Social Skills For Teenagers And Adults With Asperger Syndrome

This resource provides practical strategies for helping teenagers and adults with Asperger Syndrome to navigate social skills, friendships and relationships at home and in the community. The author offers advice and useful strategies for tackling day-to-day problems such as visits to the dentist or the doctor, searching for a job, sorting out personal finances, going on vacation, and dealing with public transport, as well as more intimate topics such as dating and acquiring and maintaining friendships. The chapters are structured around real-life scenarios and the challenges they present, followed by step-by-step solutions and suggestions. A final section provides a set of practical self-help tools, which encourage the reader to note down answers to the questions posed and record personal reflections. This accessible guide will be essential reading for teenagers and adults with Asperger Syndrome and their families, teachers, therapists, counsellors, carers, social and health work professionals.

This resource provides practical strategies for helping teenagers and adults with Asperger Syndrome to navigate social skills, friendships and relationships at home and in the community. The chapters are structured around real-life scenarios and the challenges they present, followed by step-by-step solutions and suggestions.

Finally a social skills program that covers all the bases! Whether it's learning how long one can look at somebody without being accused of staring; how to shift topics, despite one's desire to stick with that all-consuming special interest; how to say no to peer pressure; or dealing with a sensitive topic - it's all here... and more. In this comprehensive and user friendly book, the author translates years of experience working with students wiht Asperger Syndrome and social-communication difficulties. After brief introductory chapters on skills to target, instructional strategies, behavior management, promoting generalization, etc., as well as a special chapter by Brenda Smith Myles on relevant characteristics of autism spectrum disorders, the reader is presented with the essence of this must-have resource: 70 of the skills that most commonly cause difficulty for individuals with autism spectrum disorders and social-communications problems. The presentation of each skill consists of a reproducible skill handout, as well as activity sheets listing ways teachers and parents can demonstrate, practice, and reinforce the skill in the classroom and at home. A concluding chapter on promoting peer acceptance offers sensitivity training programs for both students of various age groups and school staff, making this a complete social skills training package for students of all ages.

The only evidence-based program available for teaching social skills to adolescents with autism spectrum disorders Two nationally known experts in friendship formation and anxiety management address the social challenges faced by adolescents with autism spectrum disorders (ASD). The book helps educators instruct youth on conversing with others, displaying appropriate body language, managing anxiety, initiating and participating in get-togethers, and more. The book is filled with helpful information on ASD to aid teachers who have received little training on the topic. Extremely practical, the book includes lesson plans, checklists, and sidebars with helpful advice. Based on UCLA's acclaimed PEERS program, the only evidence-based approach to teaching social skills to adolescents with ASD Contains best practices for working with parents, which is the key to helping kids learn social skills The authors discuss the pros and cons of teaching students with ASD in educational settings like full inclusion (good for academics but bad for social skills) and pull-out special day classes (where the reverse is true) Provides a much-needed book for teachers at all levels for helping students develop the skills they need to be successful.

Being a teen or tween isn't easy for anyone but it can be especially tough for Asperkids. Jennifer O'Toole knows; she was one! This book is a top secret guide to all of the hidden social rules in life that often seem strange and confusing to young people with Asperger syndrome. The Asperkid's (Secret) Book of Social Rules offers witty and wise insights into baffling social codes such as making and keeping friends, blending in versus standing out from the crowd, and common conversation pitfalls. Chock full of illustrations, logical explanations, and comic strip practice sessions, this is the handbook that every adult Aspie wishes they'd had growing up. Ideal for all 10-17 year olds with Asperger syndrome, this book provides inside information on over thirty social rules in bite-sized chunks that older children will enjoy, understand, and most importantly use daily to navigate the mysterious world around them.

This book is an empirically-grounded, ready-to-use curriculum for clinicians, teachers and professionals wishing to lead social skills groups for young people with AS. It provides an introduction to AS and issues surrounding social skills, including diagnostic and assessment issues, the importance of good social skills, and treatment approaches.

Building Social Relationships addresses the need for social skills programming for children and adolescents with autism spectrum disorders and other social difficulties by providing a comprehensive model that incorporates the following five steps: assess social functioning, distinguish between skill acquisition and performance deficits, select intervention strategies, implement intervention, and evaluate and monitor progress. The model describes how to organize and make sense of the myriad social skills strategies and resources available to parents and professionals. It is not meant to replace other resources or strategies, but to synthesize them into one comprehensive program.

This book is essential reading for any clinician or researcher working with teens with autism spectrum disorders. This parent-assisted intervention for teens is based on a comprehensive, evidence-based, 14-week program at UCLA’s Semel Institute for Neuroscience and Human Behavior, the manualization of the popular UCLA PEERS Program, and the success of the Children’s Friendship Training (Routledge, 2002) manual for children. After reviewing techniques designed to help parents and therapists tailor the manual to the needs of the teens with whom they are working, the text moves on to the individual treatment sessions and strategies for tackling issues such as developing conversational skills, choosing friends, using humor, get-togethers, teasing, bullying, gossiping, and handling disagreements. Each session chapter includes handouts, homework assignments, descriptions of what to expect (and how to handle challenges in delivering the intervention), and customized tips for both parents and therapists.