Forcing ASD children to fit in

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Spiderpig, maybe the difference is--at least in part--that you are/were undiagnosed. So, not only did you not have anyone "helping" you when you were a teen, you had no one teaching you when you were younger. At least not in a way tailored to your disability, because no one recognized you had one.

With my daughter, a lot of the helping and teaching has been through social stories and through dissecting social interactions to uncover which behaviors are expected and which ones are unexpected. This allows her to understand the rules in a very deliberate and rational way, which allows her to cope. She is quite comfortable socially as long as the interaction matches her expectations. This doesn't mean it has to "go her way," but it does mean that she needs to expect ahead of time that it may not "go her way." Of course, there are limitations to this as things do not always go the way they are "supposed to," and it is in times like this that my daughter's ability to compensate may be diminished or even eradicated. It depends upon how stressed she is in generally or how overwhelmed she is sensory-wise. If she is not stressed and is not overwhelmed, she can usually piece together a strategy that works, although it may appear slightly awkward. If stress and sensory overload are high, she most often shuts down, becomes mute, and spaces out. If its really bad, she just goes to sleep.

When she was little, she had a 1:1 at school. It would go something like this: "Oh, look NAME... those kids are playing with Legos. You like playing with Legos, let's go join in." Then she would take my daughters hand, walk over, and say "Hi, KIDS, can we join you?" and she would model appropriate play behavior and correct "mistakes" my daughter made. Then eventually she would say "Oh, look NAME... those kids are playing with legos. You like playing with Legos. Go join in." And since she had seen it demonstrated so many times, she knew what to do. Then finally she would say "NAME, what do you want to do?" "Play legos" "Go do it!"

With my son, it has been more about pointing out to him the things he does that are not done by typical boys his age. Like stuffing his pockets full of pieces of asphalt and walking around, approaching random people--some not known--and pulling them out to talk about asphalt. Once he started to figure out what was "weird," he stopped doing a lot of it, at least outside of the home. The turning point for him was when he really, really realized that he didn't understand some of the social interactions going on around him during the pre-teen years and through to his (now) teen years. He comes home and tells me about them, and I explain it to him. This has made him more reserved in his interactions, because he is sometimes aware he does not know what to do so he just kind of "hangs back," but he makes fewer overtly embarrassing mistakes. He has also learned to use humor to compensate, such as joking with his friends that if he were ever to be a super hero, he would be Literal Man: Able to interpret any idiom in the most concrete way humanly possible! Sometimes he even exaggerates his literal interpretation to a ridiculous degree on purpose. His friends, and many kids who are not even his friends, find it very funny. It is a very good coping mechanism for my son and he enjoys finding ways to take advantage of it. Now he is learning when it is not appropriate to do it, which is a whole other skill set! LOL!

My son just started a program in school for kids with ASD. There are about 6 kids on the spectrum, then the rest are gen ed kids in the class. They do have a social curriculum as part of the program. My son was in a different program previously, where he had no support. He desperately tried to socialize previously, but failed miserably. This was making him angry and depressed. He wants to know how to socialize, because he really wants friends.

I have a friend, however, who has a kid on the spectrum and that kid has no interest in socializing whatsoever. He does not want to interact with other kids. He is in a mainstream class. My kid really wants to, so I got him into a social program.