Tag Archive for: kids with autism

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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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Getting Your Kids with Autism into Community Sports

Community sports and kids with autism can feel like a scary situation for most parents who are raising a child or children on the spectrum.  How could our boys possibly follow the directions, stay with the group or not have a meltdown which could distract the other team members from their fun time?

These were the thoughts that ran through our heads when some friends suggested that we sign the twins up for sports. After all, making friends, developing a competitive spirit, learning how to be a good sport and having a social outlet were all the things we were working toward. And, as a child, I couldn’t wait to go and play sports with my friends. In fact, my father was a co-founder of a basketball league which was a huge success!

Our first try was soccer, however that ended fairly quickly after several different occasions where the twins just kept running a la Forrest Gump style, away from the field. Next was basketball, ah my favorite sport. I volunteered to be a coach on the team. Greatest achievement was when one of the boys got a basket, however, it was the other teams basket.

We still cheered along with everyone else in the gym like they just dunked like Michael Jordan. You know, we would have kept them in the program but the gym was so incredibly loud with whistles, buzzers, and people everywhere that it quickly became clear that this was way too over stimulating for them.

We then said let’s try some individual sports. We signed them up for swimming and gymnastics, and SUCCESS! We continue to be involved with these sports today

Here are three things that we learned which gave our kids with autism the best results.

1.It was better to have them play with kids that were younger.
2.While most parents dropped their kids off, we stayed to provide extra support.
3.Individual sports with other children present, such as swimming and gymnastics, worked better then group sports particularly where there were just too many directions.

Resources to Check Out in Your Community

There are plenty of places which offer community sports such as the Boys and Girls Club, local community centers, Boy Scouts, local chapters for the Autism Society, Autism Speaks and Kids Included Together (KIT).

National Organizations That Helped Our Kids with Autism

Every geographical area has its own organizations, here are some of the National ones which we found to be very good with the twins

My Gym– Nation’s leading non-competitive gymnastics and play program. 200+ locations offering Mommy and Me, gymnastics, birthday parties, camps and other fantastic

J.W. Tumbles– Exercising young minds and bodies is important. So is having fun. Our goal is to make learning not only a great experience, but also a rewarding one.

YMCA– We know that lasting personal and social change comes about when we all work together. That’s why, at the Y, strengthening community is our cause.

All in all, our experience of putting our twins in sports was a mixed bag. However, once we found out what worked and what didn’t work, we now feel like everyone in our family is winning from being involved with the community.

Do you have any thoughts on what sports you would try for kids with autism?

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iPad Apps, GFCF diets & Shark Teeth

Thank you to Ariane Zucher who authors an amazing blog Emmas blog for this post.

I was sent a trial to a new ipad app for children on the spectrum called The Social Express.  If you click on the link it will take you to Social Express Lite which you can try out on your ipad or computer.  The characters are Zack and the aptly named Emma with her dog Sunny.  There are a series of vignettes where your child is encouraged to identify the character’s emotions.  I tried both levels with Emma.  She was amused when she purposely chose the “wrong” emotion and then laughed when the voiceover says – “Hmm,  look at Emma’s face…”  then it says, “Can you try again?”  To which Emma would choose the right one, while saying out loud – “Look!  She’s sad.  She lost her ice cream.”  Em particularly liked the scene with the boy who is terrified of the dog, something Em can relate to, and when the girl mistakenly lets go of her balloon, another situation that has caused Em great upset.


 

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Finding Out Our Twin Kids Had Autism

Right before the twins turned three, I remember driving to the office to meet the psychologist and thinking to myself, how I am going to react if I hear “the next step for your kids with autism is”….  I didn’t even really know what autism was as I had never met anyone who had this disorder my entire life.

Well, that was all about to change. The evaluation didn’t take more then 40 minutes  for the Doctor to confirm each had autism. It felt like I just got kicked in the stomach not once but twice. You would think there was more to it then just a 40 minute evaluation, but that’s all it was.

Then he asked me if I had any questions. “How can you tell from such a short evaluation they are autistic”? The answer was short and to the point. Autism has classic signs and the twins displayed all of them, and, he had been doing this longer then I was alive.

I had so many more questions but there was a waiting room of moms and dads waiting to find out the same results I just did. We never looked at that day as a bad day, just another day in the world of raising our children. After all, they were still the same kids, but now they were kids with autism…..

“You know, your boys are not developing like my boy” said our pediatrician at our 18 month check up. He actually had a child the same age as our twins.  He told us his boy was gesturing, making eye contact, noticing when people came and left a room, and saying his first words.

He wasn’t saying this to show off, he was trying to tell us there was something wrong with our twins. We shrugged it off, after all our boys had reached all the other key milestones from crawling to walking, they were eating well and seemed to be doing just fine. Yes they hadn’t said a word yet, and they did have some odd ways of playing with their toys.

We had read that twins are slow to develop language and identical twins even slower. They actually had their own “twin talk” which was very interesting to observe, sometimes it was telepathic for instance, sometimes with out a word, they would both just bolt out of the room at the same time.

As far as the gesturing, that was something we didn’t even pay attention to because when you have twins you tend to be one step ahead of them and get them what they need. Two babies crying at the same time can be absolutely overwhelming.  “Ok, he said but keep a careful eye on them and if they don’t begin to gesture and give you eye contact then I would like you to get them checked out.

“Checked out for what, I said” “autism,” was his response. Six more months went by, and nothing had changed, no talking, no eye contact, even more weird repetitive playing. It was time for us to no longer attribute this to being a twin.We then made the appointment to get them evaluated.  They were initially diagnosed with Pervasive Developmental Disorder Not otherwise Specified (PDDNOS) before seeing the psychologist.

4 Steps We Took First

Besides the obvious of telling your family and friends here are 4 important things we did to begin our journey.

1. We made an appointment with a social worker who was referred by our local Regional Center.
2. We began a busy schedule of therapies.
3. We enrolled them in special-ed preschool
4. We kept a positive mental attitude at ALL times.

Getting Help with Autism

Here are 5 recommendations we’d like to share with you based on my and my wife’s 8-year journey with getting help with autism for our twin boys.

1. Don’t wait to get your child diagnosed; it has been proven that early intervention can make a huge difference.
2. There are so many different types of therapies out there to help children with autism. Due your homework about your options. We got the best results by doing Dir Floortime, DT, ABA, and now cognitive therapy using The Social Express and other best practices.  Make sure to contact your insurance company to see if you are covered.
3. Hire an advocate to join your team for IEP meetings. If anything just to help you with difficult decisions
4. Every day give your child a break from therapy and let them be a kid.
5. Apply for respite services. Date night or alone time is very important to recharge your battery.

“Do you have any comments about what to do first when your find out your kids have autism?”

 

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