Accepting Compliments While Autistic
Many autistic people find accepting compliments and being kind to ourselves difficult, especially if our experience has been that other people lambast us if we dare to exist openly while autistic.
social skills
How Non-Autistics Can Be Good Friends to Autistic People
We talked with several autistic people about how non-autistic people can be good friends to autistic people. This is their advice.
Teach Social Skills As Values, Not Like Computer Programs
Applied Behavioral Analysis (ABA) taught me that social skills were context-free rules I had to follow: forcing my hands to be quiet, staring back at eyeballs that bored into mine, contorting myself to make myself look less autistic at the expense of my happiness and overall well-being.
Forcing Friendships Doesn’t Equal Autistic Youth Gaining Social Skills
An autistic young person has the right to have an active and willing agency in the process of deciding who to befriend, what boundaries should be set on such friendships and who they are just not comfortable with.
The Trouble With “Social Coaching” Tech for Autism
M. Kelter theinvisiblestrings.com MIT researchers recently announced that they are developing a wrist watch which analyzes a conversation, then provides feedback about the emotional content of the discussion. Though the watch is still early in development, MIT’s press for the device suggests it may one day provide autistics with a better way to grasp the subtle nuances
How to Be Socially Awkward, or, What I Learned In Social Skills Class
N. M. Silber extemporarysanity.wordpress.com We want April — Autism Acceptance Month — to matter, to help further acceptance and understanding of autistic experiences, happiness, and rights for autistic people of all ages and abilities. We will be publishing your Autism Acceptance posts and pictures all month long. If you want to participate, contact us at
When Autism and Schizoaffective Converge
Cissi Tsang www.samarobryn.com There have been various studies and speculation abounding regarding the relationship between the autism spectrum and the schizophrenia spectrum. That is not surprising because there are some similarities in behaviours between the two. Both conditions feature such things as social withdrawal, difficulty with empathy and difficulty with reading verbal and non-verbal cues.
Have You Seen Flummox and Friends Yet?
Shannon Des Roches Rosa www.squidalicious.com Have you seen the pilot episode of Flummox and Friends yet? Or — back up — did you hear that Christa Dahlstrom created a show just for quirky kids and the people who love (and/or identify with) them? Here’s how Christa described the show in a recent BlogHer interview: “Flummox
Getting Through the Holidays!?
We chose the punctuation above for a reason — cautious optimism and the hope that, with the right guidance and attitude, we can make it through the winter holidays, possibly even with some happy memories. So if you, your families, and your friends are hunkering down for the holidays; and if you, like some of
How Apps Can Support Social Skills
Shannon Des Roches Rosa www.squidalicious.com www.blogher.com Sometimes I think social skills apps are redundant, since iPads are themselves such social magnets. These tablets can motivate people of all abilities to interact, and give them a common ground for communicating. But as social skills are multi-faceted, and since different folks need support in specific areas, I