During morning drop-offs at school, I’m noticing
that our son approaches the least responsive kids. There is Situation No. 1: He walks over to a classmate and whispers in
a low monotone voice, “Hi.” Usually, I
will urge him to speak louder. He slowly
moves closer and whispers again. The
classmate looks at him blankly. Then,
there’s Situation No. 2: My son walks over
to a group of roughhousing children and says, “Hi.” They barely notice him or respond.
As evidenced, our son isn’t afraid to approach other
children or start conversations. Nor is
he shy about asking other children to play games with him. However, he isn’t clued into the “hidden
curriculum.” The hidden
curriculum refers to the unwritten social rules that typically-developing
people absorb automatically but may elude students with autism. For instance, shouting at friends during
recess is fine but shouting at your teacher in the classroom is unacceptable.
Also, our son
may not pick up on the nonverbal language being communicated (e.g. if a friend stands
alone in a corner with a sullen facial expression; it is probably not a good
time to talk). A number of studies have found
that problems with reading facial expressions and vocal tones are related to
issues such as lower
social competence, higher
social anxiety and depression.
However, some findings are inconsistent and show gender
and age differences. Some research
indicates that older children are more accurate at using both situational
and expressive facial cues for judging emotions than younger children. Also, in a 2003 study
published in The Journal of Genetic
Psychology, 30 elementary school children participated in six weekly or biweekly half-hour
sessions where they were taught lessons on reading emotions on adult and child
faces. After four weeks, there was significant improvement in the children’s accuracy for judging facial cues compared with children who didn’t attend the therapy sessions. What’s more, investigators also found that improvement
on identifying facial expression was linked with lower social anxiety and
higher self-worth for girls but increased feelings of negative self-concept for
boys.
So in an effort towards meeting these challenges, our
son is attending a social skills group at Confident Kid Club
in Pelham, NY. The group focuses on
areas such as appropriate eye contact, gauging body language and learning what
makes a good friend. But by no means
are we trying to “fix” him. First and
foremost, we want him to be himself. Since
he started preschool four years ago, he has always managed to find friends in
his class. For example, his classmate,
K., is also his current recess buddy. Now,
it is time to learn other nuances such as what other types of relationships are worth
pursuing and which are not. The rest
will work itself out.
