My child has autism
The key feature of children with autism is their difficulty understanding social interactions. The Essential Skill that needs to be developed in children and youth with autism is the skill of Social Attention.
Autism is complex, because there are actually two Essential Skills that children and youth need to master: Social Attention and Cognitive Flexibility. Even though Cognitive Flexibility is under-developed in children and youth with autism, it is not discussed here. You can learn about Cognitive Flexibility when you read the chapter on Refusal/ Disruptive Behaviors. In this chapter, we’ll focus on Social Attention.
what is social attention?
Social attention refers to the act of noticing (paying attention to) things that are social. It’s about noticing what humans do, learning from their behaviors, and learning how to get their attention. Limited or absent social attention is the core feature of autism. Social attention is also the primary skill that’s needs further development for the child with autism to socialize successfully.
How do you know if social attention is present? The presence of social attention is measured through observable behaviors. Social attention behaviors include behaviors such as the ones listed here:
Making eye contact with others, or responding to the eye contact from others
Responding to the touch of others; using touch to get the attention of others
Watching others, and learning from them by imitating them
Copying what other people do
Saying something to another person, with the intention of getting their attention
Responding to someone when you are spoken to
Turning your body towards someone who is trying to make a connection with you
Engaging in social play behaviors. Social play behaviors include puppet play, playing with dolls or action figures, or playing dress-up. Any play that involves thinking about human behaviors and thinking about how to respond to the behaviors of others counts as social play. During the play, the child or adolescent makes characters talk with each other, or makes them mimic human behaviors of different kinds
The behaviors above have to occur often, occur over extended periods of time, and have to be socially effective before you can say that a child or adolescent has a normal level of Social Attention. when the above behaviors are fleeing, absent, or very limited in number, you can consider the child or adolescent to have under-developed or limited Social Attention.
Difficulty socializing is not the same thing as difficulty with Social Attention.
Many children with disabilities struggle to socialize, and might seem to struggle in their Social Attention. Children and adolescents with ADHD, Developmental Language Disorder, Anxiety, or Disruptive Behaviors can all struggle to socialize successfully. The main reason why so many children and youth with disabilities struggle to socialize is because they are struggling to harness their attention span, to regulate their emotional state, or to find the words or language they need to socialize. These challenges are real and are discussed throughout this website. However, these challenges are distinct from the challenge of under-developed Social Attention.
Why social attention matters
Social attention is important because it’s so critical for understanding how humans behave, for being able to predict what they will do, and for learning. An important goal for any child with autism is to develop their awareness of the behaviors of humans, teach them how to predict what they will do, getting ones’ needs and wants met, and learning new skills.
social attention and autism.
Most children with autism do show social attention, just not that often or for very long. Example behaviors that reveal absence or limited social attention are listed here:
Failure to notice people. A child with autism might walk past you or climb onto your lap to gain access to something.
Failure to notice that there are other people in the room
Failure to respond to you when you call them by name, or when you use other strategies to get their attention
Low frequency and limited duration of noticing others.
Eye contact may occur, but it’s brief. Eye contact might occur but without the intention of gaining anyone’s attention
excessive prompting from adults is needed to elicit Social Attention in the child or youth
The child’s attempts at socializing are unusual or awkward. For example, a child with autism might push other children because they are trying to make a connection with them. Or, they might start talking at other children, and not notice that the peer is not listening, or looks bored, or makes hints that they do not want to socialize.
collaborating with your child’s intervention team
You can learn a lot from your child’s intervention team if you know what questions to ask. Here are the questions that you need to ask as related to Social Attention
How far has my child developed their social attention?
What educational objectives can we develop to help improve my child’s social attention?
How will we know that my child’s social attention is improving?
goal: improve social attention
A critical goal for any child or adolescent with autism is to improve their social attention. there are three objectives listed here: Social Conventions; Social Communication Conventions, and Social Attention. Read the information below. ask your child’s team if they are using objectives and strategies listed below. as them to teach you how you can do the same at home and in the community.
Objective: social conventions
You can use the following activities to measure your child’s progress in one or several of the Social Attention behaviors listed above. The behaviors listed in this paragraph are Social Conventions- behaviors that humans routinely show. Your child is more likely to build their Social Attention if they learn about social conventions first. Start your teaching with social conventions that are needed in everyday situations. Then, work your way up by teaching your child about Social Conventions that occur less frequently (e.g. weekly or monthly), about social communication conventions, and then about Social Attention.
Social Conventions - Daily
Morning routines, such as dressing, brushing teeth, getting out door clothes on for leaving the house
Classroom entry and exit routines
Social conventions at meal times, such as using eating utensils, eating on a schedule
How to do a clean up routine, such as putting toys away
How to settle down for sleep at night
How to play alongside others
How to take turns with others
How to follow the daily schedule
Social Conventions- weekly or less often
How to behave during grocery shopping trips, outings to the park, visits to a health care provider, using public transportation
objective: social Communication conventions
Increase awareness and understanding of communication in social situations
Increase responsiveness to language in general.
Use gestures, such as ‘raised arms when you want to be picked up, or shaking your head to say ‘no,’ or nodding the yead to say ‘yes’.
Turn your body towards your social partner to secure their attention
Smile or show pleasure when interacting with a social partner
Touching someone when you want their attention
Make eye contact when you want someone’s attention.
Listen to words, such as instructions.
Use spoken words to indicate wants and needs
Use a picture exchange system or an Alternative Augmentative Communication Device to indicate wants and needs
Use of a pointing finger to show something to someone, or to ask them for help
Engage in conversations. Learn how to take turns, maintain a topic, be flexible and allow the topic to change. pay attention to what topics other poeple might want to talk about.
Depending upon your child’s language skills, you can teach your child the vocabulary they need to understand conventional human behaviors. Conventional behaviors include knowing the schedule, to follow instructions related to the schedule, to express preferences related to the schedule, to discuss changes that might need to be made to the schedule, among other examples.
Teach about emotions. Emotions are visible nonverbally and verbally: Eye contact, facial expressions, gestures, intonation, and body position/ posture. As you teach your child about the routine and expected behaviors of the day, you can also teach them about the emotions that are associated with human behaviors— pleasure/ pride, disappointment/ sadness, frustration/ anger, and/or anxiety/ fears. Understanding what others think or feel about situations and settings.
objective: Social attention
The behaviors listed below are important for socializing and communicating with others. When they occur with the intention of making a connection with others, they highlight the presence of Social Attention. you and your child’s intervention team should develop objectives that will help your child notice, understand, and use Social Attention behaviors such as the ones listed here:
Eye contact
Changes in facial expression
Gestures
Intonation
Positioning the body and face towards or away from the social partner
Social motivation- Showing pro-social behaviors or initiating a social connection with someone, such as by tapping someone gently, making eye contact, sharing a toy, or asking a question
Social responsiveness- Show responses to the partner’s social attention, using words (such as a greeting, a comment, a request, or a suggestion) and using nonverbal behaviors such as those listed above.
Language. Language is listed last even though it’s usually so critical to social interactions. Language is usually the most effective behavior for making a social connection with others. Your child’s language level will dictate how successfully your child will be able to use language to gain Social Attention.
teaching strategies for social attention
Use the strategic hierarchy below to help your child notice and talk about common human behaviors: daily routines at home, daily routines in the classroom, routine events outside the home, non-routine events outside the home, words (nouns and verbs first, descriptors next).
More frequent to less frequent. First, focus on very common human behaviors that occur every day. Talk to your child about what they need to do. Build up their vocabulary. They need to know the names of the objects and the words that make up daily routines.
Visual supports: Familiar settings and situations. Use pictures, photos, and/or video recorded examples, taken from the child’s own home and school environment. Talk about what’s happening in the pictures. Then, talk about it again when your child has to participate in the activity in real time
Visual supports: Information from non-familiar settings. Use pictures, photos, and/or video recorded material for use in non familiar settings. This strategy is good for events that are are novel, or events that don’t occur very often. Talk about the novel event once or a few times before it occurs. Then, talk about it again when it’s occurring. You can even talk about it a third time around after the activity is completed.
Social stories. Once students have had the chance to interpret social behaviors in predictable settings and situations (e.g. daily routines at home and at school), they can learn about predictable behaviors or events in other settings (grocery store, barber shop, playground, train ride, bus ride). The advanced learner can even start to make interpretations of human behavior in non-routine settings (a visit to the hospital, an airplane trip to Disney). Social stories are a good strategy to pre-teach the child about how humans behave in novel settings.
Information, scenes, scenarios in-the-moment. Do some spontaneous teaching in the grocery store or when on an outing. Don’t worry if you did not create photos or if you don’t have any pictures. Go on an outing, and teach words and phrases while you are on the outing.
Repetition and re-review. Allow for more time to review and reflect. Photos and videos allow for this. Consider doing this during spontaneous conversations as well
Use motivators
Rewards. Enhance motivation using rewards (“I will show you that you are being successful by giving you a reward such as screen time”)
Social approbation. Enhance social motivation by showing pride in your child’s performance (“I will show you that you are being successful by showing you how proud I am of you”)
Independence. Enhance social motivation by highlighting your child’s emerging independence (“I will show you that you are being successful by giving you chances to make your own decisions and become more independent
Talk with your child about social attention
Talking with your child with autism is one of the important ways to teach about social attention. How you speak with your child will depend upon their level of language. You may need to speak with your child using pictures and through practicing routines, instead of using words. A visual schedule, or an activity sequence, are important aspects to teaching students with autism about human behaviors, such as their parents. As their ability to predict human behaviors improves, the student with autism can learn about language and all of the nonverbal aspects of social behaviors. Here are some sentences you can use when teaching your child about Social Attention:
For children at an early stage of learning or with limited language skills, be sure to use a schedule and visual supports
What does the schedule say you need to do now?
When will it be your turn to play with your iPad? To go for a car ride?
Use the schedule, or pictures, or words to show me what you want or need
If you ask for something and it’s not the right time, we’ll look at the schedule together. The schedule will tell you when it’s the right time.
For children with strong language skills, consider using the scripts below:
Model good social attention by using several elements all together. for example, when speaking with the person with autism, make sure there’s good eye contact, speak more slowly, provide more repetition, and use visual supports.
Ask the child: Pay attention to what people are saying. What are the words they used? can you repeat the words they used? What do you think they want? What do you think they are feeling?
Pay attention to nonverbal social behaviors, such as eye contact, facial expressions, gestures, intonation, and body position of others. What nonverbal behaviors did you notice?
Pay attention to the feelings of others. Emotions are expressed verbally and nonverbally. What words did you hear? Can you imitate their facial expression? can you imitate their intonation? What nonverbal behaviors did you notice?
Use words to communicate with others. Did they understand you?
Pay attention to the social behaviors or communication of your social partner. Notice who they are looking at. Are they looking at anyone, or no one? Look at their facial expressions, gestures, intonation, and body position. Listen to their words. What are they saying to you?
Challenge your child with some novel or new situations
We are at the playground. let’s learn about turn-taking on the playground
let’s learn about how socialize with people we don’t know
I’m going to tell you what you need to know about our trip to the farm, the dentist, the doctor, the grocery store.
Are you ready for a deeper dive?
Your child’s educational needs will depend upon their level of language, their age, and how much instrutcion they have already received. Depending upon the child, the skills above may take a few years to master. Sometimes, the child will not master the skills listed above. Oftentimes, their level of mastery in understanding and paying social attention depends upon their level of mastery of language.
You may need to accept a slow pace of learning. You may also need to accept that your child might not develop all of the skills above. In contrast, you may think that your child is ready for much more advanced instruction. If the above Social Attention skills are either too advanced or not advanced enough for your child, click on the link below, More Essential Skills for Autism. Even though Social Attention is the key skill for the student with autism to master there are other skills or behaviors that are good to review, and that can help build your child’s social attention.