What has been MOST helpful for your child's social skills?

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Between all the therapies available--speech therapy, sensory integration, ABA, etc., etc. And all the parental interventions--social stories, playgroups, etc.
What has been MOST helpful in improving your young child's social skills? Particularly for a 5-6 year old whose biggest ASD deficit is social/peer interaction and anxiety.

Or for those of you who can remember~ what helped you out the most as a young child? Low-pressure, friendly ASD play groups led by a therapist? Social stories? One-on-one therapy of some kind? Working through the anxiety?

Social stories have worked minimally for us. Speech and Occupational have helped some. Wondering what we are missing.

Well I'm undiagnosed but score pretty high on the scale and I have a 5 year old daughter who is dxed. I never recieved formal treatment. But when I was a kid, girl scouts helped a ton. It's apretty safe environment. I signed my daughter up the second she started kindegarten and volunteered to be troop leader.

When I got older (maybe age 18 and up or so) the thing that helped was flat out being told that X is weird don't do it, or that I should do Y and Z in such n such a situation. I still don't get it, but I'm not really afraid anymore either.

9 months of socialization therapy at school. It was the social worker, my son, and another child his age that has Asp.

my son does best with pictures, or written explinations. He is 7, highly intelligent, conversational, can read and write, and does completely better when the instructions are given visually. It has helped to write out some social rules for him to read, or look over pics of appropriate behaviors.

A peer model at school was the best thing. Once my daughter grew attached to the peer it was great for her to experience proper social etiquette and try to mirror it. Adult led social skills classes couldn't be translated into real life experience for my daughter-however the "basics" were drilled in those classes which helped.

I hadn't heard of 'socialization therapy' at school . . . or of having a peer model. Interesting.

My son is now 15 and honestly don't think social stories helped, don't think the social skills group we had him in helped, and when he was in public school (he's now homeschooled) don't think the "therapy" where he sat with another little girl and played board games helped.

At least for my son I've found that just living life and learning how to act at home, in public and with other people in different situations has helped him the most.

This has all taken lots and lots of repetition, clarification and then some more repetition and clarification...in other words it didn't happen quickly...it's a process that is still ongoing.

My husband and I have done most of it but when he's with other people they can model and teach also just by pointing out to him (in an age appropriate way) thing like
you don't interrupt
you don't talk loudly in certain places
you don't walk in front of people
you say "Hello" to someone and "goodbye"
you learn to have some patience when something doesn't go as you planned and always have a backup plan for when that happens.

Over the years I've learned that my son gets 99.99% of his information about the world around him by reading so he responds to anything written...verbal lectures just make him tune out so anything that he can read helps - sometimes I write out things he should understand and print it out and hand it to him.

This is an ongoing process and kids (all kids) change and mature at different rates...this might take some time...your daughter might have social anxiety for a long time...shes' very young. I would be patient and try one on one interactions as opposed to groups...maybe you could find one really easy going kid for her to just hang out with..no pressure, no expectations, just something relaxed. My son never (still doesn't ) did well in groups but he is able to interact for hours with his 1 friend.

Just let your daughter "be" sometimes and don't always be monitoring her success or failure during these interactions...she's going to grow and mature and with your help she'll figure it out.

http://socialthinking.com/books-product ... curriculum. Specifically "You are a social detective" and the superlflex curriculum package.

I know I recommend this all the time. I promise I am not in any way connected to the product, nor do I know the creator.

But it really helped my daughter. It helps make abstract things more concrete.

For my son (who has just turned 10) the best way to explain things to him is by telling him a story in the 3rd person.

for some reason, when I make things personal, he can't/won't relate to what I'm saying. BUT --- his teacher pointed out that when she used the technique of telling him a story in the 3rd person and then asking him questions about the story, he was able to make the connections.

Example: My son has trouble with boundaries, and often takes things too far. He *thinks* that he's joking around with someone, but actually tends to say hurtful things and then can't figure out why that person is mad at him. I've tried for YEARS to get him to understand when enough is enough, but he just never gets it. So, instead of making it about HIM, we made it about 'somebody else'.

Example: "Johnny threw the airplane too hard. The airplane hit Timmy in the head. Timmy was angry that he got hit in the head. Johnny didn't mean to hit Timmy and he doesn't think he should have to apologize because it was an accident. Even thought Johnny didn't mean to hurt Timmy, he should tell him that he's sorry to show that he's concerned about how Timmy feels".

When the story was broken up into steps that made sense, and put into the 3rd person, suddenly it made sense for my son and he understood. I don't know why it works, but it does.