Autism and Social Skills Groups

Since autism impacts a person, no matter their age, in the aspects of their basic social skills, getting a diagnosis and therapy as early as possible is very useful for people on the spectrum to get practice in learning how to hold back-and-forth conversations and read nonverbal social cues. Difficulty with these two skills is a well-known mental disadvantage that can make it harder for an autistic person to form friendships and relationships in general. Fortunately, there have been support groups and behavioral therapy practices established to make that learning process easier and more fun for the people on the spectrum, primarily young children.

According to autismspeaks.org, there are many types of professionals that go through training to teach autistic people the skills that non-autistic people more easily understand. Primarily, special education teachers, speech language pathologists, and clinicians take on this role. Other types of professionals may be helpful too, such as occupational therapists, behavioral therapists, school psychologists, general education teachers, PE and health teachers, and direct care staff. These specialists, particularly the special education, speech language pathologists, and clinicians, might conduct social skills groups that teach through instructions and give students chances to practice through trying to have conversations with their peers. 

According to a combination of studies by researchers at the University of Utah and the U.C. MIND Institute, there are certain functions that make up a successful and productive social skills group. These include structure and a sense of predictability, taking concepts within the social world and turning them into actions for the children to understand, making language easier to grasp and organizing the children by their level of understanding, having the children work together, providing many and assorted learning opportunities to practice, and encouraging a sense of self-awareness and confidence in the children.

According to autismspeaks.org, there is another type of therapy that has shown to be helpful for people on the spectrum since the 1960s called Applied Behavioral Analysis (ABA). ABA focuses on how behavior works, how it is affected by the environment, and how people learn. ABA takes these concepts and applies them to real-life scenarios to improve a person’s language and communication skills and improve behavioral issues. ABA can be adapted to any person’s respective needs and can be taught in both one-on-one or group settings. 

One of the main techniques taught in ABA therapy is positive reinforcement, which involves the patient getting a reward for good behavior and teaches them to repeat that behavior from then on to keep receiving the reward. The therapist will create a goal for the patient to work for, and each time the patient reaches the goal, they get their prize. This technique is meant to entice the patient to retain what they have learned, which leads to positive changes in behavior. 

ABA also teaches the idea of antecedents, results and consequences. An antecedent is a type of trigger for the patient, which can be verbal and come from the therapist or be physical within the environment. The trigger could also come from within the patient’s mind, and however the patient reacts, or does not react at all, will determine the consequences. Those consequences could be either positive reinforcement or silence to deter incorrect behavior. The overall point of this concept is to help patients understand why their behavior is occurring and how certain consequences may influence if a behavior will keep happening or be modified. 

For a person on the autism spectrum, this type of therapy can be very useful because autistic people may show behaviors that are unexpected, abnormal, or inappropriate in a given social setting, and ABA can teach them what is acceptable and unacceptable.The positive reinforcement aspect is important too because it may take some time and practice for the people on the spectrum, depending on the severity of their diagnosis, to learn the behaviors being taught. Positive reinforcement may be able to make that process smoother and quicker. 

Overall, whether the skills are taught with a social skills group or ABA, autistic people are diagnosed with a condition where their minds process social cues differently than a neurotypical person, and getting therapy to learn important social skills will allow certain people to progress  through their symptoms faster and be able to form relationships and live a better life.