We all experience social interactions in life. Whether its socialising at home with siblings, at school with friends, or colleges at work. Your bound to have some sort of social interaction at one point or another. Some autistic people may be brilliant with social interactions whilst other may struggle. It varies from person to person. Here are a few tips to help with social interactions.
Social Interactions
Everyone has varying levels of sociability. Some autistic people may find that being sociable comes with ease, that they can connect with others and feel comfortable around people. Whilst some autistic people may find social interactions harder. For instance they may find it hard to pick up on social cues, communicating effectively, and generally just feel socially awkward.
This isn't something to be embarrassed about. Everyone is different and unique. Just because you may not be great at small talk, doesn't mean your not good at socialising. On the contrary, you may actually find that your better at having in depth conversations and sharing views from a unique perspective that most would find enjoyable.
But it is important to have those social interactions. There are many benefits to social interactions and creating connections with other people, including:
tackling loneliness & depression
a sense of comfort when you are sad
being able to talk about your worries with others and gaining their advice & help (which helps to lower stress).
making joyful memories that can be shared#
learning new skills and being introduced to new hobbies or interests that you wouldn't normally come across.
understanding how to react in different situations
This is why it is important to build up good relationships. However, this can take time for some autistic people to develop the social skills needed to create these relationships. That is why it is important to help build up these skills earlier rather than later. So, here are a few tips to help with social interaction skills!
Tips To Help
Here are a few social skills to learn and tips to help develop them.
Conversation Skill
Being able to have a conversation is important in social interactions. This involves more than just speaking to another person, it involves using the right body language and understanding theirs as well as listening to the other person. Here are a few tips to help develop this skill.
1. Observation
Observation can be a great way to see a skill in action. This could be watching social interaction on TV or in real life. From this, you can pick up how conversations flow and see what body language is used in different situations.
For Parents- Let your child observe your social interactions with other people. This can help them to see how a conversation works. This could be either a natural conversation or you could ask a friend/spouse to help show your child how to have a conversation.
2. Prompting
In conversations, it can be difficult to know what to say. Something to help with this is to memorise some prompts to keep the conversation going or as a way to respond to certain questions. For instance, you may memorise a few small talk prompts like how is your day going? or got any plans for the weekend?. These can also be handy if you are trying to steer clear of certain topics that you find hard to discuss.
For Parents- You could turn this into a game by writing some phrases on cards for your child to choose from. You could turn this into a game and see how long your child can keep the conversation going. Or, when you have a conversation with your child, you could tell them what they could say next. Keep reminding them of this until they start to say the phrase by themselves. For example, after saying hello, you can teach them to say 'how are you doing?' next.
3. Social Stories
Parents may find social stories useful to help your child see the structure and rules of a conversation. You can choose different social stories based on your child's need. For example, you could choose a social story on being a good listener or staying on topic.
4. Play A Game
Parents may also find that games like Pictionary and charades can be a fun way to build up conversation skills. It can help children to learn about taking turns speaking and learning how to listen to others.
Emotional Skills
Being able to understand other emotions is important in building up relationships. It helps for understanding how to interact with the other person, whether they are being playful or if their sad and in need of comforting. It is also important to understand your own feelings and what body language should be used to display these emotions. Here are a few ways you can help build this skill.
1.Emotion Cards
You can print off cards with different emotions on them and at certain times ask your child which one they identify with. You could start this off easy with just happy and sad emotions, and then over time gradually add in more emotions for your child to choose from. This helps you child to understand what they are feeling.
You could also use the cards as a game. Choose an emotion is ask if your child could replicate it, then ask them when they have felt that emotion. You could also see if they can identify that emotion in anyone else. This can help your child to recognise emotions in other people.
2. Tell Them
When your child is using a certain emotion, let them know. This can help them identify that emotion. For example, if they are laughing and being playful say 'you must be happy'.
3. Role Play
Role play conversations with your child and use different types of body language to help your child understand what body language connects to what emotion. You start this off slow with easier body languages, like a smile to show their happy, and then develop this over time. When you feel they are ready, you can get them to use different body languages during conversations.
Playing Skill
Playing is an important part of social skill. It involves being able to play and share with someone else.
1. Play With Your Child
Playing games with your child can help them know what to expect during play with others. You can play simple games with them like playing with teddies, but make sure they are playing with you. For example, pretend to play tea party with teddies. Through this show them how to share toys and taking turns.
As well as this, play challenges with your child so they can understand and cope with winning and loosing. You could play a game of snakes and ladders or connect four. Show them how they should react if they win or if they loose, remembering to show that emotion yourself when you win/loose.