"Everyone wants a relationship." Teaching social skills to your teen before school runs out.

A free article for families, derived from Special Learning's course "Transition Survival: Advanced Social Skills for Adolescents and Adults," presented by Christine Austin.

Your child is a teenager now, or a young adult. School has a date on it when it ends. And you may be wondering what happens after that, when the people who have been teaching them every day are no longer there.

This session was recorded for professionals. It's the second of two parts. The first covered conversation skills. This one covers two things that shape how adulthood goes: managing your own reactions, and building relationships. It was recorded some years ago, and it uses some diagnostic terms that have since changed. We've left those out. Nothing in the skills depends on them.

Everyone needs work here

The presenter starts with something a parent may want to hold onto. "It's not just people with ASD that need improvement in this. Everyone needs improvement." Some people just need more help learning these skills.

And they can be taught. She sets aside the theories about why social skills are hard in autism, because "there's a lot of evidence out there showing that we can teach these skills." The session is about how.

Where the skill gets practiced matters

Practicing a skill in a quiet room with one adult works for the basics, like greetings or tone of voice. But the presenter says that kind of practice "does not typically foster spontaneous social interaction," and what's learned there is "not going to easily generalize."

So the skill has to be practiced where life happens: "in the home, in the school, in work, at his friend's house." Sometimes that means setting up a situation on purpose. Sometimes it means catching a moment as it happens: "you capitalize on that moment, and then you get to sit back and talk about it."

She describes two tools a family can recognize. One is a picture story drawn like a comic book, with "word bubbles" that show "when to speak versus when to think." The other is a short written story, in the first person, that spells out the social rules of a situation and asks questions like "how does my teacher feel."

The approach she says works best has five steps. Explain the skill. Show it. Role-play it. Give feedback. Then practice it in "another environment and then another environment."

Three at a time, and help nobody else can see

Two details from this part are worth taking home.

First, she suggests "only working on three at a time." Three skills, so your child isn't overloaded and each one is reachable.

Second, support can be hidden. A high school student kept his rules for the day on the first page of his binder, where only he could see them, "so that he didn't have that opportunity to get bullied." A card in a pocket works too. So does a small vibration on a schedule, as a private reminder.

And the people who help don't have to be professionals. "It can be his friends ... or his family members, a neighbor." Anyone willing can practice with your child.

The friendliest guy in the building

One story from the session shows why this matters. A 17-year-old, six and a half feet tall, was "the friendliest guy," but he stood too close to people, and he came across as "extremely intimidating." He wasn't aggressive. He just "didn't understand the social boundaries."

Once someone taught him, the presenter says, "he increased in social opportunities so much." The missing piece was small, and nobody had named it for him.

The basics come first

Before anything harder, the session starts with three basics:

• Being ready to interact: "look at the person, use a friendly face, use a calm voice."
• Waiting, without leaving or protesting.
• Adjusting to change. In the presenter's words, "that's just not the way the world works. Things change." The skill is to "stop, take a deep breath and let it go," then "make a plan."

None of this means forcing eye contact. Many autistic people find it uncomfortable, and it isn't needed to show you're listening. Turning toward the person, nodding or answering works too. The goal is skills your child finds useful, not acting less autistic.

Managing yourself

Then come the skills of managing your own reactions. Noticing what your body does when you're nervous or angry, and naming it. The presenter describes a feelings thermometer, "a scale of 1 to five," so your child can see where they are and act before they reach the top.

Other skills on the list:

• Dealing with anger: "identify some common triggers," and have a plan ready before the moment comes.
• Solving a problem: stay calm, work out what the problem is, and "think about the consequences" before acting.
• Asking for help or a break, while "not teaching him to be helpless."
• Rewarding yourself when you reach a goal, because "we might not always be there."

If you practice any of this at home, keep it calm and low-pressure. If your child is upset, in pain or overwhelmed, help them first, and try again another day.

Don't be the rule police

One rule gets its own line. The presenter borrows it from another author: "don't be the rule police." A coworker in flip-flops against the dress code isn't your business. A classmate whispering while you're trying to take notes might be worth a word. Telling the difference is a skill, and so is knowing "emergency situations and non-emergency situations."

Relationships

The second half of the session is about relationships, and it opens with the line families may most want their child's team to hear. "There's this stigma with people with ASD that they don't care about other individuals or they don't want relationships, and it's just not true. Everyone wants a relationship."

She also says these skills have to last, because services are often provided only "before they leave school," while the skills are "applicable across the entire adult lifespan."

The relationship skills start with appropriate touch, and the presenter is direct about why. If someone doesn't know the rules, the consequences can be serious for the rest of their life. The rule is simple: "appropriate touch is when you touch people in a way that they want to be touched," and "if you are not sure, then just ask."

Then come the harder ones, the ones she says are hard for anyone:

• Standing up for a friend, "when it's appropriate and safe."
• Telling teasing apart from teasing that's "malicious."
• Feeling left out, and not letting it hurt how you see yourself.
• Asking someone on a date, which builds on every conversation and self-regulation skill before it.
• Using "I feel" statements.
• Telling good peer pressure, like friends talking you into a dance, from bad.
• Someone who wants to "hang out with her privately but who ignores her in most public settings," and what that means.
• Getting ready for a difficult conversation, including how to "end things ... politely."

Start early

The presenter says to "start teaching as early as possible," in the early teens if possible, because some of these skills take a lot of repetition. She also says to teach the difference between how you talk to a friend and how you talk to your boss.

Questions to take to the meeting

• Which three social skills are we working on right now?
• Where does my child practice them outside the classroom, and can we practice them at home the same way?
• Is there a private reminder, like a card or a note in a binder, that would help?
• How are anger, waiting and change being taught, not just conversation?
• What's the plan for these skills after school ends?

If you are reading this outside the United States

The session was recorded in the United States. Schools, services and workplaces differ from country to country, and so does what's offered after school ends.

The skills on this list don't change. A young person who can wait, name a feeling, accept no, and ask before touching is more independent anywhere. You can ask for every one of them to be taught, wherever you live.

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This article is drawn from a recorded Special Learning course. It is general information for families, not clinical advice, and not a treatment recommendation for any individual. It does not describe the rules of any particular school district or country.

Special Learning is a BACB Authorized Continuing Education (ACE) Provider (OP-14-2437). Authorization as an ACE Provider does not imply endorsement or approval of the ACE event content by the BACB.