Social Skills and Self-Esteem issues.

I have Asperger Syndrome - it all depends on how drastic his social inabilities are. Many of the programs I went to were for youth where - almost immediately - you could tell there was something up with them. It’s hard to find help with social skills for higher-functioning individuals. I agree with looking into autism resources where you live - even if he is not on the spectrum, there may be a program available. But I’m just letting you know, from my own personal experience, finding the right program can be a downright bitch. I just had to fend for myself and thank god for a good therapist - she’s pretty much my translator. A slightly older social coach might work - just another thought.

Hi, new here. I was reading this and noticed the post for scootles, I too live in AR. I too am searching for social skills for my daughter who has Aspergers. We are military and were stationed overseas for several years and the Department of Defense schools did such an excellent job with my daughter, she was involved with a social skills group from the time she was in K. When we moved here the schools dissmissed her from her IEP and told us that they don’t have social skills groups or even teach social skills. I am in the process of having her evaluated, in the attempt to have the school write an IEP for her. She has a 504 plan that was not used except for the Bench mark test. I keep wondering how hard would it be for the school to put a social skills group together. The thing with Aspergers is that she doesn’t learn by watching others she has to be taught the skills and then be provide the opportunity to practice those skills in a variety of settings, with Aspergers it is very hard for them to generalize, basicly taking what they learned and applying to a new and perhaps slightly different situation. We have yet to meet with the school to find out if she will be eligable for an IEP. There are other issues too besides her social skills. She has struggled greatly with math this year, was involved in Extended learning opportunities and after school program that the school used for the students were on Academic improvement plans. She goes in three mornings a week to work with her math teacher and was pulled out sometimes for something called Whiz Kids, basicly a math remidiation program. Because she has Aspergers her thinking is very black and white, and she has great difficulty with abstract thoughts, infereing, preciving others emotions, sarcasm, idioms, puns, she struggles greatly with comprehension, if its factual information she’s fine but otherwise she struggles she needs lots of leading questions and prompt in order to understand. I don’t know where to go for help, or how to make the school see that her Aspergers affects her learning. I have been to talk with an advocate but she said because most of her scores on the eval were in the average range it was going to be very hard to get her the help that she needs. Anybody eles out there with Asperger kids? I keep wondering if there were enough parents and my daughters school who supported having a social skills group it the school would be willing to work with us to set one up. My poor daughter is already suffering form low self esteem and some kids at school are mean to her. I have been doing weeks of research in my attempt to make the school see her problems and am still fearful that it won’t be enough. How do I make them see that if she can’t understand social sitations and all that goes along with that in the spoken world how is she going to be able to comprehend it in the written world. She is already struggle with her reading comprehension. how do you teach that? I have yet to find any thing on how to teach reading comprehension to a child with Aspergers or any child with a LD. She smart and has always been in a regular class room. I must apologize for my spelling. I am the worst speller so please excuse my mistakes.

This isn’t quite what you asked for but it is something i can give you. I don’t know if it is something you can use or if it still exists or if it ever existed in your area.

The Academy, has been known to be useful with social issues with kids such as what you mention. It is about “group building” and trust building just all that social junk. I think they may have some good stuff for ADHD kids. They worked wonders for an old friend of mine. I was curious and decided to give it a shot myself loads of fun! I hope they are still around.

http://www.academynewton.com/

I want to say that this is the place but i am afraid i was a little girl at the time soooo it sounds if not like the place exactly then very similar to it. I don’t know if you have something like it in your area but i have seen such a program work wonders.

Good luck!

I was hoping of a program to mention at the IEP meeting that he can do while in school.There is no Academy here in Arkansas that I know of.But Thanks

Well i gave you what i could. As i said it was not exactly what you were looking for sorry. I tried… To atleast offer something that maybe could help a bit…. Too bad… I hope someone else can offer you something that will be of more use to your situation. Best of luck.

What you should be asking the school for is a Positive Intervention Plan (PIP). This type of plan should focus on “catching him when he’s doing well”. Focussing more on the postive than the negative.

http://www.schoolbehavior.com/index.htm This site has all sorts of great information for both you and the school.

He also sounds like he may have Receptive/Expressive Language issues. Those are usually worked on with the Speech/Language teacher as a pull-out in elementary school. I would ask the school for further testing in this area and see if he qualifies for any programs through the school. If not, you may want to see if there are any community programs for older kids.

http://www.yellowpagesforkids.com/help/ar.htm This is the link for WrightsLaw Yellow Pages for Arkansas. It has tons of listings for all over the state so hopefully you will find something that will help.

I went to the school behavior website you given and couldn’t find anything to any resources available for social skills to add on his IEP,He used to get social skills in elementary school along with his speech,then he was put into the “Behavior Room” and I was told that they had their own social skills with in the classroom.I had a feeling that there was no social group going on in that class,because my son told me he wasn’t having any.My son really lacks in this area,and was wondering if I can ask for something to put into his iEP tomorrow>

I agree with scifinut that what is needed here is a positive behaviour program rather than a program that looks only at the negatives. This type of program can be linked into rewards at school and at home, whether it be free time or computer time, etc. Something the child enjoys doing. If they know that this is what is on offer there is an incentive to do the right thing.

I agree with scifinut and Deb as well. This is a very very useful tool. Perhaps at times with some children even too useful.

I think we often forget, that children are not our pets. Even the ones with LD have rational minds as well. Though i agree there is merit to this method and there are times it is useful and completely worth using on your child…. There is another method too that may be worth exploring.

Understanding. Stopping and taking a moment in every situation of difficulty to take a few moments to try to assess the situation from the perspective of who your child is. Because there is often a rational reason for why they will not do something that goes so far beyond not liking to do it. Parents often forget that.

I don’t know if any of you watch the TV show The Big Bang Theory but recently there was an episode where Sheldon used this technique of rewards for Penny. It was really funny given the context but in the context of dealing with children training them as you would your dog seems somehow…. Ethically questionable, especially when it is about getting what you perceive to be as the right behavior especially if you have not taken that moment to stop first and to try to view it from another perspective but there is definately a time and place to use this technique as a parent as well. I would just caution to use it carefulluy or you will train your child into a robot and kill the personality that lives inside of them.

Here is more information on Positive Behavior Plans: http://www.rtinetwork.org/Learn/Behavior/ar/SchoolwideBehavior

Also, if your child is having difficulty reading facial expressions, perhaps the following article would be useful:

http://articles.latimes.com/2009/apr/13/health/he-autism13

Best wishes.

Positive behavior plans is a very good means of helping a child who has social skills issues. There are however some other means which may be considered effective with your child at school. The suggested means is referred to as CBM or Cognitive Behavior Management stratigies. CBM is really a data base and helps students to monitor their own behavior, it helps them to make judgements about whether their behavior is appropriate and to make changes where needed.

The aim or main purpose of CBM is to promote the self control of an individual, solve their behavior problem through a means of recording and evaluating their behavior. There are three steps involve in teaching or implementing CBM they are 1.Instruction by another person e.g. an adult model
2.Overt self –instruction this is where the students speaks to self while performing the instructions.
3.Covert self-instruction here student guides his performance through private speech.

What CBM actually does for a student is that it promotes internal control rather than focus on external rewards and punishment. Students are provided with the tools of “how-to-think” when making changes to their behavior rather than a “what-to-think” instruction from their teacher. In essence the student is actually provided with tools to help in achieving succussful social behaviors. Because this strategy is operated by the student or will be operated by your child what will happen is, your child will be better able to generalize learnt behavior much more easily than if it was a strategy completely teacher operated.

This is a strategy which could be discussed with your childs’ teacher all that is required is the modelling of acceptable behavior in the initial stage as well as the teacher may need to start out scoring and gradually fading this so the student takes full control thus learning responsibility and correct attitudes.

Pauline is correct, but I would suggest that you refrain from using the accronym “CBM” and rather refer to what you are requesting as “Cognitive Behavior Management”. In an education setting “CBM” can also refer to “Curriculum Based Measurement”. Using the full termonology might help avoid potential any confusion regarding what you are actually requesting.

Hello,

It is difficult to recommend a program without actually knowing your child, but you may want to look into applied behavior analysis. Although it is popular with autism, it can help children with behavior and impulsivity problems as well. It is more of a technique than a program - - which is good. It can be used along with whatever is being done in your child’s class. (which may appeal to them more than a program) You can find books on ABA at Amazon. I hope this is helpful to you.

Ann Logsdon
www.learningdisabilities.about.com

IT is natural phenomena with the kinds, If the parents forbid from something, they will insisting to doing the same thing. But by the passage of time, with the good guidance of parent these children will learn a lot social issues from their parent.

Hi,Something that you could do, is see if their is a local Autism or Autistic Spectrum organisation where you live? As they often run ongoing social skills programs.
With her maths difficulties, I run a forum for the maths difficulty: Dyscalculia. Which is caused by a difficulty with their Spatial thinking. That people with Aspergers also often have a difficulty with.
So this could be helpful for you?
[url]http://www.dyscalculiaforum.com/news.php[/url]

Also with comprehension and writing, you might find ‘mind-mapping’ software to be helpful? As it provides a way of organising thinking.

[quote=scootles]My sons is Adhd Non-medicated,he has always had social skill issues,from not reading another persons cuing,to when someone says no,he will continue doing the behavior until it frustrates the other person. Is there a social-skills resource/program with in the school system that can help my son with these issues?Last year my son brought home a “Behavior Sheet-using a 5 point scale method” I don’t agree with this,simply because They always put down what my son did bad,and never balanced it out with anything good,so when my son would read it,he would tell me “thats all they ever write is the bad things”.I don’t think these sheets are good for anyones self-esteem.Does anyone know of anything I can suggest,that can be put in his IEP that is doable?[/quote]

Did you find a solution? My son has exactly the same issues with one exception, his school is extremely helpful and two teachers go above and beyond what I would expect. I hope to hear from you!

Howard

This is too easy. I am surprised no one has though of it yet. I am sure someone has. Here is what you have to do to balance out the negatives with the positives.

Teachers need a way to do 2 things. I find they frequently forget the benefit of the second one. They instead typically focus on the negative. I don’t care for that. But here they are:

1. Teachers need a method that is simple and quick to keep order in the classroom. Some way to regain the focus of children, some warning system and punishment system. Sorry but they do. Or there is no order. Where there is no order there is also no learning. So they need to note the negative.

2. The positive, they need to encourage the positive so that the negative becomes less and less. This is something they over look in most classrooms. Teaching what not to do, is hardly the same thing as educating what to do. Often teachers just have trouble finding time in the day to do this part.

All it takes is a piece of paper that says “For all the good things over the day!” Then, every time the kid does something good, answers a question properly follows bathroom procedure, what ever, they get to put some little star sticker on their sheet of paper for all the good things.

Or, an even easier method that is less interruptive, is to do exactly as they do with the negative. Write all the names on the list and every time one of the kids does something good, change the number next to their name on that side of the board. Then at the end of the day, just give them that nmber of stickers to put on their sticker page to mark the good things they have done.

On the other side of the bored in the corner keep a list and mark offenses for the different children in order to keep a more immediate system of order int he classroom so order is possible for learning to take place.

What is so hard about something like this? I mean, I am sure that parents would even gladly pay for the stupid stickers and paper for such a system to be implemented so that it isn’t on the school’s or teacher’s dime if necesary. Because education only works, if you teach kids more than what not to do.

So simple. Educators who can’t think this up on their own are too stupid to be qualified as educators and i personally would homeschool my child before i permitted them to sit in such an abusive climate as to only have the negatives tracked while the positives go unrewarded and unnoticed. While a lesson of what not to do is taught and the lesson of what to do. It is just as crucial to encourage positive behaviors as it is to discourage negative ones.

Would you want to go to work every day if your boss never gave you a raise exhibited no signs that he was ever satisfied with any of your work and in no way ever marked anything positive about your performance? I don’t think you would. Because in such a case you would also go unpaid as that is what a pay check expresses a job well done.

Which ofcourse brings me to one reason some of european schools are so much better than american ones. For example in many regions in Sweden, students over the age of 16 are there by choice to learn. They are doing a service for their country by being on the university track. They are the ones who will keep Sweden operational and competitive into the future. The government actually recognizes that by issueing pay checks in many regions of Sweden to students. it isn’t very much but it acknowledges the positives. America is so sickeningly behind in education strategy it is a horrendous abuse to put children into the american system at this point.

They shouldn’t make light of these issues since self-esteem is such a big part for our kids and teens. Helping them raise or boost that will be a challenge but I’m sure parents are up to the challenge. I suggest talking to our kids about their day and praising them when they did good will come a long way for them. There are activities that they can do to help improve their self-esteem and social issues like after school programs, sports, camps or art. These will help them hone their social skills since they will be meeting new people.
[Modified by: vivien on March 07, 2012 07:18 PM]

[Modified by: dhfl143 on March 08, 2012 10:45 PM]

Parents should feel comfortable asking for a Positive Behavioral Plan put into the IEP. There’s good evidence that targeting pro-social behaviors is effective.

I am new to this website and find the discussion and the links provided by various contributors really helpful. I find the PIP and the Cognitive Behavior Management applicable to what I do and in my school context.
I teach Physical Education and inculcating social skills is high on my priority. I find it hard to provide visual reinforcement of good and bad behavior such as a board for stars or colours in an outdoor class. Any suggestions?