more essential skills for autism
On this page, you’ll learn from your child with autism about skills that develop before the skill of social attention. You’ll also learn about Social skills that are more advanced.
social awareness that develops before social attention
Social attention is present from birth in typically developing children and in most children with disabilities. However, Social Attention from early in life (let’s say, the first year of life) occurs spontaneously. It’s not as conscious or deliberate as the social attention that you read about on the previous page. Skills that precede Social Attention are listed here:
Attachment. Mostly in their second year of life, typically developing children develop a preference for their primary carers- they know who their parents are and they prefer being near to their parents. They know who primary carers are. they learn how to stay close to primary carers, and they get distressed if they don’t know where their primary carers are located. This is the skill of attachment. Children with autism learn attachment too, but often they learn it later. Early in life, they might not pay attention to their own parents. They might not show any distress when their parents are hidden from view. they might not stay close to them. Parents can support the skill of attachment when they keep the schedule consistent, and when they keep their nurturing behaviors consistent. Over time, and with routine nurturing over a longer time interval, children with autism commonly develop a feeling of attachment.
Imitation. imitation normally occurs before social attention develops. It’s a bit like attachment. it’s not really taught, it just spontaneously happens on its own. Humans usually have a thrust or a drive or a desire to copy the behaviors of other humans. Clear cut examples occur in the second year of life in typically developing children when they copy their parents or when they copy the behavior of others. Children with autism may not show imitation spontaneously. What’s usually missing or under-developed in the child with autism is the drive or the motivation to imitate. It’s worth teaching them to imitate, because we all learn so much about life and about survival when we know how to imitate others.
Empathy. Empathy refers to a spontaneous sharing of emotions between two people. Just like attachment and imitation, empathy occurs mostly on it’s own. It’s biological. we all experience a little bit of the emotions of others when we see emotions expressed in others- when we see fear, we feel a bit of fear; when we see anger, we feel a bit of anger; when we see excitement, we get excited too. And, importantly, when we see calm and quiet behaviors, we can feel a bit of calm and quiet too. We won’t have these empathic responses if we’re not paying (social) attention to - you guessed it— eye contact, facial expressions, gestures, intonation, and body posture/ position. When we hear emotional words we also expreience a bit of the emotions. What socially successful humans are able to do is separate their feelings from their own thoughts, and their feelings and thoughts from the feelings and thoughts of their social partner. most humans are not very good at this skill. Children with autism are usually especially limited in this skill and may have intense reactions to the emotional expressiveness of others, or may have no reaction at all. Children with autism may or may not experience empathy- it depends upon how much (social_) attention they are paying. One skill that you can teach instead is sympathy. Sympathy is more mental than emotional. A person who is being sympathetic does not share the same feelings as their social partner- but they know that their social partner is having feelings and they know that they need to pay attention to the feelings of their social partner. in fact, humans are so empathic that they can get truly confused- the emotions of others all of a sudden become their own emotions
social skills that develop after social attention
In successfully developing children and youth, social attention develops much further than the examples that i shared so far. The two big steps that children typically make are in their development of joint attention and theory of mind.
Joint attention. Joint attention is more advanced than social attention. When a child develops joint attention, it’s because they have figured out that they might know something or feel something that their social partner does not know about or feel yet. They want to use their social attention skills to manipulate or influence their social partner’s social attention. An important behavior that signals joint attention is when a child (it can happen as early as in the second year of life) points at something, makes eye contact with their social partner, and then looks back at the thing or the event that they are pointing at. Here’s what so revolutionary about joint attention: the child who practices shared attention is sharing an experience with another human. Even though this skill occurs in a rudimentary form by age 18 months, shared attention is something that takes a few years to develop. i think of it as a preschool or kindgarten skill. that said, many children remain very egotistic in their joint attention. It starts out as a desire to join with others and/or share with others and develop into shared attention more generally. Shared attention means: You and I are both thinking about and experiencing the same thoughts and feelings. Reading a book together, even if it’s just to look at and talk about the pictures, requires shared attention. The experience of shared attention is generally a positive experience. It’s at its most powerful when the emotional valence is calm/ positive. shared attention can also be
Theory of mind. Theory of mind requires social attention, an attention span, social attention, and the capacity to interpret the thoughts and feelings of others more generally. It does not require joint attention or shared attention, but it does require an understanding of joint and shared attention.
a more highly developed kind of social attention. in joint attention ,the child knows that their social partner might not be paying attention to the same thing that they just noticed, and they try to get their social partner to notice what they noticed. they are seeking out shared attention, even though it emerges as early as 18 months, joint attention is actually a more sophisticated skill than mere social attention. in joint attention the toddler has understood that other minds do not have the same information as their own mind. by sharing attention, the toddler can influence the mind of their social partner. joint attention is more clearly a preschool level skill.
Theory of mind. Theory of mind is the skill of thinking about or knowing about the thoughts and feelings of others. Theory of mind starts to emerge in the preschool years, but it’s more properly a kindergarten or early school age skill. Children can imagine how their friends feel, what they are thinking about, what they believe, and also understand the notion of a false belief.
the understanding of a false belief is said to emerge by the age fo four years in typically devleoping children. the false belief task is one way of measuring the child’s capacity to think about what other poeple are thinking. however, theory of mind is much more than just the capacity to pass the false belief task. it takes many years for children and adolescents to sort out not only what the thoughts and feelings are of their social partners. it also takes years for them to understand their own thoughts and feelings. most adults continue to struggle in their interpretation of the thoghts and feelings of others. the child wiht autism is not an exception.
A low ‘drive’ or a low level of interest in humans leads to problems in the child’s attachment, empathy, and imitation. These skills develop very slowly when the level of interest is very low. A higher level of drive or interest in humans leads to skills such as social attention, joint attention and theory of mind. When you read the intermediate level text (‘More Essential Skills and Autism’), you’ll learn more about these higher-order social skills.
my child’s intervention plan
How can i use the above information for my child’s intervention plan? When creating an intervention plan for your child with autism, think about the level of social awareness they currently have. Then, think about what ‘next steps’ they are ready to master, so that they can start to understand and show social attention more often, more fully, and more flexibly/ successfully. If your child already shows a lot of social attention behaviors (successful use of eye contact, facial expressions, gestures, intonation and body positin/ posture), then think about developing joint attention and theory of mind.
the stages of social development, as mapped out on this web page, do not occur as neatly or predicdrably as what i’ve written just now. social skills develop in overlapping waves. it starts out with empathy, imitation, and attachment. during this time, social attention develops. when joint attention develops is a big step up the ladder, which then can morph into theory of mind more generally. Most humans spend a lifetime trying to figure out other humans. The child with autism is no exception! use ths informaiton on these pages to creat an outline of skills that make sense for your child. speak with professionals, find out what they know, see if they can help you to build specific and measurable objectives that your child coudl master