Patrick - Social Skills for Teenagers and Adults with Asperger Syndrome

SOCIAL SKILLS for

TEENAGERS AND ADULTS

with ASPERGER
SYNDROME

by the same author

Hints and Tips for Helping Children with Autism Spectrum Disorders

Useful Strategies for Home, School and the Community

Dion E. Betts and Nancy J. Patrick

ISBN: 978 1 84310 896 2

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NANCY J. PATRICK

A Practical Guide to Day-to-Day Life

SOCIAL SKILLS for

TEENAGERS AND ADULTS

with ASPERGER
SYNDROME

Jessica Kingsley Publishers
London and Philadelphia

First published in 2008

by Jessica Kingsley Publishers

116 Pentonville Road

London N1 9JB, UK

and

400 Market Street, Suite 400

Philadelphia, PA 19106, USA

www.jkp.com

All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced in any material form (including photocopying or storing it in any medium by electronic means and whether or not transiently or incidentally to some other use of this publication) without the written permission of the copyright owner except in accordance with the provisions of the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988 or under the terms of a licence issued by the Copyright Licensing Agency Ltd, 90 Tottenham Court Road, London, England W1P 9HE. Applications for the copyright owners written permission to reproduce any part of this publication should be addressed to the publisher.

Warning: The doing of an unauthorised act in relation to a copyright work may result in both a civil claim for damages and criminal prosecution.

Library of Congress Cataloging in Publication Data

A CIP catalog record for this book is available from the Library of Congress

British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data

A CIP catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library

ISBN 978 1 84310 876 4

ISBN pdf eBook 978 1 84642 844 9

Printed and bound in the United States by

Thomson-Shore, 7300 Joy Road, Dexter, Michigan, United States, 48130

This book is dedicated to the teenagers and adults with Asperger Syndrome who only want to be understood and understand.

Acknowledgements

I would like to acknowledge my husband, Bill, for his love and steadfast support for our thirty-three years of marriage. I want to acknowledge my three childrenCraig, Scott and Blairfor making life exciting and worth living. I want to acknowledge my sweet grandson Craig for keeping me young. Additionally, I want to thank Laura Gardner, my research assistant, for her encouragement and helpful research, Kathryn Siconolfi and Steven Collier for their marvelous stories and Messiah College for providing student and faculty grants that helped facilitate this writing project.

Introduction

Asperger Syndrome and the Experiences of Teens and Adults

This book is written to provide practical strategies to help anyone who has a desire to improve his or her social skills, especially teenagers and adults with Asperger Syndrome (AS). It is also for those interested in learning about AS, the impact AS has on social situations, and those looking for strategies to support a teen or adult who wants to progress in this area.

The strategies in this book are based on principles gleaned from the biographies of adults with AS and autism. The writers overwhelmingly reveal that the social turn around in their lives came as a result of skillful observation, self-examination, analysis, implementation of personal strategies and ongoing evaluation.

In her co-authored book Unwritten Rules of Social Relationships: Decoding Social Mysteries through the Unique Perspectives of Autism Temple Grandin reports my ability to function in the world and develop social relationships has been learned solely through my intellectby becoming a very good social detectiveand use of my visualization skills (Grandin and Barron 2005, p.31). In her role as social detective Dr Grandin observed her social surroundings, taking note of the relevant details that made up each social situation, and recorded the observations in her memory for future reference. The observations allowed her to build an understanding of the social world and identify personal strategies to help her better manage social situations. It wasnt until she was an adult that she possessed enough information or data from her personal experiences to accurately interpret her social observations, but with maturity and an increased number of social experiences she progressed.

Co-author Sean Barron reports that his social turn around came after years of listening, absorbing, watching and asking questions [seeking] to lose his naivete and to develop some insight into human nature (Grandin and Barron 2005, p.78). He describes his experience with autism as a painful journey. He always wanted to have social connectedness with other people, but this eluded him primarily because of his fears and inability to interpret the social intentions of others. His confidence and feeling at ease in social situations were not things he learned in a single A-ha! moment, but came over time as a result of a process (Grandin and Barron 2005). The process was slow and difficult, but with ongoing help from his parents he progressed. This approach worked well for Sean and in 2005 he wrote:

Thankfully, the social connections I so desperately wanted growing up have been made. My relationship with my family is extraordinary. I have a network of wonderful friends, a job as a newspaper reporter that satisfies me on an intellectual level and a woman whom Ive been dating since 2003. All the people in my life affect me in positive ways. (Grandin and Barron 2005, p.82)

From these authors we learn that figuring out how to be socially competent is a slow process of continuous improvement. There are no sudden break-throughs, and there is no single social skills program that will make a child become socially aware (Grandin and Barron 2005, p.36). Social relationships are too varied and complex to be converted down to a final mathematical proof (p.102).

In past generations it might have been possible to teach social skills in isolation with the expectation that the skills would apply to every situation over a lifetime, but that is not the case today. Social skills are less fixed than in previous generations. The loosening of social requirements has much to do with changing social values in many communities. Changes have always occurred, but are now occurring at a more rapid rate as a result of the expanding ability for people from different communities to interact and share their traditions through technology. Not only are social requirements changing rapidly, but so is the uniform application of social skills to all settings.