Social Awareness as a critical domain in Autism intervention:  So that kids "stay with us"

 

 

While the literature is replete with considerations for developing social skills, little attention is devoted to the development of social awareness. This talk will introduce 'social awareness' for consideration as an integral domain in early intervention for children with autism and is concerned with establishing the relevance of others/ establishing others as a point of reference in order to enhance learning as a function of increased engagement.

 

Strategies and platforms for developing social awareness as an aspect of intervention will be offered. The discussion emphasizes the importance of looking beyond specific content and illustrates how common exercises can be employed to develop social awareness. These strategies will also be considered in terms of synthesized targets under consideration within one exercise wherein dimensions of language, attention, memory and specific social skills are yoked.

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Learning Objectives:

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Participants will be introduced to strategies for establishing and maintaining eye contact

Participants will learn strategies which employ selection-based imitation as a tool to enhance social awareness, joint attention and shifting attention, memory and linguistic abilities.

Participants will learn strategies for the use of interrupted chains to enhance social awareness, executive function, linguistic abilities, joint attention.

Participants will be introduced to 'child as teacher' as a platform to enhance social acuity, perspective taking, and linguistic abilities

 

Brochure Description:

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Participants will be introduced to platforms and strategies for establishing social awareness and social acuity. The discussion emphasizes the importance of looking beyond specific content and illustrates how common exercises can be employed to develop social awareness and social acuity as well joint-attention, perspective taking, memory abilities, tracking, scanning, shifting attention, executive function, and to broaden linguistic abilities.