Life Skills & Social Development Program for Children and Adolescents with Autism.

Introduction:

A ground breaking programme is aimed at children and adolescents with a diagnosis of High Functioning Autism and Asperger Syndrome. The aim of this initiative is to equip the children and adolescents who attend PALS with the social skills and life skills they so desperately need to enable them to play a full part in their peer groups and communities.

As they get older, many children with High Functioning Autism and Asperger Syndrome are forced to the margins of our communities and society due to the social skills deficits that their conditions present to them. Most of these children and adolescents desperately want to form friendships and relationships but are simply unable to do so due to the absence of the social skills that they require to operate in social situations. This inability to operate in a social environment will in the majority of cases lead to increased anxiety, bullying, leaving school early, exclusion or self imposed exclusion from peer groups. Self esteem plays a vital role in this cycle and can impede a child from even trying to include themselves in the wider community.

How The Programme Will Work:

The program will concentrate on developing social skills, self esteem, anxiety relief, anger management and life skills. The children attending the PALS programme will gradually acquire the social and life skills they need to enhance their quality of life and equip them to play a more active part in their communities and avoid the downward spiral into exclusion and depression.

The Cycle:

The age range for the children attending these programmes would be from ten years of age to thirteen years of age as this is the age where many of these problems begin to manifest themselves or where the children have already been marginalised due to their condition. Many children with high functioning autism or asperger syndrome tend to be very upset by their lack of social success and this can create a downward spiral into other issues. This program will run weekly for four hours, and last approximately six months per programme. Each program will cater for between 6 - 8 children depending on abilities.

This programme will identify deficits and improve outcomes for the participants with a structured programme incorporating the following elements:

1. Developing Self Esteem

2. Understanding & Self Management of Emotions

3. De-coding social language - Pragmatics

4. Social Skills Development

5. Identifying, Developing & Sustaining Friendships

6. Independent Life Skills

7. Anxiety treatment & relief

Parental input is paramount and parents will constantly be updated on development of all skills. A homework pack will be sent home weekly with each child. Homework will need to be practiced each week to ensure comprehension and generalisation is achieved. As each child is an individual, work will be individualised for each child, therefore the goals for each child will differ although some areas may overlap. Target skills will be identified as a result of feedback and assessments completed by parents, as well as questionnaires completed by the children themselves. The children will work in groups no greater than 3 at any time, and one to one work will also occur for specific sections of the program.

Conclusion:

This structured program will target the key area of social development with social skills with self esteem building at the centre of the project. Many children with autism and particularly young adolescents become excluded because they lack these basic social skills required to manage many everyday social situations and as a result their self esteem is damaged and they become isolated and depressed. This structured program will address many of these deficits early in their development and in a step by step process equip these children with the skills they need to operate effectively in a social environment. These skills will also improve the outcomes in both their family and educational settings. It will feed positively into their ability to cope and self manage in social situations that previously would cause stress and anxiety and result in the child opting out. The long term outcome of these programmes will be to equip these children and adolescents with the foundation skill sets they will need to operate independently in day to day situations and in the general community.

Program Co-ordinator – Laura Crowley, BA ECS, Ma Ed

For More Information on the PALS Programme: Email : Laura Crowley