Support for everyday practice 

1. Make sure the children and young people are listening before you begin talking to them.
2. Don’t assume that children and young people can understand what you have said. Some children can talk about their favourite topics, but struggle to understand what people are saying to them. Use easy to follow sentences and avoid negatives. For example, say “Sit on the sofa” rather than “Don’t jump!”. Say “Put your coat on the peg” rather than “put your things away”.
3. Try making things visual. This could be showing/drawing pictures or writing things down.
4. Don’t assume children and young people are being lazy, naughty or difficult. They may be experiencing things differently or get stressed in certain situations.
5. Help them to understand why things are happening, particularly changes. They may find it hard to accept another person’s point of view.
6. Get down to their level and show interest in what they are doing rather than asking them to follow an adult agenda.

Like reading, maths and writing skills, social interaction skills can be learnt. Some people learn social interaction skills by watching what others are doing and how they interact. Many others learn by focusing on one skill at a time, practising it and using it in different situations.

We can help children and young people who struggle with social interaction by playing games together, role-playing, modelling (including video modelling and prompts) and direct social skills training. This includes:

• Developing Play skills by playing games with teddies or dolls. This includes tea parties, catching a bus or riding on a train, going shopping, playing Simon Says, card/table games (such as Connect Four or Uno), kicking a ball with each other or sharing a jigsaw puzzle.
• Creating a social narrative to provide information to children and young people before having a friend over so they know what to expect. Have some ideas for things to do together or what to talk about.
• Using visual supports to problem solve social situations. For example, having one piece of cake leftover, managing a disagreement, or responding to someone getting hurt, upset or bored.
• Roleplay, or modelling so children and young people see ways of managing social situations in different ways.

Developing Play Skills 

Managing social interaction in a group requires different skills from those needed for one-on-one interactions.

Parents and professionals can support the development of a child’s play skills. This can be provided through naturalistic teaching (teaching in the moment), structured playgroups, therapy or intervention programs.

When developing play skills, it can be important to identify where children and young people are in terms of development. This way you can extend their play skills.

It is important to ensure play is enjoyable when developing play skills. Use someone that the child is comfortable with. Take time to ensure children and young people are not getting upset by attempts to join in or contribute to the play experience. Ensure play skills are developed at children's and young people's levels, such as on the floor. Once the child or young person is more comfortable, less familiar adults may be used and experiences can be extended.

Developing observation and play skills is often supported by prompting and reinforcement.

Solitary Play

This is when a child plays with objects on their own without showing an attempt to initiate play with others. Or the child is actively trying to avoid others.

To develop a child’s tolerance to be able to interact with another person, you may want to consider the following strategies:

• Position yourself close to the child or young person and attempt to draw their attention to you during play activities. This can include copying their actions or mimicking the sounds they are making. An example would be to push a train on a track and say “toot, toot”.
• If the children or young person is engaging in a task, attempt to join in. For example, if they are stacking blocks, try to add one.
• Play with one of the children or young person's preferred toys and engage with them when they approach.
• Encourage the idea of ‘play’ as something that you do by using the words “let’s play” and “good playing”.

Parallel Play 

This is when a child plays alongside other children using a similar toy, such as a train, or a bucket and spade.

Children and young people may apply attention to others playing for short periods of time, then return to their own object or activity.

Develop social play through joint attention, turn-taking and different ways of playing with items. This will allow them to learn and follow simple demands and requests.

Strategies for parallel play include: 

• Directing children and young people's attention to other children’s play by saying “look what they are doing”.
• Providing opportunities to engage in structured turn-taking games and activities. This could include jigsaw puzzles, Potato Heads and Jack-in-the-box. Use verbal prompts like “my turn” and “your turn”.
• Provide prompts to request toys and items from other children. This could be either verbally, or through non-verbal communication.

Cooperative or Social Play 

This is when children play together with others and have an interest in both the activity and the other children involved.

Encourage children and young people to demonstrate skills in working in groups and their need to interact with others.

Strategies for cooperative and social play include: 

• Breaking tasks down so that they have a clear start and finish point.
• Providing structure such as visual supports.
• Encouraging choice making skills in 'free time'.
• Parents and carers can model what to say to other children during play. For example, “Can I play?’, “Will you play with me?” and “Can I please have the turn next?”.
• Encouraging and modelling turn-taking skills - “Johns's turn”, “your turn”.
• Encouraging joint attention - “What are they doing?”.
• Developing skills to cope with change and transition.
• Providing structure to increase participation in group activities. This could be activities such as mat time and music time.
• Slowly increase the size of social groups.
• Slowly increase the length of social interaction.

Including a schedule of structured and unstructured play times so they can practice choice making.

When children reach their teenage years, there can be further challenges to ‘fit in’ and feel part of a group. While parties and social gatherings can help them learn and practice skills, they can also cause a lot of stress or anxiety.

It’s helpful to remember that all teenagers struggle with these events. Try not to force children and young people to take part in too much social interaction if it makes them feel unhappy or uncomfortable. Some children and young people are satisfied with short periods of social interaction and this should be respected.

There is a range of strategies that can be used to increase social understanding and develop social skills at any age. These include:

Structured Social Skills Group

There are many types of structured social skills groups that can support social interaction difficulties across all ages. They may be offered in schools, in pre-schools or in the wider community. These groups are structured, and use prompting or scaffolding as needed to support students’ performance related to the goals of the activity. Some have an interest focus such as Lego, while others focus on skill development.

Social Narratives

Social Narratives are narratives that describe social situations in some detail. They highlight relevant cues and offer examples of appropriate responses.

Social narratives are individualised according to an individual’s needs. They are quite short and will include pictures or other visual aids.

Social narratives can help children and young people develop greater social understanding, stay safe and enhance their social interaction skills. They include descriptions of situations, events or activities and specific information about what to expect in that situation and why.

Social narratives can be useful in many circumstances. For example, developing self-care skills like cleaning teeth or saying thank you. They can also be useful as a behavioural strategy, such as what to do when angry or how to cope with obsessive feelings.

Social Narratives can also help with: 

• Explaining how others might behave or respond in a particular situation.
• Coping with changes to routine and unexpected distressing events. This includes a teacher’s absence, moving house or a bad storm.
• Giving feedback to someone about an area of strength, achievement or to encourage self-esteem.

Social narratives work by breaking down information in a literal, basic way. They can explain sequencing (what comes next in a series of activities or steps), and ‘executive functioning’ (planning and organising).

All these things can reduce anxiety and create more comfortable feelings for children and young people. 

Visual Supports 

Visual supports encompass picture cards, tactile cards, photos, short videos, coloured cards, stickers, scales and line drawings. There are many types of visual supports. There is more information available on the National Autistic Society that may help a child or young person. 

Visual cards can be used as prompts, like teaching someone how to have a conversation or learn a new skill. One example might be what happens when you go out for a meal:

• You arrive at the restaurant 
• speak to the waiting staff 
• look at the menu
• order the food
• the food is cooked and served 
• you eat the meal 
• pay the bill and leave. 

This breaks down the events so they are non-threatening for some children and young people. 

Scales are also very useful in breaking down abstract social and emotional concepts in a visual and concrete way. This can support a person to identify the expected social interaction in different situations.

The 5-Point Scale created by Karri Dunn Buron and Mitzi Curtis is an example of how scales can be used. Kari states that “A primary goal of the scale is to help them (people with autism) notice and functionally respond to their own and others' social behaviour.”

We also offer a Visual Support Pack. The pack includes useful information on how visual supports can be used effectively. 

Modelling

Modelling is the demonstration of the desired behaviour by a parent, professional, or peer that can result in the imitation of that behaviour by the learner. This can lead to the development of new skills. Modelling is often combined with other strategies such as prompting (‘my turn’) and reinforcement (‘Good talking turns).

For more information visit the autism behaviour strategies page.

Video Modelling

Video modelling is the same as modelling, but rather than doing it in real life, footage of the skill being modelled is recorded on video. This allows the learner to review the video at a time that suits them, and repetitively, to develop fluency in learning the skill. 

There are different types of video modelling. Some use peers or adults to create the video footage, while other types of video models use footage of the learner themselves, either displaying the skill or a small part of the skill, which is then edited together.

Here is an example of a video model. 

There are also iPhone and Android applications that can make video modelling easy.