social skills – Page 12 – Real Social Skills

Don’t stop people from using their abilities

August 27, 2015June 10, 2021 Real Social Skills

If developing a skill, even shakily, means someone will lose their accommodations, that makes it impossible for someone to use that skill. That’s a problem.

For instance, people who can walk often still need wheelchairs. Denying wheelchairs (or wheelchair accessible transportation, or other accessible things) to people who can walk doesn’t make a wheelchair any less necessary. It just prevents people who can walk a little from ever doing so in public. (And prevents some people from developing that ability at all.)

Similarly, a lot of AAC users can talk, or can talk some of the time. For many people, the best form of communication is a mixture of speech and a communication device. Often, when people speak, they are treated as though they are faking their need for AAC. Or that they’d be able to use speech as their sole means of communication if they tried harder. That doesn’t make AAC any less necessary. It doesn’t make speech any more possible. All it does is make it impossible for someone to use both speech and AAC, which deprives them of communication options they’d otherwise benefit from.

Similarly, a lot of people who can read visually also need screen readers from time to time. If seeing someone read standard print means that you won’t let them use electronic formats anymore, that doesn’t give them new abilities. All it does is stop them from reading.

Wheelchair users have the right to do what they want with their legs and AAC users have the right to do what they want with their voices. People have the right to read in a combination of ways that are possible for them. There are numerous other examples. Those rights matter, and they’re often ignored.

Short version: People with disabilities who use equipment or adaptive strategies are often prevented from doing things in the standard ways too. They’re expected to either do things in the approved disabled way or the approved normal way. This is wrong. People should be able to do things in the way that works best for them. (Which is often a mixture of different ways, some of which are used by nondisabled people as well.)

Resources other than ABA?

August 15, 2015June 21, 2021 Real Social Skills

Anonymous said:hello! I am a mom of a nine year old boy. I can tell he does not like ABA at all. I have taught him so much at home, and I am a first time and single mom. Schools only teach using ABA. My son does not like it one bit and is very behavioral.

I am desperate to try and find some other type of therapy for him. Do you have any suggestions? I so want this to stop. I feel it is abusive as well as being a waste of time. Thank you for reading this and for your blog!

realsocialskills said:

I don’t know what you should do specifically, because I don’t know you or your son or what the problem is. I do think there are some things worth considering.

Some thoughts about therapy specifically:

What is the purpose of the therapy?

Autism shouldn’t be seen as an indication that someone needs to be in therapy (particularly not many many hours of therapy), but it often is
Which means that a lot of autistic kids are spending time in therapy that they don’t need or benefit from
If that’s what’s going on, you might not need to find a replacement – it might just be a matter of stopping something that’s not needed
But sometimes there are reasons for particular types of therapy.
So, it’s worth asking:
Why does my son need therapy? What are the goals? Who are the experts who can help with this?

Some reasons that therapy can be needed:

Communication:

If a kid is having trouble communicating their thoughts and feelings in a way that others can understand, they need help with that.
Usually the best person to help with that problem is a speech language pathologist with experience with AAC.
SLPs with that experience can help kids with articulation if articulation is the main barrier, and can also help kids find ways other than speech to communicate.
Here are some resources for pursuing AAC implementation for your child.
ABA isn’t good for supporting communication because it assumes that the problem is lack of motivation, and because it’s biased towards doing things that make good data, which often interfere with communication development.
PECS isn’t good enough, because it doesn’t give people enough words. 9 year olds have more to say than requests.

Literacy:

Some kids have a lot of trouble learning to read
Kids struggling to read benefit from reading/literacy specialists
Literacy/reading specialists have specific training in teaching reading and troubleshooting reading problems. They have a lot of tools that behavior therapists don’t have. (Because behavior therapists are experts in training and modifying behaviors; they are not experts in teaching reading or figuring out what the cognitive barriers are.)
For some reason, this isn’t considered a special ed service, and it might not be offered to your kid if they’re in special ed (since people sometimes don’t think across categories)
But you can likely get it if you ask for it on their IEP.

Movement:

Some kids have a lot of trouble with fine motor skills or gross motor skills
Eg: Some kids need a lot of help figuring out how to hold a pencil
Or need to learn to move in safe ways: eg: some kids walk with a gait that will cause them long-term injury if it’s not corrected
Occupational or physical therapy can sometimes be helpful for this kind of thing
(Sometimes other things can also help, like general or adapted gymnastics or art classes and related things. Not every problem needs to be solved with therapy).

Emotional issues:

Being autistic is hard. Going through puberty is hard. Doing both at once is really hard.
Some kids benefit from psychotherapy to support them in dealing with this, or with other things
Finding a good therapist for kids can be very difficult, and I don’t really know how to do it well. But I do know that it can sometimes be a really good thing.
For some kids, animal-assisted therapy works better than talk therapy or play therapy

Psychiatry:

I want to be cautious about this because a lot of autistic kids and other kids with developmental disabilities are on inappropriate and dangerous medication
I’m *not* saying that your kid needs medication. I’m not saying that you should trust suggestions to medicate, or that you should cooperate with a school insisting on it.
What I *am* saying is that there are legitimate uses of psychiatric medication and that for some kids (and adults) it can be game-changing.
(Eg: Some kids gain the ability to understand school and do assignments if they take ADHD stimulants. For some kids, anti-anxiety medication opens up a lot of new possibilities.).
All that said, be careful about this. Some people might want to prescribe your child medication as a form of chemical restraint to control their behavior, and that’s not something that’s going to help them.
It’s important to have a clear sense of what the medication is supposed to do, what the risks are, and what side effects to look out for
And if a medication doesn’t seem to be helping or seems to be causing your child a lot of pain or distress, take that seriously and insist that it be addressed
(You can’t count on doctors to do this on their own initiative; you have to be proactive about making sure you understand the medication and the impact it has on your child.)

A general consideration: Don’t trust true believers and those who make excessive claims:

No approach works well for everyone.
True believers are not trustworthy. People who think their approach is 100% universally effective will not treat you and your child well if it’s not working, and will not know how to try other things or make good referrals.
No approach will cure your child’s autism. It’s probably better to avoid people who claim that their approach will be deeply transformative.
Therapy can teach your child skills. It can help them understand themself and the world better. It can help them communicate more effective. It can help them learn how to do things and troubleshoot. It won’t take away their disability or make them a different person.
Therapy is more art than science. Be suspicious of people who claim that their approach is strictly evidence based.
(They probably won’t treat you and your child well if your child has needs that their theory doesn’t predict. People who go on about being evidence-based tend to ignore the evidence of the real child they’re dealing with in favor of the ~evidence-based~ child they’re imagining based on their theory)
No therapist is a good match for every child, no matter how skilled they are or how good their method is
Be cautious of people who claim that all children like them, all children benefit from them, or that they just love all children. People who think that aren’t usually very good at seeing children as actual people, and are unlikely to be respectful. (And also unlikely to handle it constructively if your child dislikes them or finds the things they’re doing with them unpleasant).
There is nothing that all children like. (Consider the fact that many children hate chocolate and Disneyland).
The best therapists are people who are willing to be honest about what their skills are and aren’t, and the advantages and drawbacks of their methods. They will understand that match matters, and make a referral to someone else if it doesn’t seem like it’s working well.
Good therapists respect you as a parent and respect your child as a person. If a therapist is constantly making you or your child feel like a failure, something is wrong and needs to change. Therapy shouldn’t be like that. Therapy should be helpful and respectful.

Also, consider getting psychotherapy for yourself:

Parenting is hard. Single parenting is harder.
Learning to parent a disabled child in a world hostile to disability is also hard
Your own feelings matter, and it’s important to get support in dealing with them.
It can be hard to find a good therapist to help with this — a lot of therapists believe toxic things about disability and parenting disabled kids (because therapists come from the same culture as everyone else).
You may or may not be able to find someone good.
But if you can find a compatible therapist who shares your values, therapy can help a lot.
Just, generally — don’t forget that you are dealing with a lot of hard things and that your needs and feelings are important.
If you are miserable, something is wrong and needs to change.

Likewise psychiatric support:

Depression is common. So is anxiety.
Sometimes toxic support groups will encourage parents (especially mothers) to see despair and panic as inevitable results of raising autistic kids
But they’re not. Parenting an autistic child doesn’t mean you have to be depressed and it doesn’t mean you have to be constantly anxious and afraid
If you’re depressed or anxious, that’s a problem that needs to be addressed
And it might be something that requires medical treatment.
If you think that you might need help, take that seriously.
(And don’t try to treat your own mental health struggles by trying to fix your kid — it won’t work.)
I don’t know you so I don’t know if this is an issue for you. I just know that it’s common.

Beyond issues of therapy: can you get him moved to a mainstream class?

Being autistic doesn’t mean that your son has to be in an autism class. (Even if that’s where the school wants to put him.)
If he hates ABA, he might do a lot better in a regular class.
A lot of kids do.
Even if he can’t talk or demonstrate learning, he can still be in a regular class, and it can still be better than being in a separated ABA class.
You might have to fight for this in certain school districts, but the law is on your side if you want to do so. (And there are lawyers who specialize in special education issues).

More generally:

The Autistic Self Advocacy Network is developing resources on insurance coverage for services other than ABA.
The current version (as of this post) is about Medicaid, and information about private insurance is coming soon (so if you’re reading this post and it’s a while after I posted it, click through to the link even if you don’t have Medicaid)

Don’t do this alone:

School systems and insurance companies and options are really overwhelming.
It helps a lot to get perspective and support from parents (and disabled adults) with more experience with the school system you’re dealing with
You’re probably not the only one in the system who has had to fight to get the school to do something other than ABA. (The Department of Education recently put out a letter about this problem.)
If you can find other local parents of disabled kids who are working to get their needs met respectfully, it will probably get a lot easier
They might be hard to find, because parent support groups are often toxic. For some reason, this is particularly true of autism-related parent support groups. A cross-disability group might be a better place to find good support.
(There isn’t any educational need or support need that is completely unique to autistic kids. Everything is shared by at least some people in at least some other disability groups.).
It’s also worth the effort. Even one person who gets it will help a lot.
Among other reasons: You get better results at IEP meetings if you come with a support person (even if they’re not an expert).

Other support issues:

If he’s socially isolated, the solution to that may not be therapy. It may be to help him find people who he connects with well. Which may or may not look the same as it looks for most other kids his age:

That may not be kids at school. Not all kids have friends at school, and that can be ok.
It may not be kids his exact age. Some autistic kids get along better with younger or older kids, and that can be ok too.
One thing worth trying is finding other kids who share his interests.
Or a non-theraputic class on one of his interests. Or something else you think he might enjoy. (Eg: An after school art class. Or a video game club.)
The Internet can be game-changing for some autistic kids. Eg: Playing Minecraft on a server. There are some kid-friendly servers that limit access to people who follow the rules. (Autcraft is specifically designed for autistic kids; there are other kid-oriented servers. Which someone likes is a matter of preference.)
Disability-oriented groups can also be a good thing, if they’re not about therapy or changing people. Eg: The Special Olympics, which is about access to sports in an environment that values people with intellectual disabilities, can be a very good thing for some people who are eligible.
Social skills groups are not good for this, because they’re not about friendship, they’re about getting kids to act out a certain script of what adults think kids should act like. That’s not fun and it’s not a good place to make friends.
But a social club for kids with disabilities (or autism specifically) to hang out with each other can be a good thing. It depends on the context.

Some other non-therapy considerations on how to help your son: It’s important to listen to and talk to your son:

A lot of autistic kids don’t get listened to very much
If your son doesn’t use language very much, it’s still important to talk to and listen to him
If he has unusual speech, you might be inadvertently writing him off as joking or rude when he’s trying to communicate something.
Here’s a post about ways to listen to people with unusual speech.
Also, sometimes when autistic people repeat something over and over, it’s meaningful communication that needs to be taken seriously.
More generally speaking: Autistic communication and body language is often dismissed as meaningless, stimming, or sensory-seeking.
Sensory-seeking is a real thing, but a lot of what’s interpreted that way is actually meaningful communication. It’s important to listen.
The more you learn to understand your son’s communication, the more possible it will be to solve problems and help him learn

It’s also important to talk to your son about his disability:

If your son knows things about his disability, he can make better decisions
If he knows what you think about his disability, your actions will make more sense to him — and he’ll be in a better position to correct you if you’re getting it wrong
This is important whether or not he can talk, and whether or not you think he can understand
I wrote a bigger post about that here

Just, generally speaking, it’s important to involve your son in these kinds of things:

I’m not saying let him decide everything; that wouldn’t be remotely appropriate for a 9 year old.
But, just like with other 9 year olds, when there’s a problem involving him, he needs to be involved in figuring out the solution
Or when decisions are being considered about him, or some change might happen that will affect him in a major way – it’s important to remember that he has a perspective and that his perspective matters
He will know things about his behavior and his needs and his feelings that you don’t know — for the same reason any 9 year old kid will know things about themselves.
Even if you can’t figure out how to have these conversations effectively yet, it’s important to keep trying
Whether or not you know how to find out what he thinks, whether or not his perspective changes the outcome — it will make a difference that you care what he thinks and make an effort to listen to him

Give him the right words for feelings:

Sometimes kids with disabilities are only given the emotional language of happy/sad/angry/excited.
But kids have more complex feelings than that.
Kids with disabilities also feel shame. And humiliation. And loss. And grief. And anticipation. And disappointment. And joy. And love. And embarrassment. And any other emotion that anyone else feels
Their feelings are important and need to be acknowledged.
Particularly – shame and humiliation are very, very frequent experiences for disabled kids, and they’re often not acknowledged at all.
It’s humiliating to be teased for being disabled. Or to have to do pointless repetitive things adults tell you to over and over. Or to be constantly told that your body language is bad and wrong, or to be treated as though you’ve done something disgusting when you flap your hands as an expression of happiness.
“You feel sad” or “you feel angry” does not begin to cover what that feels like.
Disabled kids have the same range of feelings as any other people, and their feelings need to be acknowledged and taken seriously.

In short: You don’t have to do ABA (even if your school system wants you to). There isn’t really a general approach that replaces it — because ABA makes overbroad claims, and there’s no approach for which those claims are true. Good approaches address specific issues and don’t take over your life. There are a lot of different things that a lot of different kids (and adults) benefit from. Which things will be helpful to your son depends on what his needs are.

Anyone else want to weigh in? What have you found helpful for your child (or yourself) other than ABA?

A reason your kids need you to talk to them about their disability

August 1, 2015June 10, 2021 Real Social Skills

Sometimes parents avoid talking to disabled kids about disability because they don’t want to make them feel different.

The thing is, it’s not actually possible to prevent your child from noticing that they are different. They will notice that they aren’t just like all the other kids. Partly because it’s obvious. Kids compare themselves to other kids, and to adults that they observe. Disability is as noticeable as the fact that some people are fat, female, tall, short, black, white, or whatever else. Kids notice differences. They will notice this difference too. And that’s ok.

They will notice that you are willing to talk about some differences, but not others. If you refuse to talk about disability, they will still know that they are different. They will just learn that you consider the difference unspeakable.

They will also notice what other people think about them and their disability.

People will stare at your child and make disparaging remarks. People will call them the r-word, and every other disability slur. They will say “special” and “special needs” with a sneer. They will make fun of your child for not being able to do things. They will say, or imply, that they would be able to do them if they’d just try harder.

You can stop some people from doing this to your child (and you should), but you can’t stop them from ever encountering it. They will probably encounter it every day. They will know that they are different from other people, and our culture will teach them incredibly destructive things about what that means.

You can’t stop your child from hearing what our culture thinks of disability — and if you don’t talk about disability yourself, your child will believe that you agree with it.

If you don’t talk to your child about their disability, the only words they will have for themselves are slurs they hear other people call them. You can give them better words, and better information.

If you don’t talk to your child about their disability, they will end up with a lot of misinformation about what their difference means. If you talk to them, you can tell them the truth.

Short version: Refusing to talk to kids about disability doesn’t protect them from feeling different. It just prevents them from getting accurate information about what their disability is and what their difference means. When kids who don’t know the truth about their disability face hate, they have little-to-no protection against internalizing it.

Don’t be mean to fat disabled people

July 31, 2015June 10, 2021 Real Social Skills

Some disabled people are fat.

Some fat disabled people have mobility impairments, and need to use wheelchairs and scooters.

Some fat disabled people need to sit down a lot.

Some fat disabled people need to park in handicapped parking.

Some fat disabled people need to sit in the disabled seating on busses.

Some fat disabled people need to use the bathroom stall that has grab bars.

Some people act like fat people are somehow “not really disabled, just fat” as though the two are somehow mutually exclusive. They’re not. Fat is not a cure for disability. Fat disabled people are as disabled as thin disabled people. Fat people have every right to exist in public and use mobility aids and other adaptations.

Some people act like being mean to disabled fat people will somehow force them to stop being fat and disabled. It won’t. Being mean is not a cure. If you yell at a fat disabled person for needing to park close to the building, it won’t give them the ability to walk further safely. It will just mean that their day got worse because someone decided to be pointlessly cruel to them.

Short version: Fat disabled people exist, and have a legitimate need for access and accommodations. Being mean to fat disabled people for having access needs doesn’t cure their disability. It just makes the world a crueler place. Don’t be a jerk.

Aftermaths of social skills lessons

July 31, 2015June 21, 2021 Real Social Skills

Anonymous said to realsocialskills:

I’m autistic, I went to a group that was supposed to help me with autism-related issues, and they gave me some social skills advice that I honestly think was terrible. And the group was pretty terrible in general.

I ended up quitting for various other reasons, but it’s still sorta bugging me ‘cause what if they’re RIGHT.

The advice went like this: It’s okay to disagree with someone, but it’s never okay to explain WHY, because that’s pushing your opinion on them and that’s wrong.

realsocialskills said:

That rule is way too oversimplified to be useful. It’s true in some circumstances, and completely wrong in others — and completely useless at helping you to understand when it is and isn’t ok to contradict people.

The truth about social skills is that all rules are approximations at best. And often, as in this case, rules taught in social skills classes are completely useless and misleading.

Learning to be good at social interactions isn’t a matter of Learning the Rules; it’s a matter of learning to develop your judgement. Approximations and rules of thumb can help with this. They can’t replace the need to think for yourself and rely on your own judgement.

Social skills classes often teach people really destructive things about themselves and about social interaction. Here’s one way that can happen:

They tell you that autism (or whatever else) is preventing you from understanding social situations
They tell you that there are rules and that everyone else knows the rules naturally
They give you some simplistic rules and tell you to always follow them
The rules might sometimes be plausible-sounding or half-truths
Following the simplistic rules does not actually get the results they claim it does (because life is more complicated than that)
This can be really confusing
If you express this confusion to them, or say that it isn’t working, they attribute it to your autism and tell you to try harder or trust the process or something
They sometimes say this in a harsh way, they sometimes say it in a gentle or encouraging way. That difference is mostly aesthetic.
Either way, it amounts to the same pressure to believe them unconditionally and stop thinking for yourself

I suspect that something like that is going on here. The rule itself is useless. There’s no way to use it to tell whether or not it’s a good idea to explain your reasoning to someone you disagree with.

But it sounds just-plausible-enough to fuel self doubt, because there are some situations in which it really is mean to explain things to someone. (An example that’s been circulating on Tumblr recently: It’s ok to dislike Minions. It’s not ok to hassle kids about liking Minions or try to convince them that it’s bad and they shouldn’t like it.)

It can be hard to remember that these tiny kernels of truth aren’t actually meaningful. But they’re not. Kernels of truth in a simplistic rule don’t make it useful — and they don’t make the people pushing simplistic rules right.

Also – people who are wrong aren’t always wrong about everything. They may have told you some things that were true. They may have told you some true things that you didn’t know. And they may have told you some true things that you *still* don’t know. That doesn’t mean that their overall approach was ok, and it doesn’t mean you should trust them or doubt yourself.

I think, push come to shove, you have to think for yourself and develop your own judgement about these things. And sometimes that will mean that you make social mistakes — but they will be *your* social mistakes, and you will learn from them. It’s ok for autistic people to make social mistakes. Everyone has to learn this stuff, not just us.

Short version: Social skills groups can really undermine your ability to trust your own judgement. They give you simplistic rules that are impossible to follow, then blame you when it doesn’t work. It’s not your fault if this happened to you, and it’s not your fault if you’re having trouble recovering.

We are people

July 27, 2015June 10, 2021 Real Social Skills

When I see a picture of someone who looks like me, it’s usually illustrating a tragic or demeaning story.

Sometimes it’s a picture of a child, illustrating a story about how difficult life is for parents of autistic children. Or a story about how the child’s favorite thing got turned into therapy. With depressing bullying statistics.

Sometimes it’s a picture of an adult, illustrating a story about how difficult life is for parents of autistic children once their kids reach adulthood. Or a bleak story about unemployment statistics. Sometimes it’s a story about a special business or sheltered workshop for autistics that the parent is proud to say their child is involved with. With depressing unemployment statistics.

Sometimes it’s a story about how an autistic person has a special talent. Maybe they’re an artist. The story is always about how mysterious and beautifully tragic it is that autism sometimes gives people special abilities along with significant impairments. The story will not take them seriously as an artist. It will be a human interest story about autism, and no art experts will be quoted — but the headline will probably say “autism does not define him.”

This gets corrosive. It can make the world seem bleak and hopeless. It can be hard to remember that this isn’t an accurate way to describe us. That we are, in fact, more than that.

In real life, we’re people, and we do things. We do things besides be miserable or be inspiring. We have thoughts and attributes that are not convenient to the tragic plots of newspaper articles. We’re people. We do real things. And we matter.

I am not a tragic story; I am not an illustration. I am a real person. And so are you.

Tell people you care what they are saying

July 25, 2015June 10, 2021 Real Social Skills

Anonymous said:

Another speech-impediment related question: Usually my ability to understand speech is perfect, but it deteriorates rapidly if a person has an accent or talks lowly, so I spend a lot of time smiling and nodding politely.

I feel bad about this with everybody, but especially if a person has a speech impediment or disability accent.

But to understand I’d have to ask people to repeat themselves three or four times for every sentence. Do you have any advice?

realsocialskills says:

Basically what I think about this is:

It’s ok not to understand people. That is not your fault.
Listening is important. It’s (usually) not ok to ignore people.
It’s not usually ok to pretend you understand someone when you don’t (unless you need to protect yourself)

Being honest about what’s going on makes communication much easier:

People don’t like being ignored
If you smile and nod, people can usually tell that you’re not really listening
They can’t tell why, because they can’t read your mind
As far as they can tell, you’re ignoring them because you don’t care what they’re saying

It can help to be be explicit about what the problem is, and what you think might solve it.

Eg:

“I’m sorry — I care about what you’re saying, but I’m having trouble understanding. It’s hard for me to understand low pitched voices – would it be possible to speak at a higher pitch?”

Or:

“I’m having trouble understanding your voice, but I’d like to listen. Would it be better to write things down, or should I ask you to repeat, or something else?”

Also, if there’s a particular accent you’re encountering a lot, it’s likely worth spending some time working on your ability to understand it. If it’s a particular foreign accent, one way to do that is to watch videos or shows in which people speak in that accent, and turn the captions on.

And just, generally speaking, this gets easier with practice. Once you get more experience listening to people with the accent you’re having trouble with now, you’ll probably understand more readily and not have to ask for as much repetition.