills described above can help children form a foundation of social and play prerequisites that will help develop relationships in school and other social settings. These positive social interactions will aide in the prevention of bullying from others and give the child with Autism the self-advocacy skills to communicate with bully if needed.
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