How can I support my autistic students who want relationships with peers?
In this video, Dr. Lucas Harrington explains that rather than teaching autistic students to mask in order to be liked, we should help them build genuine, mutually rewarding friendships by connecting them with accepting peers in interest-based, autism-friendly settings.
Transcript
How can I help my autistic students who want relationships with peers? Oh, this is a great question because so many approaches have been really misguided. I have this story that I tell about when I went away to college, and I think people would've seen me as pretty socially successful. I had people wanting to eat lunch with me and include me in outings and everything.
But there came a point where I went, you know, I am not actually sure if I, like most of my friends. A lot of social skills coaching focuses on how do you make yourself likable to other people. I had gotten basically no guidance on how do I find friendships that will be rewarding for me. And obviously I believe in the value of social education given my work on a social-emotional learning program.
But you really don't want to put kids in a position where they're constantly monitoring, you know, am I doing well enough to be accepted here? You want them to be respectful of other people's rights and everything, but it's hard to feel a genuine connection when you're just constantly worried that something like eye contact is going to make or break whether you're welcome there.
And so I would say first and foremost, you wanna look for settings where positive relationships have the best chance of occurring naturally. You know, somewhere that they can mix with kids who are accepting and maybe quirky in a similar way, ideally something that plays to their strengths and interest.
So some activities that have a reputation for being autism-friendly include anime club, robotics club. For sports, a lot of kids do better with individual activities like martial arts or swimming rather than team games. Um, theater is a big one. I was a big backstage theater kid and Dungeons and Dragons is another one.
And they may still need some guidance on turning those connections into ongoing friendships, but hopefully you can find opportunities where they are very close to connecting naturally and they just need a little helper on miscommunication or other minor hurdles.
You can learn more about supporting your neurodivergent students through Social Cipher's professional development. Go to socialcipher.com to learn more.
Follow us @socialcipher on TikTok and YouTube for more educator-focused videos about neurodivergence!
.png)
.png)
.png)
.png)
.png)
.png)
.png)
.png)
.png)
.png)
.png)
.png)
.png)
.png)
.png)
.png)
.png)
.png)
.png)
.png)
.png)
.png)
.png)
.png)
.png)
.png)
.png)
.png)
.png)
.png)
.png)
.png)
.png)
.jpg)
.png)
.png)
