Socially ADDept

Teaching Social Skills to Children with ADHD, LD, and Asperger's

Janet Z. Giler

• Publisher: Jossey-Bass
• Year: 2010
• Print ISBN: 9780470596838
• eBook ISBN: 9780470925942
• Edition: 1
• Topic: Education
• Subtopic: Inclusive Education

Decodes the often confusing rules of social behavior for all children

Socially ADDept helps educators and parents teach the hidden rules of social behavior to children with limited social skills, notably those with special needs like ADHD, learning disabilities, Asperger's and high-functioning autism, Tourette Syndrome, and nonverbal learning disabilities. The author provides all the information parents and professionals need to know to help kids learn social skills in simple, concise explanations. The book is divided into eight sections that educators can use as teaching units or parents can work through one week (or month) at a time.

• Includes a way for children to see themselves and how their behavior looks to others
• Deciphers the complex rules of nonverbal language into friendly, bite-sized morsels that kids can understand
• Offers a field-tested collection of suggestions and strategies for parents and professionals who want to enhance a child's social competence

Socially ADDept is presented in a hands-on workbook format, complete with reproducible student worksheets that are also available for free download from the publisher web site.

Part I

What Parents and Teachers Need to Know

Chapter 1

Why Children with Special Needs Struggle Socially

Many children with special needs make social mistakes. Although their problems differ vastly in scope, children with Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder (ADHD), learning disabilities, and Asperger's Syndrome (AS) frequently have social problems because they do not understand nor use the same social conventions that others do.

Although their reasons for failing to use these rules or conventions are different, what is common is that many special needs (SN) children mishear words and misuse or misperceive the meaning of tone. They answer out of turn or fail to take turns, interrupt or change the subject, intrude into another person's space or activity, fail to respond appropriately to another's feelings (failure to use empathy), and, in some cases, fail to respond at all. By the age of five or six (and certainly by seven or eight), they are out of sync with their peers who have honed their mind-reading skills and can tell when someone disapproves of their actions and are able to modify their behavior to be more in line with what is expected.

Why Teach Social Skills?

Social skills enable children (and adults) to be successful in their social interactions. Whereas many schools know how to help children who struggle academically, less is known about how to help children who struggle socially. The assumption has been that children with SN will observe and copy their peers. We know now that this assumption is not correct. Many children with SN need specific instruction on how to implement social skills, and they need to receive feedback on how well they performed these skills. This is the piece that many social skills programs fail to include. Children need to learn how to read and respond to nonverbal communication, which they often overlook because of its ambiguity. As mentioned in the Introduction, the meta-communication level refers to the relationship between the participants and is comprehended mostly through mind-reading body language and tone. Children need to pay attention to this level, particularly when disapproval is being expressed, as this lets them know when to change their behavior.

Children with SN Often Make Social Mistakes Because They

• Mishear words
• Misuse or misperceive the meaning of tone
• Answer out of turn
• Fail to take turns
• Interrupt
• Change the subject
• Intrude into another's space or activity
• Fail to stop when asked

Why Children with SN Need Training in Social Skills

• Children with SN often don't know the rules of conversation.
• Many children with SN do not follow sequences. (Conversations are supposed to be sequential; you listen and then you respond. Many children with SN do not understand or follow this rule.)
• Children with SN often misinterpret or fail to interpret body language appropriately.
• Children with SN often violate the spatial boundaries of others.
• Children with SN often misperceive jokes or friendly teasing as hostility.
• Many children with SN have inaccurate awareness of self and other.
• There is no way to compensate for poor social skills.

Mind-Blindness

Children need to learn to identify when people disapprove of their actions so that they can make adjustments accordingly. When children have mind-blindness, they often have inaccurate perceptions of themselves as well as misperceptions of the role of the other person in a given dynamic. One of Socially ADDept's first goals is to teach children greater self-awareness. The second step in gaining social awareness is for children to see how their behavior affects someone else. This skill involves stepping outside their own frame of reference to view an interchange the same way someone else might see it.(I refer to this as having joint perception; see Figure 1.2). This step involves a meta-communication, because both people need to comment about their verbal and nonverbal exchange by checking or verifying that what they saw and the meaning they attached to it are similar (or in some cases, different). Finally, children have to learn to adjust their behavior to be more in line with what other people expect.

The ability to mind-read disapproval verbally and nonverbally lets children know when to adjust (or correct) their behavior.

When Children Don't Stop

When children don't perceive that they are out of sync or fail to change their behavior, other children react by getting angry, frustrated, or hurt. If this discord persists, other children will ask them to stop. If the children continue to be annoying, the other children either avoid or chastise them. If children persist in being annoying or aggressive, in both cases ignoring what the other children want, the other children may label these children as self-centered or insensitive.

Language Difficulties and the Hidden Rules of Conversation

Social Problems Due to Language or Perceptual Sequencing Problems

• Failure to introduce a topic clearly
• Poor topic organization
• Faulty sequencing, such as jumping to conclusions without listening to the whole story
• Failure to respond to a topic
• Failure to share the conversation, often perseverating on a topic without paying attention to the interest of the other person

Many children with SN have problems with language. They may have difficulties with topic organization, or they may fail to introduce the subject. They may fail to see that conversations are supposed to be an exchange and hence perseverate on some detail, ignoring the bored body language that tells them to stop. They have missed the social rule that conversations are supposed to be an exchange between people. When a child engages in a lopsided conversation (more like a diatribe or lecture), the other children may make derogatory comments (which are intended to silence the offending child). Instead of understanding the message, the child with SN is often surprised. He may not understand that this is the way other children tell him to be quiet.

Tone is also often misused or misunderstood. Tone communicates the emotional state of the person speaking. Children are supposed to comprehend the emotional message that is being conveyed by the tone. Children may also be unaware of their own use of tone and how others may be reacting to the emotional message that their tone conveys. As an example, when children hear a monotone, they may react with discomfort or avoidance because it differs from what they expect.

Difficulty Recognizing and Labeling Feelings

Three Weaknesses That Make Decoding Feelings Difficult

1. Misreading or ignoring body language due to inability to read facial expressions or body gestures or posture

2. Missing the emotional meaning of tone through misinterpreting or ignoring the meaning of pitch (tone), volume, and intensity

3. Misperceiving or ignoring someone's personal space, failing to move when the person frowns to let you know that you are too close to him

Many children with SN have trouble accurately labeling their own feelings; likewise, they may misread or respond inappropriately to the feelings of others. If children fail to perceive and respond to what another child may be feeling, they appear to lack empathy (the ability to comprehend and respond to the feelings of others). Because this emotional message is more than half of the communication, ignoring it is considered a mistake. Misreading (or ignoring) another's feelings often leads to misunderstanding that person's intentions because the emotional message is supposed to be a cue as to whether or not the person is kidding, serious, angry, playful, and so on.

Children expect their friends to demonstrate empathy (verbally or nonverbally). When children do not do this, they are often viewed as self-centered or callous.

When children only rely on the literal meaning of words, they often do not understand joking and may feel that they are being teased. Because they may miss the friendly tone, they can misjudge the relationship and often miss the other child's intent. Because they may have difficulty distinguishing hostile from friendly teasing, they often respond with protection and withdraw or respond with hostility.

Poor Problem-Solving Skills

The failure to comprehend other children's motivation correctly impairs children with SNs' ability to resolve conflicts. Instead of seeing a remark as an oversight, an accident, or a friendly jibe, these children may assume that the other child intended to hurt them. If they hold on to this negative perception, it is hard, if not impossible, to forgive the other child, to make amends, and to continue on with the friendship. Instead, friendships are ended prematurely. Instead of accepting apologies and maintaining friendships, many children walk away or retaliate when they have been wounded or hurt. They often do not bounce back or have other recuperation strategies. Others have noted that many children with SN ruminate on their negative experiences (Frankel, 1996; Frankel & Myatt, 2003). Ruminating on past negative events increases children's unhappiness and limits their adaptability (Brooks & Goldstein, 2002).

How Mind-Blindness Causes Conflicts

Mind-blindness causes problems when children

• Miss or misperceive the emotional message (body language and tone)
• Incorrectly predict the feelings, thoughts, and intentions of others
• Fail to check if their assumptions about the other person are correct
• Ignore or distrust peer relationships
• End friendships prematurely due to negative assumptions of the other child's intent (“He meant to hurt me”)
• Escalate conflicts because they don't know how to communicate and accept differences and because they don't view the problems in the context of an existing relationship

As an example of how poor empathy and mind reading can spiral into a conflict that can threaten a relationship, consider Johnny, a seven-year-old child with Nonverbal Learning Disability (NLD). His friend Mike has teased him about telling silly jokes. Instead of remembering that Mike has been his friend in the past and is therefore probably kidding around, Johnny deduces that Mike is making fun of him and doesn't like him anymore. Johnny doesn't see the teasing in the context of their previous relationship history of being friends for the past year.

Instead of seeing that Mike may be (1) trying to tell him somethin...

Table of contents

• Cover
• More Praise for Socially ADDept, Revised Edition
• Jossey-Bass Teacher
• Title Page
• Copyright
• About This Book
• About the Author
• Acknowledgments
• Introduction
• Part I: What Parents and Teachers Need to Know
• Part II: The Socially ADDept Lessons
• Part III: Appendices
• Bibliography and Resources
• Index