has anyone heard anything new since Autism awarness month

I want to know any new news mostly about things to help my son in social situations or any thing you may have found particularly interesting?


This discussion is related to I need a real diagnosis.

[Sally44]

You don't say how old your son is or what his particular difficulties are in social situations.  My son is 7 and going to mainstream school at the moment (although I am hoping to move him to another mainstream school with extra resources for those on the spectrum).  He has difficulties in socialising such as:
Initiation:  tends not to initiate contact, ask to play etc at school, but asks family members to play with him.  Or he may initiate contact in an odd way.  For example after school yesterday he was on his scooter and was going up to other children with one arm outstretched and bumping into them.  He wasn't doing it particularly hard, but he wasns't giving any explanation of what he was doing and the other children were trying to get out of his way!  From experience, I know that he was pretending to be a knight and was jousting.
But, what I have found useful to him is Play Therapy.  This is not used in a 'therapeutic' way, but as a way of allowing my son to play in the way he can and the Play Therapist models back his behaviour (to help him understand what he is doing and therefore adjust his behaviour) and she also narrates his behaviour/emotions so that he gets a better understanding of how his behaviour is interpreted by other people.
If you can give me a bit more info I can pass on any relevant experience I have had eg. are you looking for things to help with socialising at school or when you are out together as a family?

[MJIthewriter]

Have you tried reading any of these things?:
http://www.medhelp.org/health_pages/list?cid=73

I wrote a few essays for Autism Awareness.

[mjthewriterdad]

Nothing new from my end. But from my experience, there are many strategies sepending on age and degree of disAbility.  Tools, Hmmm,  let see:  there's Circle of Friends, Social Stories, Comic Book Conversations, Tootsie Pop Peer Power ,Social Skills Autopsies.  Most social nuances need to be learned by rote fo persons with auism.  They use a different part of the brain for processing social cues.  I'ts a more cognitive task.

My NT brain can swap cognitive and rote tasks interchangably.  For example,. driving a car is a rote task.  I can pretty much drive with my eyes closed!  JK!  I point my car in the genmeral direction at 0600 take kids to school, go thru the drive thru @ McD, get a cup of go-juice go to work, go home.  No problems, no thinking.  Now let's drive with 3 screaming, fighting kids in the back, thunderstorms, hail, dump trucks honking behind you,  chuckholes to avoid, road construction, detours,  put that all together and driving a car now becomes a cognittve task.

A lot of NT's can talk, chew gum, swing a bat at a fast pitch, run the bases, slide into home plate and spit.  The autistic brain must take these as seperate cognitive tasks.

[Angela77]

Thinking of You, Thinking of Me is a social skills program a speech therapist I know has recommended for PDD and Aspergers children.