28: Social Skill Training for Children with an Autism Spectrum Disorder that Really Helps

In This Episode:  

We’ll hear Stephanie Sanders explain the realm of Speech and Language services for children in the school setting.  She mentions that the group setting is most common with her work.

She also tells us that it differs from the home setting, where she would work with the child one on one.  

She created a curriculum that she developed over the course of 4 years while working with students with Autism Spectrum Disorders.

She was initially inspired by her younger brother and her students.

She tells us about some of the common struggles that kids with Autism Spectrum Disorders experience and how she addresses it with the students that she works with.

She emphasizes the importance of communication with parents while working with children.

She discusses the struggles that some of the kids that have with non-literal language, picking up social cues and such.

She usually works with kids in groups of 5 or less.  The group setting allows for social issues to come up.

Stephanie wrote a book to present a curriculum to help children with Autism Spectrum Disorder.  The FILTER Approach:  Social Communication Skills for Students with Autism Spectrum Disorders.

The acronym “FILTER” breaks down as the following: F - Facial clues, I – Inappropriate, L – Listen, T – Target, E - End and Start Conversations, and R - Repair

She has witnessed students putting the concepts into action, both in the therapy room and in real time.

She has a PRE & POST mini assessment (a 10 question questionnaire) to assess their level of retention.

In her work, she has seen children retain the information and put it into action.

The FILTER Approach is a user friendly curriculum that professionals and kids can really connect with and benefit from.

When the children get positive feedback it can support self-esteem growth and foster positive feelings of self-worth.

She emphasize the importance of identifying the needs and implementing the curriculum at an early age in a developmentally appropriate manner.

The FILTER Approach incorporates some social scenes to give the kids insight from an experience level.

Stephanie creates an emotionally safe and trusting environment for the children to open up about their social awkwardness and struggles.  

Stephanie is very clear and transparent with the children to let them know that she communicates with parents.

Collaboration with parents, teachers, therapists, school counselors and other people helping the child is ideal.

She talks about the metaphor of the filter and how she describes how it applies to this concept.

She also teaches kids how their brain works to give them a deeper understanding of how the concept applies in terms of brain function.

She tells students how using a filter can help them with relationships, with a job, and many other areas of their lives.

Stephanie stresses the importance to listening to the kids without jumping right in to teach them or fix the problem.  This can be really helpful for kids, especially kids with Autism Spectrum Disorders.

The information presented in this curriculum helps children not only at this time in their lives, but it helps lifelong.

Stephanie provides some AMAZING tips for parents and for professionals helping kids out.  

It’s so important to consider the perspective of the child.  You can read more about this in her blog post for ASHA (A link to her blog post is not available at this time. Expected date of availability is anticipated for the early August timeframe.)

Stephanie gets silly sometimes with parents and kids in her work.  She has an awesome Donald Duck and Scooby Doo voice.

Stephanie really prayed throughout the 4 years of creating the curriculum for my students to connect with the concepts that she presented and just before submitting The FILTER Approach to Plural Publishing that it might benefit any students/clients exposed to the curriculum.

She continues to pray for the previously mentioned individuals and for any therapists, counselors, teachers, or parents choosing to implement this curriculum with their students/clients.

You can read the full show notes at www.parentingintherain.com