Asperger's Syndrome: Improve Social Skills through Better Communications |
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A child with Asperger’s Syndrome may often have challenges in his or her oral and written comprehension. He or she may appear to understand well, however the understanding is weak because he misses the nuances, inferences and other critical aspects of communications. Ambiguity, weak language vocabulary, poor language structure and pragmatics may also cause confusion. For a significant proportion of Asperger children cognitive weaknesses such as a poor working memory, lack of attention and auditory processing skills can prevent the mastery of language and reading.
These weaknesses may hide his true strengths and prevent him from meeting his potential. Instead of being challenged at school he may have a frustrating experience and perhaps develop a sense of alienation from academic work. Equally when his receptive language is weak he can have problems in the classroom and socially. Somehow he doesn’t get the flow of the conversations and can feel excluded. This may lead to poor self-esteem, social exclusion and a lack of motivation.
However his language skills can be improved. An individual education plan should be put together that clearly identifies his needs. There are now products and teaching methods that can effectively deal with his priorities. Comprehension skills can be developed. Cognitive skills can be improved. You may need to supplement the existing academic curriculum to ensure that your child meets his potential.
There are several intervention steps you should take into account
1) An initial assessment is essential that identifies his needs and this should be followed by the creation of a personalised programme to address the priority areas.
2) Consider using a computer based training programme which allows a sense of control, privacy and which includes a lot of stimulation and motivation.
3) Also ensure that the training is personal so that he can feel secure that only his tutor and himself know the results and the errors.
4) Finally the programme should be designed to assist him or her in fundamental language skills right through high level comprehension exercises.
Children can be taught to improve their social skills in much the same way as they acquire another skill such as playing a musical instrument. The language and reading work should include exercises designed to build attention span to comprehension strategies, language pragmatics, verbal reasoning and vocabulary development. There must be a focus on the reduction of ambiguity, coping with figures of speech, improving listening skills, dealing with abstractions, imprecise expressions and so on.
At the end of the course the student should be significantly better in his reading and language skills. His self-confidence will grow as he becomes more proficient in his comprehension and more fluent in his reading. He should be sharper and more alert in conversations. The improvement of receptive skills will also lead to the improvement of his or her expressive language. He will be more able to get to the point and express himself in a precise and concise way. Reading is the gateway to learning and is a fundamental skill that will help your child reach their full potential.
If you would like to learn more about how you can help you child improve his skills we can send you more detail in a short report. This is a version of a presentation that we have made to professional groups and parents. We cover
- Processing Speed
- Listening Skills
- How to improve Comprehension Abilities
- Four Essential Cognitive Skills for Language and Reading
- What Practical Steps YOU can take as a Parent or a Tutor
We illustrate the points with case studies, show you the latest research and give you references for further study.
Please send a blank email to
...neuronasp@getresponse.com...
and we will be happy to send you your own copy free of charge.
You can also contact us via
Email ...info@neuron-learning.co.uk...
Phone: UK 020 7100 9293 Ireland 1890 638766
