What do aspies really think of "social skills"

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I am a new special education teacher and everyday part of our curriculum is social skills class. Do people with autism shutter or just want to scream when the teacher says it is "social skills" time? Would it be better to call it something else or better just teach social skills all day long and be more subtle?

I want to know what kids on the spectrum really get out of this class. Are the role plays helpful or would you rather be redirected in real life situations? Thanks!

Kelly

My social skills classes were aimed at the two children who were much lower-functioning than I am, I felt patronised by the whole experience and it was such a drag.

Wow... Congratulations on figuring out that something is wrong. Social skills training is disrespectful to many (perhaps most) of us from what I can tell and it is completely misplaced in school. Schools need to be providing down time for us and giving us confidence and advocacy skills. What you are about to learn about the ASD culture is that most of us have plenty good enough social skills when we have both confidence and proper accomodations...

That's awful and was really messed up.

The social skills classes that I remember were very useless to me. They did not help me at all and I was disappointed. It was not really "social skills" in the first place that I know of.

My daughter never had problems with her "social skills" class, but her AS is very mild and she's being in therapy for 3 years. I think social skills, if tought correctly, is verey useful. After all, a large part of my kid's therapy is teaching her social skills, how to interact with people in different situations. And yes, it is usually tought through role play.

All I ever experienced was public speaking. The hardest part was memorizing my lines and spitting them out at while constantly forgetting what I had to say, due to nervousness. I almost failed.

So, what do social skills classes teach, anyway? How to smile, nod, and shake hands?

I know lots of social skills....I have had lots of time to observe, but that is not how I work. I mean in some situations I can fake it, but I don't process it very well because I will be too busy trying to act 'normal.' and get to focused on that and have no idea what to do next. So yeah its not always that I don't know any social skills, its more like putting them into action tends to fail because that is not the way I go about things. Like I know eye contact can be a good thing, does not make it any easier for me to put it into practice.

Mine (at the age of12/13) taught me how to join a conversation, introduce myself to someone, make eye contact (or appear to), ask a question... they basically taught a series of rigid rules, which is totally the opposite of how NTs actually function. Essentially, they'd taught three Aspies to socialise in a very Aspie way. It might have helped the other two, but it didn't do me a jolt of good because I could already socialise with those two (at the time they were among my best friends) and the NTs now had me marked as I attended what they saw as "ret*d class".

How about calling it 'Class where we tell you how you ought to be so you fit in with the rest of us normal people.' I think that about sums it up.

Redacted.

Last edited by Willard on 01 Oct 2011, 9:14 pm, edited 2 times in total.

What I want to know is, why stop at having the classes in Special Ed? Why not make it mandatory for every student? Since "social skills" are highly subjective and kids learn them from family, it's like, everyone's will be different so why not just have a social skills "code" everyone learns kind of like the school uniforms everyone wears?

This would help eliminate so many problems. Special Ed students are taught to be nice, why should they be the only ones? Or, just have the mean kids be required to take "social skills" kind of like kids with a speech impediment take speech therapy.

I don't know what children learn in social skills classes. If it is to mindlessly ape NT behaviors, then they are sh***y. If there are explanations for why you are doing certain behaviors and why someone else is doing certain behaviors and how that translates into what is going on in people's minds, then the classes could be useful. However, I have yet to meet an NT who is able to articulate why they are doing what they are doing or how they know what to do in social situations beyond "That's just the correct thing to do".

That's so true and i wish someone would have explained it to my teachers at that time. Had special ed. and was defined as sociopath due to my inability to act in the required way.

They considered it for stubbornness and malevolence because of the fact that i could describe social interactions pretty well in essays and also paraphrase it in stories -- but am completely unable to handle the 'real' situation. No role plays or teachings could ever change this fact.



For me they were pure hell and extremely humiliating. But that was long ago. And i really wonder why this subject is still taught since today there are other ways to communicate, e.g. emails. Social skills classes should be voluntary.

I think most social skills training is a joke, and I have never gone through it because quite frankly I guess I was just that good at fitting in, though I do have a tendency to ask wildly inappropriate questions and say odd things but for the most part I think NTs are the ones who need the training, if only to teach them how you should actually treat someone without bullying or stabbing them in the back.

I keep to myself and a lot of people accept that, some don't but that is their problem...sick and tired of people telling me to smile though.

There's a right and a wrong way to teach social skills to the ASD population. It has to focus on practical and useful skills that can enable and empower them in certain situations. There also has to be an emphasis on WHY certain skills are needed so there is a sense of purpose for teaching and learning these skills.

***

In my opinion, a valuable social skills class would include the following:

- When someone does something 'off', there are always clear and detailed explanations as to why it is 'off'. This is supposed to be a learning and growing experience, not a place for vague concepts like "right and wrong" or "that's inappropriate". Suggestions are given as to how to improve, but the person is not reprimanded or punished for doing the "wrong" thing. It is so hard to find people who truly have this tactful skill.

- Self-advocacy. Tons of it. Explaining your specific difficulties in social, educational and work settings.

- Reading non-verbal cues.

- Dealing with anxiety and intense emotions.

- Theory of mind skills.

- Dealing with intense obsessions

- Identifying and preventing bullying behaviours (i.e. explicitly teaching how to ignore someone)

- LOTS of real life application through structured social situations out with a same-age mentor and a group of peers. Often, people with ASD have a lot of trouble trying to transfer skills they have learned in social skills class into real life settings, as real life has less structure and you are dealing with a different environment.

When I was 12, my mom signed me up for a general social skills group run by an agency that mainly helped behaviourally challenged kids (there were NO ASD services at the time). Needless to say, it just made me more shy and awkward because it did not teach me anything I didn't already know...like basic introductions, asking someone to play, etc. What I needed to know was everything listed above. ^