Teaching social skills

Mary Jane Weiss discusses assessment and treatment options for teaching social skills to individuals with autism.

[Brittney]

I have a hard time learning social skills if the social etiquette seems useless or doesn’t make any sense. I think that’s important for people to know, if we don’t see a purpose and it seems superfluous there’s a good chance we won’t adopt them.

[NoulsPB]

Exceptional interviewing skills. I feast on these informative videos, thank you!

[denise]

A wonderful friend has a highly autistic son who has learned to interact with peers and others with confidence and good ‘manners’. She and her husband are both teachers and have helped him develop his talents, and he is fascinated by history and plans to study it at university. He has already become quite independent, taking the bus to where he wants to go. While he is still obviously autistic, he has become one of the most pleasant young people I have ever known.
I have discovered that I have Asperger’s, and I have been able to learn how to better engage with my friends others. Listening to Tony Attwood has been both positive and informative for me.
Thank you for talking about this helpful topic.

[kendamorrison]

Would it be possible to add closed captioning for this video?

[gabrielamarlisgarcia]

It would be great to include captioning/ transcripts to this video and increase the availability for this video to reach ALL audiences including the hard of hearing.

[fooledman]

Very good this is being done. Wish it was when I was in the school system.

[JosipJasenović]

Once you learn them it becomes spontanious or you still have to struggle?

[bilalkotiach]

32:08 "were often taking data in not opportunistic and planned..." becoming more adequately equipped with appropriate measures when facing challenges in life, as such as relationships

[bilalkotiach]

Social skills development 23:33
A snapchat part of this video, regardless her quote on quote manding and imitation throws me off

[Neilgs]

To paraphrase, at around 28:00, “Have they used certain inappropriate skills to obtain social attention or aberrant behavior to avoid or escape certain demands due to behavioral deficits or excesses.”

All behaviors are adaptive and emergent properties of the child”s (or older) autonomic state. To continue to disparage, pass evaluative interpretation because of your ignorance with respect to asserting behaviors as a function of the external environment is nothing short of simplistic, reductionist and infantile labeling. A basic understanding of how biology and psychosocial state bidirectionally and dynamically connect (I.e., interpersonally are mediated and co-regulated) would not only be in order for you in all your “expertise” but is a critical necessity. For example, from the child’s (or older) perspective. “Do I feel safe to engage with you and my surroundings or have I shifted from a state of parasympathetic ventral vagal safety to (and in accordance with the Jacksonian principle of dissolution) adaptively mobilized defensive sympathetic-adrenal fight/flight behaviors or worse parasympathetic withdrawal/shutdown or dissociation?”

I made enough comments here. I will just say, as the child’s (or older) parasympathetic social engagement system (the autonomic face-heart connection and the bronchi and visceromotor pathway to the cardiac pacemaker of the heart which directly connects to the cranial nerves of face, eyes, ears (V, VII, IX, X and XI) the social-engagement system, then the need to “teach social skills” becomes seen as a formerly misunderstood caricature and abuse (i.e., evincing zero biopsychosocial understanding), then the understanding of implicit procedural engagement, for example, perspective-taking comes online.

Thus, not having to do with “social skill deficit” but a re-tuning, if you will, of the child’s autonomic nervous system from one of high sympathetic adrenal arousal or conversely hypoactive withdrawal to one of internal or interoceptive feelings of safety. This has to do with cultivating the underlying or autonomic affective internal feelings of safety by “wooing” not drilling and modeling. The drilling and modeling through external imitation, video modeling, etc., is a complete misunderstanding of our neuroanatomy and neurophysiology in conjunction with and an integral part of an understanding of biopsychosocial interaction. Begin by reading the data supporting the basics of Interpersonal Neurobiology and Polyvagal Theory.

[joeprimal]

Speaking of social skills, how about the people in this video learn to get their point across? This is unbearably slow and wordy for the modern age.

[Neilgs]

This is as naive as it is destructive.

[Neilgs]

There is no such thing as “behavioral excesses and behavioral deficits.” All behaviors are adaptive and emergent properties of the child (and our) physiological/autonomic state. Does the child feel internally safe or his/her sympathetic nervous system adaptively mobilized for defensive fight/flight responses or parasympathetic withdrawal/immobilization or dissociation? Essentially, as the child’s physiological state shifts so does the emergent properties of the accompanied behaviors. Completely and opposite of Learning Theory and operant conditioning. Again you cannot “teach these skills.’ You can begin if you had a wee bit of insight into Affective Neuroscience, Neurodiversity, Interpersonal Neurobiology and empathy thrown in for good measure, begin to cultivate the conditions for felt (interoceptive) safety which then would shift limbic driven all or nothing responses or hyper vigilance to greater social executive functioning availability; social pragmatic communication then comes online ! Not the egregiously distorted and absolute nonsense BS of Verbal Behavior map!

[Neilgs]

How precious! The very so-called, social skills you are talking about are utterly and entirely undermined by ABA methodolgies. We are talking about non-cognitive implicit-procedural right to right emotional brain visual-facial, auditory-prosodic, tactile-gestural affect co-regulated interactions. This CANNOT be taught as a set of declarative memorizations or cognitive behaviors.

[Neilgs]

@around 18:20 you essentially demonstrate a profund ignorance of Neurodiversity as well a more than moderate degree of cognitive dissoance! It is NOT about "fitting in." It is about respecting, honoring and educating our children about heterogeneous differences. Having said, that what I addressed in prior post, you are essentially addressing the tertiary brain (the neocortex) and with blithe disregard ignoring the subcortical and autonomic processes, the underlying affective (emotional) foundations, which enable increasingly more meaningful social-emgagement, social-pragmaticlanguage/ communication. In order to do this you have to begin (know how) to engage "affective regulation" (emotional engagement and attunement, which creates the conditions for safety and the associated neurochemistry which naturally follows/changes in the course but outside "operant behavior" or conditioned responses).

[Neilgs]

Completely misguided. Try learning on HOW TO ENGAGE A CHID'S EMOTIONS and as an integral part of that individual sensory processing differenes in the context of the dyad. This entails Engaging where s/he is. Understanding something which you are NOT trained on but ought to be. For example, Affective Neuroscience and Play Therapy. Understanding how the Central And autonomic nervous system (i.e., the LHPA, limbic, hypothalamic, pituitary adrtenal axis, the central stress system, and the autonomic, sympathetic and parasympathetic, fight, flight and freeze responses) coordinate and dynamically integrate/interconnect through engaging a child or older's emotions;. This begin to inculcate feelinlgs of nternally feeling safe and in turn s/he can begin to slow down (or whatever optimal arousal is needed for homeostais) and affectively (i.e., emotionally) begin to co-regulate with you, visual-facially, aduitory/prosodically, tactile/gesturally. This is the unconditioned responses or the preverbal complex which you are completely and utterly oblvious to as it is not part of your "Behaviorist" education! The regulation/co-regulation of affective (emotional) attunment is synonomus with the cultivation of expanding prefrontal executive functioning, planning, seuencing of ideas and back and forth reciprocal affective social-pragmatic communication, conversation, language. Everything else is a compliance based model, which is I am afraid nothing short of absolute BULLSHIT

[Neilgs]

Take your bs scripts and place them in the egregious antiquated historical bin. Social-emotional developmental capacities are implicit and integrated part of autonomic state not an explicitly taught set of reinforced rules or environmental contingencies such the above mentioned “how to” by video modeling, etc. It is observing and respecting but of course you first have to have the most rudimentary empathic capacity, which you make abundantly clear you don’t, understanding heterogeneous differences rather than asserting ignorant and arbitrary sets of fictitious norms defined as “appropriate vs. inappropriate.”

It is about subcortical relational understanding, I.e., regulating/co regulating implicit procedural not declarative social memorized interactions. Again, these are beneath the surface, inextricably connected to autonomic or physiological state, ie beneath the verbal diarrhea and tertiary declarative memorized drilling of discredited ABA and VB methodologies.

Your evaluative implicit shame and blame, however well meaning and unintentional, ie, what is vs what is not appropriate is entirely bereft of any neurobiological psychosocial understand and nothing short of disgusting, reprehensible.

Sorry, you cannot explicitly teach joint attention. Rather, it is through cultivating the conditions of internal or interoceptive feelings of safety. It has nothing to do with reinforced schedules of introducing new behavioral contingencies. As autonomic state shifts then the social emotional reciprocal regulated/co-regulated engagement changes. This is painful to listen to. It completely without any understanding with respect to understanding affective and autonomic state, irrespective of typical or non neurotypical, evidence driven Developmental Affective Neuroscience and Interpersonal Neutobiology.

Do not talk about evidence based procedures. Spare us! Look at real biopsychosocial evidence driven Affective Neutoscience, unfortunately this clearly is not!