Autism Treatment Center of America Forum

[Daisychain41]

A little background: my son started the Son-Rise program at 3 years old. We ran it for 3 years. He is able to function fairly typically and does OK in school. However, when talking to peers, he talks about his own interests. He wants people to notice him and whatever his current interest or toy is. We have talked about showing interest in others and have played interviewing games. He CAN do it. He has shown interest in others and cared how they feel. But today he walked up to a group of kids and started talking about his new little toy. They told him to go back to his family and dragged him away from the group by his arm. He was angry and hurt. But he doesn't want to hear from me how to show personal interest in others. His answer is that he doesn't want to go to that school.

My question is, what games or ideas can we implement to help him with this? We stopped the program two years ago because of having two other children. But he still needs a little more help.

I appreciate any suggestions!

[BeckyDamgaard]

Hello,

Wow, it sounds like you have been doing amazingly, and so has your son! The key to all learning is motivation. Without us actually being motivated to learn something makes it challenging for us to take in the information. Please let us know some of your sons interests and motivations so that I can give you some ideas of how to work with this challenge.

For now, continue to use plenty of loving explanations about how actually there is no other school available right now and part of having friends is also showing an interest in what other people like too.

I look forward to hearing from you!

Warm regards,

[Daisychain41]

Thank you Becky! BTW, I have really enjoyed the videos on You Tube and have implemented several of the suggestions and games in our everyday life! You guys are awesome!

My son is passionate about airplanes, Titanic, the Hindenberg, models (such as cars and boats), and scientific subjects of how things work. He also loves to swim. Once he is into a conversation with someone, he can interact quite well. He can show interest in someone once he feels that they accept him. It's the initial get go that is difficult right now.

I appreciate the suggestion about lovingly explaining there is no other school right now.

Thanks again!! We appreciate you all so much!

[BeckyDamgaard]

Hi,

Thanks for the info! Here are some additional techniques:

1) Share plenty of information about yourself and your own interests at random times when you are with your son as a way to help him stretch that muscle of listening to another person and taking in information. For example, perhaps you are in the car together and you see your favorite flowers, you could say "Ooh Lillies, they are my absolute favorite flowers!". You can even play with this by seeing if he retains that information by next time you drive that way saying "There's my favorite flowers again! I bet you can't remember what they are?'

2) Leave cliff-hangers during your conversations. For instance, perhape he is talking about cars and when there is a pause, say "You'll never guess what my fist car was?" That will help prompt him to ask personal questions of other people.

3) Use explanations, perhaps when you are talking about the food you like to eat, you can describe it in a way that's not revealing, and then remind him what he could say (e.g. "So I was eating my very favorite lunch the other day, and this is like the best ever sandwhich in the whole world"..........leaving a pause from him to be spontaneous, if he doesn't respond, explain "usually my friends ask me what the sandwhich is").

One game you could play is a word find game where you draw a large 10 by 10 grid on a posterboard and think of 10-20 questions that you can list down the side. The questions would be a mixture of personal questions that he can ask you and then facts about his motivations. Then write the answers inside the grid and fill up the rest of the spaces with letters so the answers are hidden. Make numbers one and two be about his motivations (e.g. "This was the name of the place the Titanic was sailing to when it sank", etc), then mix in some of your personal facts (e.g. "This is Mom's favorite color", "this is the best birthday present Mom ever got", etc.) So then you find the words together and when it comes to the personal questions and he is looking for the answer, you can remind him "Hey, I know a really easy way to get the answer......you can ask me!").

Another thing you can do is after you have explained that it's really cool and fun to have friends and part of being friends is being interested in eachothers stuff. You could brainstorm some opening lines he could say to people to start an interaction with him. You could even make a list and give him plenty of suggestions. It sounds like it's the starting an interaction that he's having a challenge with.

This is going to be so fun! Enjoy.

[Daisychain41]

Becky, you are awesome!
I am looking forward to implementing these ideas.
I will come back with an update soon.
Thanks so very much!