Social Interaction And Children With Autism Spectrum...

Social interaction is defined as â€Å"a process of reciprocal stimulation and response between two people. It develops competition, interaction, influences social roles and status, and influences people in development of social relationships.† (What is SOCIAL INTERACTION) By adolescence most individuals are fairly competent at social interaction and have a general understanding of what is required of them in most social situations. For high functioning autistic children, this is far from the case. Simple interactions between themselves and others can be confusing and difficult to navigate without proper adaptive training in social behavior. In the following sections, we will explain the need for this training, how it is implemented, and the†¦show more content†¦Socialization deficits are a major source of impairment regardless of cognitive or language ability for individuals with ASD. Furthermore, social skill deficits do not remit with development. Indeed, impairmen t and distress may increase as children approach adolescence because the social milieu becomes more complex and the child becomes more aware of their social disability† (White, 2006, p. 1858) As Dr. White mentioned social deficiency is not a situation that goes away with age and can have lifelong effects if not addressed by an intervention to help the child to learn acceptable and expected social behavior. These social impairments manifest themselves in many varying ways and degrees such as â€Å"speech, linguistic conventions and interpersonal interaction.† (White, 2006, p. 1858) Problematic areas include impairments in turn-taking in conversation and the ability to understand other’s perspective, proper use of pitch and inflection in their speech, obsessively dwelling on certain topics, difficulty in expressing and understanding emotions, and difficulty with nonliteral language uses such as metaphor and sarcasm. These impairments make communication with others difficult and uncomfortable for the ASD child and can cause a cascading effect, causing them to withdrawal from social situation out of frustration with their inability and embarrassment, or cause peers to distance themselves from the ASD child because of this seemingly awkward behavior and