
Learning About Friendship: Stories to Support Social Skills Training in Children With Asperger Syndrome and High Functioning Autism
Kay Al-Ghani
Making friends can be a challenge for all children, but those with autistic spectrum disorder (ASD) can struggle more than most. This collection of ten fully-illustrated stories explores friendship issues encountered by children with ASD aged four to eight and looks at how they can be overcome successfully.
Key problem areas are addressed, including sharing, taking turns, being a tattletale, obsessions, winning and losing, jealousy, personal space, tact and diplomacy, and defining friendship. The lively and entertaining stories depersonalize issues, allowing children to see situations from the perspective of others and enabling them to recognize themselves in the characters. This opens the door to discussion, which in turn leads to useful insight and strategies they can practise and implement in the future. Each story has a separate introduction for adults which explains the main strategies within it.
This book will be a valuable resource for all parents and teachers of children with ASD, along with their friends and families, and anybody else looking to help children on the spectrum to understand, make and maintain friendships.
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About Kay Al-Ghani
Reviews for Learning About Friendship: Stories to Support Social Skills Training in Children With Asperger Syndrome and High Functioning Autism
Whitterer on Autism This book concentrates on children with Asperger Syndrome and High-functioning Autism and is designed to address many of the difficulties these children experience with friendships. However, even if your children have not yet reached this stage of development, the book can still be a useful tool... The book covers ten difference scenarios. Each chapter starts with an explanation to the adult, parent or carer and raises awareness of some of the common pitfalls. This is then followed by a social story to illustrate how they can be overcome. I enjoyed both aspects of these scenarios.
Whitterer on Autism Ms Al-Ghani has a way with words, and I find her introduction and overviews of great interest. Her stories will be of real use in the classroom.
www.healthybooks.org.uk Overall, this book serves as an excellent resource for parents, teachers, and assistants of children with AS and HFA. It provides a door through the wall that prevents children from grasping key social concepts. And, for children, it provides warm, compassionate, and clear social guidance, and helps to set them up for a lifetime of success in a world they struggle to understand.' 'Learning About Friendship is an excellent book. My 8 year old son Aiden has high-functioning Autism so this has been perfect for our family. I really appreciated the user-friendly way this book is put together. The social stories included in each chapter were really easy for us to use as-is with our son. It has been so helpful that we actually sent it to school with Aiden for his Aid to use with him as necessary. The stories are easy to understand and deal with stuff that we deal with daily. The illustrations helped to keep Aiden's attention focused on the story. I highly recommend this book to anyone with a kid on the spectrum.
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