How can I help my DD with her social skills?

[detoxneedednow]

Hi everyone.

Ok, so as some of you may know my dd(5) is possibly on the spectrum and she mainly struggles with her social skills. The tantrums used to be the main area of concern as they were incredibly violent and out of control. Now, it really mainly is her inability to retain friendships and this is down to her lack of communication/social skills.

Shes very keen to make friends but really doesn't have a clue how. She will ask inappropriate questions and she gets very excited when she sees another child around her age because she automatically assumes that they will be her friend.

Just to give you an example, we were out yesterday and she saw this girl who was around 4 and she introduced herself and asked what her name was...........so far so good, but then after that she started saying strange,out of context things such as "do you like me all the time?" and "I'm a girl all day aren't I". She also get's very bouncy and will switch off or go into her little world and it's almost impossible to snap her out of it.

She loves school(at the moment) which is great, but the way she goes in and comes out really concerns me.She'll bounce in and shout things like "oh boy oh boy!! I love you guys!" Guys being her classmates who will normally just look at her funny and walk away and it doesn't really seem to bother her because it's almost as if she's not actually talking to them anyway.

So I was just wondering, has anyone got any tips with how to encourage and discourage some social and comunication skills? I've got into the really bad habbit of just saying that she's sounding silly or that she's not making any sense, which inevitably can send her into a rage. Not surprising really and I know it's unhelpful.

I want to be able to help her, but can I?

Thanks for reading. Really appreciate some help.

I would ask school to do a socials skills intervention with her. There's loads they can do.

And not wanting to sound like a broken record but once you try the supplements I believe you really will see a big difference our DD is so much more articulate and her social skills have improved enormously.

Speak to the SENco re: social skills/language group. There should be one.

Thank you.

I have a parents evening on tuesday night, so i'll ask what they can offer then. I'm definitely going to try the supplements Holy, I just wanted to see if there was anything else that I could do with her to help. I know you mentioned that your dd's behaviour had improved a lot, but I didn't realise that her social skills had also improved so much. Is she forming friendships now? I'm kind of dreading dd going back to school tomorrow in a way, even though she's really looking forward to it. I just forget that feeling when she's off, of "the looks" at the school gates in the mornings and afternoons that she gets. I'm getting butterflies just thinking about drop off tomorrow.

Is there really nothing that I can say or do to help her understand that what she says or does sometimes is inappropriate?

Beca,I have heard some mixed views on those groups actually. Have you experience with them?

Yes. Ds1 is in one 1 x per week.

Its a bit odd actually. The EP report specified some interventions and 1-1 which the school cant/wont do, so they put him in this group which, frankly, he doesnt need and that wasnt specified by the EP

He likes it though because he get stickers all the time and finds it easy. Sigh.

I think well run groups can be of enormous benefit...what is the school like re: sn/sen provision generally? If its good then I would hazard a guess their intervention groups would be too....

Well because dd isn't officially classed as SN, I can only go on what i've seen from others who are having 1 to 1 etc.

Bear in mind my dd is still in reception class and i've heard lots about things go dramatically down hill after that. I think that that's just in general though. The headmaster is the senco and he only stepped in because the senco previously had to leave due to ill health and they didn't return. He's a lovely man, but I don't think he has enough experience with SN. It's a very modern, some might say a little overly pc school, but the positives of that are that they are very welcoming to a child who is perhaps different.........from what i've seen so far anyway.

Is this a group that runs in all schools now? I know that they have SN groups/clubs, but that's probably more for the parents than the children.

going sorry, not go

You could try some social stories... It would be a slow process though.

She's quite young yet but maybe you could try at least tackling going into school and out of it with some modelled approaches and responses.

There are some suggestions here:

njcie.net/pdf/tools/creating-social-stories.pdf

www.polyxo.com/socialstories/introduction.html

Thanks for that. I'll have a look. Have you used these before?