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Group training in social skills of children with Asperger syndrome in older school age
SKOTÁKOVÁ, Jana
We use social skills during interactions with other people. They form an inseparable part of each of us. We first learn them from our parents, then from other people, and during our whole life, with each new experience. People with Asperger's syndrome are not able to do so. They have problems during conversation understanding elements of non-verbal communication such as gestures, proxemics, facial expressions, postures and many others. They do not understand their emotions or other people's emotions. They do not get irony. For their trustfulness and naivety they can easily become a victim to persecutors, bullies or impostors. My Bachelor's work focuses on the period of older school age. It is the time of big changes which bring certain risks. For teenagers with Asperger's syndrome, as well as for their peers, it is one of the most demanding life periods. They start to realise their dissimilarity and therefore they need more support. Group training of model situations is one possibility for them to learn to understand the basic rules of social interactions. The aim of my work was to create work lists on the basis of determined deficits in the selected group of teenagers, on the basis of observations of the whole group, discussions with SPC (Special Pedagogic Centre) employees and analyses of documentation, and to test these work lists during social skills group training in practice. The first part of my Bachelor work describes general information about particular types of autistic spectrum disorder. It also compares symptoms of children with Asperger's syndrome and children's autism in the area of social interactions and communication. At the end of the first chapter I define problems of people with Asperger's syndrome in three basic areas ? social interactions, communication and imagination. The second chapter describes individual elements of social skills. The next part is devoted to the period of older school age (pubescence), first at a general level, and then focusing on particular specifics of adolescent children with Asperger's syndrome. The final chapter highlights the increased risk of bullying for these children. The next part of my Bachelor work describes the research method which was used for this work. Social skills training for children with a mental handicap, with an extended scope of activity for caring for people with autistic spectrum disorder, was carried out at the České Budějovice SPC in Štítného Street. The selected group comprised of four clients with Asperger's syndrome who attend the second stage of the primary school in České Budějovice. The work characterises this group as well as individual clients. The practical part describes the course of each training session and reflection of the selected group. Finally I included a discussion with two parents of the children who attended the group training of social skills at SPC. During my work with the target group I realised that group training has its pros and cons and it is not always suitable for every client ? not every client is able to work in a group and individual training may be more convenient. The individuality of every client must be taken into account when creating the group. During group training with the target group I detected certain difficulties and dangers which this form of training brings, e.g. the variety of the group, an irregular number of clients, the increased number of hours with increased demands in lessons at the second stage of primary school, the different interests and demands of individual motivation for each client. Each client needs an individual method of motivation.
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