Teaching Students w/ASD 2.1: The Social Domain

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“At its core, ASD is a disorder of social interaction, marked by a lack of social initiation and reciprocity.”                                                                                                                                -Bernier, 2014, p. 69

(Bernier, 2014, p. 71)

The first domain to be discussed in terms of stretched for people with ASD is the social domain. According to Bernier, people with ASD may demonstrate impairment in social interaction defined by:

-impairment in the use of non-verbal cues and behaviors

-failure to develop relationships with peers at a developmentally appropriate level

-lack of ability to share enjoyments, interests, and achievements

-lack of social-emotional reciprocity

Lack of Gaze

Eye contact usually established as an infant early and often and an important biological trait in humans for perceiving feelings in social encounters

-infants with autism often fail to develop this skill

-this trait is specific to ASD and not observable in any other disorder

Social orienting

Behavioral response to auditory or visual social stimuli such as turning your head toward a

speaker or making eye contact with the speaker

-In a study by Dawson et al., children with ASD preferred non-social over social stimulus

sounds, non-speech sounds over speech sounds, and geometric patterns over social sciences

Joint attention key social deficit: the sharing of an object or event with another person

-this develops typically with infants on 6-18 months and not so in infants with ASD

-Some children with ASD may point to something of interest in the distance but do

not coordinate their gaze back to another person to share their enjoyment

-children may point to something to satisfy their need rather than to create a social encounter

Impairement in Imitation: the way children develop simple to highly complex skills ranging from social smiling to language acquisition

-typically developing children often mimic caregivers facial expressions and gestures

-many children with ASD have difficulting imitating simple actions and gestures which is due to their social development impairment

Aloofness: lack of understanding toward empathy and others

-A child with ASD may run over another child to get to the slide first as if that child was an object

-a child with ASD may not offer comfort to another child or may laugh at inappropriate times

-”Theory of Mind” Simon Baron-Cohen hypothesized that the inability to infer others' mental states and to attribute mental states to self and others was a core feature of autism. Also included that if someone is unable to infer others mental states, they are unable to have an effective response (facial expression) that is appropriate to others’ mental states (Bernier, 2014, p. 70)

Social reciprocity-mutual exchange ie cornerstone of growth and survival

-parents model this with children by showing and sharing objects with them and children soon learn that when they do this with parents they are rewarded with positive gestures

-deficits in facial perception : 1. Structure appearance 2. Facial expression may make social interactions and forming friendships difficult -foundation of empathy

References:

Bernier, R. (2014). Chapter 4: Assessment of the Core Features of ASD. In J. Tarbox, D. R. Dixon, P. Sturmey, & J. L. Matson (Authors), Handbook of Early Intervention for Autism Spectrum Disorders Research, Policy, and Practice (pp. 65-79). New York, NY: Springer New York.

Assessment of social domain

-It's important for clinicians to have an understanding of key milestones in development of a child to make assessment

Behaviors in early social development that distinguish children with ASD from typically developing and developmentally delayed peers