Social Skills Training for Children and Adolescents with Asperger Syndrome and Social-Communications Description:

Social Skills Training for Children and Adolescents with Asperger Syndrome and Social-Communications Problems review:
5 stars (Most practical book out there.) - After researching most of the books on the market for Aspergers children and teens, this is surely the most practical source on social skills training. It's not a theoretical treatise, but a user-friendly way to quickly teach relevant skills to students with AS. I recommend to parents and teachers alike.
2 stars (for children under 12) - this book seems to target children under 12 years of age. It has very few pointers for adolescents. this book tends to be aimed at the education profession rather than parents.
5 stars (The best social skills book for our family) - As a parent homeschooling a child with Asperger Syndrome, Iï¿Â#ve bought about a dozen books to help me teach my child social skills. This one is the most useful Iï¿Â#ve found. Most books on this topic are aimed only at teachers and are hard to adapt to use at home with one child; thatï¿Â#s not the case with this book. While the book includes instructions for school personnel and describes how to teach the skills in classrooms and small groups, it is relatively free of educational jargon and doesnï¿Â#t waste too much space on things that useless to me, like reproducible handouts for the children to take home to their parents.The skills are broken down into small steps and are very specific, which is helpful with my literal-minded child. As a socially adept adult, I sometimes have trouble finding ways to explain social conventions, like the ï¿Â#Two-Question Rule,ï¿Â# as Baker calls it: ï¿Â#When others as you a question and you answer it, you can ask a similar question right back.ï¿Â# Iï¿Â#m sure I do this every day (ï¿Â#How are you?ï¿Â# ï¿Â#Fine, how are you?ï¿Â#), and yet it would have taken me ages to find a way to sum this up for my child.The skills are broken down into six categories: Conversational Skills, Cooperative Play Skills, Friendship Management, Self-Regulation, Empathy, and Conflict Management. The skills range from ï¿Â#Maintaining Appropriate Physical Distance from Othersï¿Â# to ï¿Â#Giving Criticism in a Positive Wayï¿Â#. Each skill is covered on two pages. One page lists guidelines for following the rule, and includes a small fill-in-the-blank space where children can plan when they will try out the skill and later report how it worked. The facing page lists suggested activities for teaching and reinforcing the skill.I was also pleased to find that Bakerï¿Â#s The Social Skills Picture Book covers many of the skills in Social Skills Training, so I have been using the picture book as a companion to this book. Actually seeing photos of children using the skills (or making mistakes) helps to fix the rules in his mind.