Social Skills Training: For Children and Adolescents with Asperger Syndrome and Social-Communication Problems [Paperback]

The skills are broken down into small steps and are very specific, which is helpful with my literal-minded child. As a socially adept adult, I sometimes have trouble finding ways to explain social conventions, like the ï¿Two-Question Rule,ï¿ as Baker calls it: ï¿When others as you a question and you answer it, you can ask a similar question right back.ï¿ Iï¿m sure I do this every day (ï¿How are you?ï¿ ï¿Fine, how are you?ï¿), and yet it would have taken me ages to find a way to sum this up for my child.

The skills are broken down into six categories: Conversational Skills, Cooperative Play Skills, Friendship Management, Self-Regulation, Empathy, and Conflict Management. The skills range from ï¿Maintaining Appropriate Physical Distance from Othersï¿ to ï¿Giving Criticism in a Positive Wayï¿. Each skill is covered on two pages. One page lists guidelines for following the rule, and includes a small fill-in-the-blank space where children can plan when they will try out the skill and later report how it worked. The facing page lists suggested activities for teaching and reinforcing the skill.

I was also pleased to find that Bakerï¿s The Social Skills Picture Book covers many of the skills in Social Skills Training, so I have been using the picture book as a companion to this book. Actually seeing photos of children using the skills (or making mistakes) helps to fix the rules in his mind.

The positives of the book are that a great number of important skills are covered and the strategies for teaching and reinforcing them are presented. These features will definitely grab teachers desperate in most cases for some guidance.

In my opinion, the negatives are that not every skill is reducible to the format of the book. Many skills are more subtle and difficult to learn, and practice, than others. Also many communciation skills are primarily nonverbal and that needs to be emphasised when dealing with AS adolescents. These issues could have been addressed at greater length in the book and given the intended audience more theoretical work could have been introduced. One final quibble I have is grouping those with AS and social communication difficulties together. I think this is a mistake. AS has a distinct set of diagnsotic criteria. Social communication difficulties can arise from a variety of non AS related sources. Boundary blurring is not something I favour.

Many teachers and therapists will find this a practical book. It is not as linguistically geared up as work by say Rinaldi, but it is very accessible. Ultimately no one book is going to work with every child or group. However, I think this book in common with a few others is moving in the right direction.