Essential Strategies for Teaching Autism Social Skills

A psychologist and therapist explain the benefits of teaching your child the reason for social skills and concepts, in an interest-based manner.

To meet the diagnostic criteria of autism spectrum disorder in the DSM-5, a child must display persistent deficits in social communication and social interaction across multiple contexts. These challenges include:

social-emotional reciprocity,
nonverbal communicative behaviors, and
maintaining or understanding relationships.

As parents, we read the information, we might even recognize the signs in our children, but what we desperately need is practical strategies to support our children.

If we look at these sections of difficulties separately, we can do more than just decipher the meaning of them, we can find ways to help our child cope and better yet, thrive in various situations. Let’s look at each one and break them down together.

The first section we will look at deals with the social-emotional reciprocity that autistic individuals face. We have always found the best way to support our younger children is to speak with autistic adults and ask their advice.

According to various autistic advisors we work with, the idea of sharing responses in a social setting can be scary and intimidating. If the topic is of interest, it seems to be easier, but what about topics children find mundane or pointless?

Here is an example: most autistic adults we speak with find “chit chat” useless. They might not want to discuss simple topics such as how you are doing (again) or if the weather changed slightly from yesterday to today. This is why providing a reason for these interactions could be beneficial.

Give reason and provide structure for your child. If you want them to do a simple greeting when they see someone, you can say to them: “To make friends, we need to show that we are interested. You can say three things before you start a conversation of your interest.”

Visual support usually works well in such situations. You could show your child a social story about how they can make friends, using a simple greeting, a question about the other person’s day, and then a statement about what they found interesting on that particular day.

This could then lead to a technique we like to call “funneling the conversation,” where you introduce the topic that you find interesting, and then ask your “conversation partner” a question, wait for the answer, and then perhaps give a statement (a fact) on this topic.

What you are teaching your child is that they can be in control of a conversation (and the topic can be interesting!) if they follow a few simple rules and work on the “flow” of the interaction. Remember to practice this with your child with a range of topics before they try it with a friend. This technique can be adapted to work for younger children and adults.

Challenges in nonverbal communicative behaviors

If we look at the second section, challenges in nonverbal communicative behaviors, we can again find practical strategies to support the child. Most autistic adults will mention that maintaining eye contact (visual stimulation) while listening to a conversation (auditory stimulation) is difficult.

Many therapies adhere to the belief that a child has to engage in or maintain eye contact when you provide them with an instruction or a request. We believe that this is unnecessary and often detrimental to processing information. I usually ask parents to allow their children to look away if eye contact is uncomfortable for them.

We can always focus on increasing limited eye contact when necessary. For example, if a child struggles with eye contact for a prolonged period, but they want to make friends, we can teach them how to make eye contact for shorter periods, or perhaps to gaze slightly to the side of the eyes (not directly in the person’s eyes).

It always helps to explain to your child, even if they are young, why eye contact is considered a social norm. Ask them if they can think of ideas on how to maintain some sort of eye contact for that reason in specific situations.

In our conversations with autistic individuals, some diagnosed with classical autism, we asked about eye contact. Most said it’s extremely uncomfortable. It also decreases their ability for “dual processing”—registering, deciphering, and understanding visual and auditory information.

The other practical support strategy we have learned from working with autistic adults is to teach our children what body language means. During a conversation with John Elder Robison, he mentioned that as an autistic person, you want to increase your database of knowledge, and for that to happen, you need a lot of “data”. This data can be in the form of studying body language, its meaning, and how it might change from one person to another.

We should teach our children the rules and meaning of many things that neurotypical children understand quite naturally. Even though this may sound like a lot of extra work for you and your child, it will pay off in the long run. Autistic children are intelligent; they usually have remarkable memories, and if we include rules that make sense and practice these in various environments, we are setting them up for success.

Making and maintaining friendships

The third section of social difficulties includes making and maintaining friendships. When I had a conversation with Dr. Temple Grandin, she mentioned the importance of including your child in social groups that they find interesting.

If your child is interested in robots, for example, find a LEGO and robot-building group. If your child finds horses fascinating, search for a horse farm where other children go for rides and learn about these majestic creatures.

If your child is interested in the topic and surrounded by friends, I can almost guarantee they’ll make friends with peers who share similar interests. Yes, it might not be the interests you had in mind, or the ones your friends’ children enjoy, but your child will be happy and content.

They will learn naturally in these comfortable environments, and most importantly, they will feel accepted. I think we can all agree that we all want to feel accepted.

These strategies could be adapted for all children, of all ages and developmental levels. We understand as parents, we sometimes feel our child is “not ready” or won’t understand the reasoning behind a rule or instruction. We’ve done years of research with autistic adults, and we’ve heard firsthand that an interest-based approach does work as it makes sense for the child.

Professor Stephen Shore is an autistic adult, and during an interview, he mentioned he wasn’t able to speak until he was 4 years old. His parents, desperate to help their son, included his interests (music) as part of his daily schedule. Professor Shore is not only a highly successful autistic advocate, teacher, and author, but also a gentle, caring individual.

Lately, research has evolved as the understanding of autism has grown. A lot of this has to do with autistic advocates helping professionals and parents understand how autistic children learn best.

Although we understand that each child is different and that being autistic or having an autistic child can be challenging, we also see the positive side of autism. With every symptom that you read about in the DSM-5, or the dreaded reports from professionals, remember Dr. Temple Grandin, Prof. Stephen Shore, and John Elder Robison all received dire prognoses. These are the people we learn from now; they are our role models.

In summary

With all the challenges—or as the DSM-5 mentions, “deficits”—try to teach your child the reasons or explanations behind such needs and concepts, in an interest-based manner. Keep instructions short, and always show a visual representation; not only of the concept you are teaching, but also, when the lesson will be done, and what you will be doing afterward.

Remember, we are all on different journeys, and it is not a race. The most important thing for your child is not to develop as a peer or sibling, but rather to ensure they are stimulated, understood, accepted, and that they feel heard.

I know it’s always our intention to provide our child with these comforting feelings, but I have also witnessed the amount of pressure some professionals put on milestones and data tracking. Our children will make progress; we know this as their parents. Listen to your intuition—you are the true expert of your child.

Thank you for reading—you are doing a fantastic job as a parent!

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