Children with Asperger syndrome

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There are three main educational strategies beginning to emerge for

dealing with children with Asperger Syndrome (AS). These are social

skills training, social stories and structured teaching (Safran, 2001).

SOCIAL SKILLS TRAINING

For individuals with AS to learn and retain social skills it is best

to practice these skills in original and authentic settings including

in vivo settings (Ganz, 2001; Bock, 2001). Having said this, new

thinking in this area has led to the idea that certain activities

could very well provide a prerequisite knowledge of some required

social skills or to reinforce previously learned social skills (Ganz,

2001). One such activity is the use of board games. These board games

are designed with certain objectives in mind. Games have been designed

that help children with AS in their understanding of non-literal

English phrases and in their use of certain social skills such as

"solving problems, making decisions, using body language and language

styles, practicing conversation skills, expressing emotions, working

with peers and adults, and agreeing and disagreeing" (Ganz, 2001, p.

308).

It is important to state that these games are not meant to replace

structured social skills programs. Their greatest benefit is when they

are used in conjunction with these programs (Ganz, 2001).

As little as eight years ago there was only one published report of a

social skills program for individuals with AS (Marriage, Gordon, &

Brand, 1995, cf Safran, 2001). This program involved the acting out of

common social situations such as greeting people and conversational

skills. By videotaping these scenarios and then replaying them to the

individuals involved the teachers could highlight areas that required

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attention and areas that where of special interest to the individuals

such as conversations with the opposite sex. The cutting out pictures

to help identify emotions and the use of homework assignments were

also required to help reinforce social skills (Safran, 2001). However,

when the findings of this program where studied it was concluded that

there had been no apparent improvement in the social skills of the

individuals with AS taking part (Safran, 2001).

A more detailed and structured strategy for improving the social

skills of children (and in some cases adults as well) is known as the

SODA ...

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