I need help with coaching a student with Aspergers

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Hello everyone,

My name is Wendy and I'm a teacher at a high school. I'm currently coaching a 13 year old girl with Aspergers. She has been diagnosed officially.

My goal for this student is to help her have social interactions easier so she has more energy for her own personal development.

She wants nothing to do with any diagnosis and puts an enormous amount of pressure on herself to be popular so she's never alone. This leaves no room for any school activities and causes her to be a level lower than she could be.

The problem is that she wants nothing to do with people who might give her the idea she is different from her peers. As such I can't get through to her. I really want to help this girl but right now our conversations are leading nowhere.

I would like some suggestions on how to get her involved in our conversations so that I at least have a basis to start working from. I hope you can help me.

Kind regards,

Wendy

I'd say the Michele Garia Winner programs such as Social Behavioral Mapping would be very good to use. You might also look into Ross W Greene for collaborative problem solving.

Before that, though, you have to develop a relationship with her, and gain her trust and respect. It doesn't sound like this coaching is her idea, so why would she be willing to cooperate? How did it come about that it was decided she needs coaching?

Wait a moment...
She spends a lot of time with her peers and you want to separate her so she can attend classes that help her deal with peers? I don't get it.
I would just let her do what she does. Spending time with peers is the best social skills coaching I could imagine.

Pressuring herself to spend time with peers will teach her to make social interactions easier. Nothing in the world quite like immersion therapy.

If you want to coach her on social skills, talk with her about what's going on in her social life. If she's pushing herself to socialize, you've got gold right there. You have a living lab-- move on in.

I suspect that what you want is for her to focus LESS on social skills and more on whatever academic gifts she's supposed to have. Frankly, if what she wants to do right now is fit in, you're going to have limited success getting it. Is the kid a C student?? If so, that's good enough to keep her from slamming doors and allow her to shift focus later. If not, you can present improving her school work as independent from autism. "Hey, Suzy, we need to fix this, NOW, or you're going to be grounded (less time to socialize)."

I also suspect that you're looking for self-acceptance. You CAN get there, a little bit at a time, by talking about responsible and irresponsible social behaviors, and why "normal 13-year-old-girls" aren't the be-all and end-all of what is good in the world. You CAN get there, IN TIME (say, about six years' time)...

...but you are going to be hard-pressed to achieve a 13-year-old Aspie (never mind a female one) who thinks she is just lovely the way she is. Been there, done that, don't think it's a natural state of being. I'd worry more about teaching her not to allow herself to be abused in the name of "being cool" and "fitting in."

I second BuyerBeware.

Also, I'm not sure what you are asking for in that I think more details are needed.

I understand the OP differently. I think she is saying that this girl is so preoccupied with socializing and being popular that she is not living up to her potential in other areas.

Have you somehow created a time machine and gone back to interact with a 13 year old me?

Seriously. When I was that age, I thought if only I could be popular and fit in, "everything" would be OK. What I didn't understand back then is that the nebulous "everything" that I was feeling was NOT ok, was...well...my wiring. I knew I wasn't like other kids, but I thought if I could somehow crack the code to popularity, whatever was in me that I recognized was not like others would be fixed. I always wanted to be with everyone else and never wanted to miss anything. The irony of it all, is that I was constantly stressed, because I am an introvert by nature, but insisted on having a lifestyle of an extrovert. Really, it's no wonder I was such a mess. But instead of seeing I was seeking something that was not right for me, I was convinced that only if I could obtain "IT," I would somehow....I don't know...be normal.

Needless to say, it made for a miserable adolescence and early adulthood. I wish someone could have somehow helped me to see that I didn't need to be popular to be OK. In fact, I was better than OK just the way I was. I wish I wouldn't have wasted all of my energy on trying to fit in.

The only problem is, I have no idea how to help you, Wendy, because if I could go back to my 13 year old self and tell her that popularity is not the key to anything and that I would be happier hanging out with weird kids and doing unpopular things, I would probably have told myself to jump in a river.

This is how I interpret it also, but clarification is helpful.

OP. may of us are either straight-up on the spectrum or have many traits and that is why we have AS/AU kids. So very clear communication is super helpful to us.

I am guessing (and only guessing) that this student has been diagnosed recently, is not accepting it, and her IEP now includes help she is not giving buy-in for b/c it was not her idea and she does not think she needs it?

If this is the case what is specifically in her IEP that you are supposed to be helping her with? Knowing this would help us see if their might be a persuasive argument you could make to get buy in, that does not necessitate her embracing the scary "A" word. It is not necessary that she accepts a diagnosis of autism to help her. You can address the specific issues without even uttering the word. Acceptance will come on her timetable.

Here is why: All the posters who said a teenage girl is not going to want to embrace this label is right on target. She wants to fit in, and now a bunch of people are likely bugging her about how different she is. It is natural for this to not be welcome. In addition she is being pulled out of normal things for annoying help she does not want. It is natural not to want this. In addition she is probably being treated as damaged in someway, by at least someone. Also not good.

Looking at neurodiversity from the positive aspects as well as the negative, is the best route to acceptance, but at her age it is really hard to begin this process. With the early diagnosed ones it can often come early, when surrounded with enough non-toxic people who are properly educated. As an adult it can come from self-realization, maybe from knowing someone on the spectrum and connecting the dots on ones own. A teen may be at the hardest stage of all.

So my advice, based on the assumptiomns I have made, is to drop the talk of autism and see if you can get her to tell you on her own what the issues are that she would like help on as opposed to telling her why she is broken and what she needs fixed. I am not saying that is what you are doing on the surface, but think about the underlying messages and that may be inferences she is making that need to be removed.

Thank you all for your replies. I’ll try to clarify the situation.

The main reason for coaching this girl is that her parents made that request. Last year there was an incident where she had a fight with girls due to social miscommunication. She didn’t understand the nonverbal communication and she said things which her friends didn’t understand.

She was understandably upset about this situation and her parents had never seen her so sad. That’s why they asked for coaching at school; to prevent similar situations in the future.

It’s true that she has been diagnosed only recently and that she is not accepting her diagnosis. She is indeed so very busy with her social life, and because of that she’s not living up to her potential in other areas.

In our conversations I try to avoid to talk about her Aspergers because I don’t want to put any pressure whatsoever on her. I try to focus on her as a 13 year old girl and not her as a 13 year old Aspergers. I try to let her see that she isn’t defined by her Aspergers.

I’ve tried to talk about things she likes and cares about to start building a relationship. Up to now she has only been giving answers like: “I don’t know, I don’t like anything.”

So I'm looking for ways to connect with her, so we can [start to] talk about the things she's interested in so I can help her see that she isn't defined by her Aspergers.

That could be the usual teen/preteen stuff, given that she probably doesn't want the coaching at all.

Many on the spectrum have special interests that they LOVE to talk about and some love them so much they will talk to people they would not usually speak to about them. I would contact the parents and find out if she has a special interest like that.