Strategies to Support Social Thinking

We must aim to support the child or young person when:

• Dealing with unexpected situations and interactions, which can occur on a daily basis. To support the autistic student with transitioning please visit Wellbeing on Transitioning and Transitions in Teenage Resource.
  • Be available should the child or student have difficulty. Talk, draw, use social narrative, comic strips, photographs to ease the path through the issue. Depending on cognitive ability, show how the pathways can lead to different outcomes, allow the student to choose. This can be empowering and a step towards independence.

• Problem solving in novel circumstances, preparation is key.
  • The child or young person can amass a range of skills derived from social narratives or video modelling, Building Independence Section on Video Modelling which can be beneficial. “Being autistic, I don’t naturally assimilate information that most people take for granted. Instead, I store information in my head as if it were on a CD-ROM disc. When I recall something I have learned, I replay the video in my imagination. The videos in my memory are always specific.” (Temple Grandin, Thinking in Pictures).
• Being flexible, particularly with the social arena
  • Teaching appropriate social behaviour.
• Considering other people’s point of view or way of completing a task – Groupwork in Building Capacity
• Assimilating new information into an already mastered viewpoint or adding information into a scheme.

• Creating Friendships and matching the expectation of the friend.
  • Students need support with knowing – see Hidden Curriculum section.
• What a friend is?
  • Recognising the difference between a friend and someone who may have ulterior motives?  Temple Grandin (2008) stated…

“I still struggled in the social arena, largely because I didn’t have a concrete visual corollary for the abstraction known as ‘getting along with people.’ An image finally presented itself to me while I was washing the bay window in the cafeteria (students were required to do jobs in the dining room). I had no idea my job would take on symbolic significance when I started. The bay window consisted of three glass sliding doors enclosed by storm windows. To wash the inside of the bay window, I had to crawl through the sliding door. The door jammed while I was washing the inside panes, and I was imprisoned between the two windows. In order to get out without shattering the door, I had to ease it back very carefully. It struck me that relationships operate the same way. They also shatter easily and have to be approached carefully. I then made a further association about how the careful opening of doors was related to establishing relationships in the first place.”

Temple Grandin reminds us that experience can support the student, thus we must open them to as many forms of social interaction, thus prompting social thinking, to allow for skill generation.

• How to make friends? Click here to watch Brenda Myles Kindness video.
• How to maintain friendships? Read The Hidden Curriculum.
• Having a boyfriend or girlfriend rules, Using the Incredible 5 – Point Scale to teach these rules, appropriate actions in friendships and relationships. Organisation for Autism Research offers some guidelines,
  • 1. Be yourself.
  • 2. Dress nicely.
  • 3. Have good personal hygiene.
  • 4. Have good dental hygiene.
  • 5. Have good table manners.
  • 6. Be a gentleman (for guys) … a lady (for girls)
  • 7. Ask your date questions.
  • 8. Listen.
  • 9. Say goodnight properly.
  • 10. Don’t be needy on the follow up: click here.

• How friendships can grow and develop or change completely over time – Watch Brenda Myles Hidden Curriculum.
• How to repair friendships after misunderstandings?
• Use structure, a set of guidelines:
  • • Talk it out. 
    • Don’t get defensive.
    • Ask what you can do. 
    • Be willing to admit you’re wrong. 
    • Give it time. 
    • Walk away, the friendship has run its course.