Social-Emotional Reciprocity
WHAT IS SOCIAL-EMOTIONAL RECIPROCITY?
Often, one of parent’s chief concerns about their child with autism spectrum disorder is social success! Sometimes it may seem like your child with autism only wants to play by themselves or is not interested in interacting with other people. Social-emotional reciprocity is the ability to engage in social interactions, including back-and-forth, interactions with two or more people.
DEVELOPING SOCIAL RECIPROCITY
Teaching social awareness and reciprocity with your child with autism is absolutely achievable, it just often requires more intensive practice and learning opportunities. Children need lots of opportunities to practice skills like turn-taking, perspective-taking, and teamwork!
At C.A.B.S., some of our go-to ways to teach social-emotional reciprocity in children with autism include:
· Turn-taking: This can be turn-taking within a simple game like Pop the Pig or Pop-Up Pirate, a more complex game like Candy Land, or even with a single, fun toy you can pass back and forth!
And as a bonus: This also helps build up the flexibility!
· Experience Sharing: See something cool? A loud airplane or garbage truck? A cute dog? A delicious-looking cupcake? Call it out and use a big, exaggerated point! Don’t make them look if they’re not motivated, but if your child references your face or the object you’re pointing to, celebrate it!
· Cooperative/Partner Tasks: Most activities can serve as an opportunity to work together as a team! Any chore, relay race, or simple recipe can be turned into a partner task by assigning roles and working together. Make unloading a dishwasher fun by having one person take the dishes out and hand them to their partner to put them away.
Looking for something more exciting? Put a laundry basket full of foam blocks at one end of a hallway and have your child come collect each piece from you to create a fun tower at the end of the hallway.
FACIAL EXPRESSIONS OF SOCIAL RECIPROCITY
You can exaggerate facial expressions or highlight an emotion like gasping or laughing when something silly happens. For example, you may put the foam block on your head or somewhere it doesn’t belong, point to it, and say “That doesn’t go there! How silly!” When you make a mistake, such as dropping a block or a utensil, label it as a mistake and model calmly moving on! “Oh no, I dropped the fork! It’s okay, we’ll put it back in the sink to wash later. No big deal.” This can help your learner take your perspective and you will be modeling important self-regulation skills at the same time.
Bonus Tip: Add a timed component and work towards beating the clock to work towards a goal together!
· Emotion Charades: Have one player act out a certain emotion or emotional scenario without using any words and the other player must guess the emotion.
Bonus Tip: Play Reverse Emotion Charades by having your player read a phrase paired with a certain emotion…all while behind a curtain or wall! The second player then has the guess the emotion by the first player’s tone of voice alone. This one is particularly fun when you pair a statement that doesn’t fit the emotion—imagine receiving the phrase “I love cheese” and needing to say it angrily. Get creative and have fun!
