Sunday 5 August 2012

Social Behaviours of Children with Autism 1: The Challenges in Communication

What are some of the challenges faced by children with autism when it comes to communcation and social interaction?

Scenario 1:
Jeff is 7 years old attending primary one. Although he has the desire to talk to his peers, he always has difficulty initiating conversations with them. His peers think that he is weird as he is always talking about things that don't make sense to them or he will be regurgitating the same comments everytime he tries to strike up a conversation with them.

In this case, although Jeff is socially aware of the pleasure in seeking companionship, he does not possess the mental flexibility nor social skills to keep up with the demands of a social setting. Furthermore, his understanding of social interaction is very basic - talk to someone and that person will talk to you. He is unaware of the many intricate details that come along with conversation due to his inability to process abstract concepts. These include emotions and the mental processes of individuals - how do they like being talk to, what kind of things they like to talk about, how they might react to certain topics or people and ETC.

Scenario 2:
John has a couple of friends in his class who would try to include him in their play activities whenever they could. There are times when John plays well with them although he does experience difficulties in catching up with them during conversations. However, John also has many episodes of temper tantrums and meltdowns resulted from various instances such as losing in a game and sudden changes in the games' objectives or rules. As a result of these episodic meltdowns, John's classmates are at times apprehensive of including him in their activities. 

Here, we see a child who is unaware of social rules and having difficulties controlling his emotions when things do not go the way he expects. As discussed in previous posts, behaviour is a reaction. Everyone will have a reaction, but the level of it depends on how we are able to control our actions that may be detrimental to us and the people around us. That being said, learning to express one's feelings calmly is a skill and concept that needs to be taught and practiced. Children with autism may take longer time than others to master such behaviour because the idea of having to put aside the immediate emotion they are experiencing is very abstract as compared to acting out instantly once an emotion is experienced. Furthermore, as above, because a child with autism has difficulty thinking in another person's perspective, they may see little reason in not expressing their immediate emotions through action. Finally, as many children with autism have difficulty expressing their emotions, acting out may be the next best option to show how they are feeling at the moment.

Scenario 3:
Henry likes playing by himself. Whenever other children try to play or talk to him, he would either ignore them or walk away doing his own things. Even if he is within the group, he tends to keep to himself doing his own play instead of joining in. At first, children were intrigued by his lonesome and "hard-to-get" personality. However, as time goes by, they lose interest in engaging him in their activities and go seeking out other more responsive new friends. 

In this scenario, the child seems to not understand the meaning in communication or social interaction. Play is very basic to the child and he is happy to be self engaged. Social understanding is at a minimal as he finds no need to engage the attention of others as long as his interest is fulfilled. He find no meaning in the world of others as he has not been exposed to the benefits of social interactions. Fundamental skills such as langauge joint attention may also be lacking leading to low interest in the world around him through expression of language and social cues.

Scenario 4:
Jessica is often being teased by her classmates for talking weird. Whenever she tries to initiate a conversation with them, they will try their best to shun her. These incidents lead to her possessing very low self esteem . She loses confidence in keeping up with her social skills as she reasons that people are going to make fun of her anyway if she tries. She begins to keep to herself more not just in social settings but also at home. This has resulted in other behaviours such as fear and anxiety attacks to be in new surroundings or when surrounded by new people.

In this case, it will be more of public education that is lacking. Often, students with autism in classroom get little support from the adults because they belong to the minority in a culture where the majority's well-being are being looked after first. Of course, that is not to say that all students with autism are being neglected in the classroom but it does show time and again that it requires substantial amount of resources such as manpower and educational materials in place to provide adequate assistance to the students of the minority. In this scenario, the classmates could be informed about what autism is about and how it may affect the langauge and communication skills of their classmate who has autism. Yet, discussion about autism in open settings remains a stigma to many adults, resulting in a 'don't ask, don't tell' attitude. This in turn allows the children with autism to be misunderstood as misfits within a classroom setting which in the first place, should be supportive and encouraging of learning and equipment of life skills.

In the upcoming post of this series, we will be looking more into these above described scenarios. What can be carried out to deal with the challenges faced by these children? If your child is facing any difficulties described above, what strategies and teaching methods can be put in place to help your child to develop better social and communication skills?

Till then, if you have any concerns or suggestions, please email me at davensim@triumphantkids.com. i look forward to your correspondence.

Regards,
Daven


 


No comments:

Post a Comment