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5 Tips to Help Your Child Make Friends


Helping Your Child Learn Social SkillsIf your child is having difficulty making friends at school, it is heart breaking. You want to help him. It could be that he’s experiencing problems developing a range of social skills. Maybe he’s having difficulty looking others in the eye, talking about what the group is talking about, or other behaviors that are needed for him to “stay with the group” successfully. It could be your child’s problem solving skills need help.

Talk to him about what’s going on and try to identify the barriers. Is it that he’s having difficulty relating to his classmates? Is he not able to stay with the group? Is he not noticing or even saying “hello” to the other kids?

Ask your child’s teacher the same questions. I recommend to parents that you treat all of your child’s teachers, therapists, coaches, and anyone else who is in their daily lives like your ‘team’. Stay in regular contact with them so that you can benefit from their observations and suggestions.

These are just the first steps in helping your child to improve his or her social skills.

I’ll discuss more ways to help your child make friends in future articles.

It’s Hard to Find Social Skills Homework

 

I certainly learned about the importance of social skills when our twin sons began mainstream kindergarten. (You can read how we accomplished mainstreaming here.)

This was in 2007, before apps and interactive software programs were widely available. I searched high and low for a social skills learning software program. There were none at the time. That’s what led me to develop The Social Express. (But that’s another story.)

Here Are 5 Tips for Helping Your Child Improve His Social Skills

1. Have calm conversations with your child about what’s keeping him from making friends. Find out exactly where he’s having trouble when trying to interact with other kids. Ask him to describe the other kids in his class and what he thinks about them. Find out what happens during recess or group activities. Ask lots of simple questions. Dig deep with your questions.

2. Become the CSI Read more

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The Social Express Attends Special Needs Education CASE Conference

Social-skills-special-education-CASE-conferenceSan Diego, CA (PRWEB) September 30, 2012

The Social Express™, creators of a new social skills learning software program for special needs children, is attending the Annual CASE Conference from November 1-3 in Scottsdale. The Social Express was voted Most Likely to Succeed at SIIA’s Ed Tech Summit in May.

The company joins top special education leaders at the 23rd annual CASE conference. The Council of Administrators of Special Education (CASE) is an international professional educational organization which is affiliated with the Council for Exceptional Children (CEC) whose members are dedicated to the enhancement of the worth, dignity, potential, and uniqueness of each individual in society.

“We’ve been humbled by the amazing reception and feedback we’ve received from special needs Read more

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Social Skills Learning Firm Attends EdNET 2012 in Baltimore

Our President, Jon Cornick, and I are all set for our trip to the upcoming EdNET 2012 Conference. EdNET is a premier networking event for the Education that’s so well attended, this is its 24th year!

We’re really looking forward to meeting many of the top industry leaders in Education. We’ve been fortunate to have such an overwhelming and enthusiastic response to our social skills learning program, The Social Express, in our first (almost) year. We’re busy making plans to continue to grow our company and become leaders in social and emotional learning in Education.

If you’re attending EdNET 2012, let us know! It would be great to meet up. Here is our press release:

The Social Express Attends EdNET 2012 in Baltimore, September 30  – October 3

San Diego, CA (PRWEB) September 20, 2012

The Social Express™, creators of a new social skills learning management system, is attending EdNET 2012 in Baltimore, Maryland from September 30 to October 3. The Social Express was voted Most Likely to Succeed at SIIA’s Ed Tech Summit in May. The company joins over 550 executives and industry leaders at the 24th annual EdNET, the education industry’s premier event.

“The Social Express has received an incredibly enthusiastic reception in its first year. By providing exceptional curricula, analytics reporting, and other exciting content, The Social Express will continue it’s goal of becoming a leader in social and emotional learning in Education,” said company President Jon Cornick.

Cornick added, “EdNET is an excellent conference that provides our company with opportunities to Read more

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Director of Clinical Research at Marcus Autism Center Joins Advisory Board

[vc_row][vc_column][vc_column_text]We’re honored to have Dr. Celine Saulnier join our Advisory Board. She has invested her career in researching and helping children and young adults on the autism spectrum.

Dr. Saulnier shares with us a passion for finding new ways to help children diagnosed on the autism spectrum to improve their social skills.  Our press release is below.

San Diego, CA (PRWEB) September 13, 2012

The Social Express™, a new creator of social skills software, today announced that it has appointed to its Advisory Board, Celine Saulnier, Ph.D. Dr. Saulnier currently serves as the Clinical Director for Research at the Marcus Autism Center, Children’s Healthcare of Atlanta.

At the Marcus Autism Center, Dr. Saulnier oversees the development Read more

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Teaching Social Skills: Jon Cornick’s Blogtalkradio Interview

Jon Cornick, our president, was interviewed recently on Education Talk Radio.

Jon talks about importance of helping parents, educators and therapists to teach social skills to children on the autism spectrum.

Engaging the kids long enough for them to learn is key for anyone helping a child with autism. It’s just so important that children with deficits in social skills improve their knowledge of social skills.

You can teach them so much better when they’re engaged with the learning program! Creating engaging social skills lessons has always been a key mission for us here at The Social Express!

Check out Jon’s interview and let us know your thoughts!

Listen to internet radio with EduTalk on Blog Talk Radio
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Appsmitten Says: Social Skills Software is ‘In a Class of It’s Own’

 

Practice Social Skills Review by appSmittenWe’re so “smitten” about a recent review of our social learning software by appSmitten.

The team at appSmitten puts together handpicked, personalized app reviews. And they recently reviewed our social skills learning software. We’re very humbled!

If you haven’t checked out their site, here is the link:

http://www.appsmitten.com/

Here is the appSmitten review about our social skills software:

The Social Express Practice social skills

Why we like it: Social thinking app based on the concepts of true experts

This app is in a class of its own when it comes to social skill development. It is made with beautiful animation and is interactive in nature. Kids interact with characters Zach and Emma as they ride The Social Express bus to town and learn 16 social lessons in 30 scenes along the way. Lessons include eye contact, listening with the whole body, being part of the group, managing emotions, among others.  This is a must have app.

Thanks for a great review, appSmitten Team!

appSmitten Team Reviews The Social Express

 

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3 Ways Group Video Games Help Your Child to Improve Social Skills

 

We believe that every child deserves to have a friend. Often making friends is harder for kids with autism, Asperger’s, and ADHD. They need extra help to develop social skills such as being with the group, understanding what’s happening next, communication, and looking at who is talking.

Many times it’s because they don’t pick up cues from other kids in the same ways that neurotypical children do.

My wife and I have always made helping our boys improve their social skills a priority. That’s where the inspiration for creating The Social Express began.

Eileen Campos’ recent blog post at MommyTeaches.com got me thinking even more about the different ways you can approach social skills learning for your child. Video game playing in a group of children is a top one!

Eileen writes about how she’s observed her children improve their math and reading skills while playing video games. Like one explaining to the others why he has more points. (Love that!) You can read Eileen’s post here.

I’ve observed how video games played in a group help a child with autism improve how he or she gets along with others. Here are three ideas you can try with your child.

How Group Video Games Help Autistic Kids with Social Skills

1. Encourage Group Video Game Playing for Best Social Interaction

Arrange for your child to play selected video games with siblings or other children. This leads Read more

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Improving Social Skills of Kids with Autism: An Optimistic Research Study!

Optimistic Study on Social Skills for Kids with AutismI have long believed that children with autism really do have the ability to improve their social skills and make friends. Good news! Now there’s a study that agrees with me.

Researchers at the Koegel Autism Center at UC Santa Barbara found that children with autism can make friends. The research study focused on children diagnosed with ASD (autism spectrum disorders) in junior high and high school.  This is great news because they found that these adolescents are as capable as anyone else of making strong friendships.

Parents know that junior high and high school years are tough for all kids. I certainly still remember tough times from when I was that age! Don’t you?

But as parents of kids with autism, we know it is—or will be—even more difficult for them to make friends.

The Koegel Autism Center study supports another belief I have:

The autistic brain is not as impacted as everyone previously thought it was when it comes to social skills and social interaction.

Researchers found that by focusing on the strengths of these autistic kids, they were able to form friendships. Strong ones!

Here’s how they did it in a nutshell. Read more

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How to get your kids with autism to ask you for help

One thing our twin boys have in common with apparently most people in the world is their love of computers.  Our early riser especially likes to play with it before the rest of us are even awake!  The last few days the computer he uses hasn’t been working. Surely he MUST want to use it. He LOVES it. But, will our child with autism simply ask us for help to get back to one of his favorite activities?

This is a question that goes back eight years.  As toddlers they would stand at the gate by the stairs screaming  even though they knew the words, and/or signs, for up, down, open, and help. At least we knew what was troubling them, which was not always the case.  Their adamant avoidance of language left them alternating between screaming and being mute.

I remember when one of the boys ate five waffles in one sitting.  I didn’t even know he was hungry. I felt so sad. The psychology and sociology classes I took in college made me think indicating needs such as hunger and pain is what made us human.  They never mentioned autism.

Here are some of the things we did to get our kids with autism to ask for help:

Modeling: “Say, I need help zipping my jacket.” And have them repeat it.

PECS (picture exchange system): Have them point to, or bring you, the picture of what they need. You can take your own photos of their favorite food or toys.

Hiding: Put their backpack, or other necessary item, out of sight to try to engage them.

Prompting: “If you need help getting the computer to work, you need to ask Dad for help.”

One of the issues we had with their early success was just trying to recognize the success. They both had a problem of projecting their voices, which may be a problem for your child with autism.  They would say ‘help’ for example, but even the people standing very close by couldn’t hear them.

Another issue is time.  This all may sound simple, but for kids with autism, practicing how to ask for help is a goal for the long haul.  In the beginning, if we hid their favorite stuffed animal that they slept with every night, they would simply go to bed without it.  Out of sight, out of mind.  Eventually, they asked for their animals.

This morning one twin prompted the other to ask Dad for help.  We’ve waited a long time for today.

What have you done to get your child with autism to ask for help?

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Teaching Kids with Autism How to Learn Social Skills

[vc_row][vc_column][vc_column_text]You probably ask yourself every day, assuming you are a parent of a child with autism, ‘what is it going to take for my kid to make a friend?’ Or, how many times have you said either out loud or to yourself, ‘yeah, right?  A play date, don’t think so….’

You know the core deficit for kids with autism is the inability to relate to others, but can you actually teach these kids how to socialize? We know for sure children with autism certainly will not learn this by observation, so, the only way they are going to learn social skills is to teach them. Before we founded The Social Express, we tried several different approaches to helping our twins with social learning. Here are groups we have participated in:

Resources or Tools That Helped Us
A Regional Center program called The Star Program consisting of kids with autism.
The Soar program, a program in our elementary school which pairs a ‘typical’ child with a ‘buddy’ learning social skills.
An after school program at our school called “Bunch of Friends” that may or may not include ‘typical’ peers.
Each one of these programs were building blocks for our children to learn how to socialize. All of these programs included adult intervention. The programs providing the most peer interaction proved to be the most beneficial, particularly if outdoor play was included.  Programs exclusively for kids with autism, conducted in an indoor room, often provided more examples of inappropriate behavior than appropriate behavior.

We used Carol Grey’s Social Stories to help our kids learn social skills they needed to learn at various times. These included: keeping the right distance between friends, borrowing and returning supplies, and even bathroom etiquette and recently the twins have really enjoyed using Michelle Garcia Winner’s Social Thinking® Seminar.

While our twin boys are alike in many ways, the peer playmates they respond best to are very different.  One of our boys responds best to girls who are full of energy, basically bossing him around to engage in dramatic play.  Our other son would exit stage right in that situation.  He is more likely to hang out around a mellow child.

As I am sure you know, every child responds differently to various approaches to teaching. Our twins happen to be visual learners as are most children on the spectrum. The Social Express exploits this learning method by incorporating video modeling, engaging characters, an interactive environment with lots of social situations they experience on a daily basis.

The key is patience, and making sure that when you have a moment which requires social skills, try not to do the talking for your child, and see if they will respond to the situation appropriately.  For example, when greeting a familiar person, let them have a chance to say hello, if they don’t, then this becomes a teachable moment.  You need to remember that this is a marathon and not a sprint.

This is how we helped our children with autism. If you would like to share what you have done to help your kids with autism, we would love for you to share. Please use the comment section below.[/vc_column_text][/vc_column][/vc_row]

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