Comic Strip Conversations: Illustrated interactions that teach conversation skills to students with autism and related disorders: Improving social ... and other developmental disabilities

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Ask school what supervision your child or young person has during unstructured times. It’s also useful for all support staff to have some autism awareness training, particularly those offering playground support. For example, work in a red tray or file could be urgent, work in a green tray or file could be pending, while work in a blue tray or file is not important or has no timescale attached to it. How to develop a Comic Strip Conversation™ to meet the needs of individual pupils taking into account: Rogers, M. F., & Myles, B. S. (2001). Using social stories and comic strip conversations to interpret social situations for an adolescent with Asperger syndrome. Intervention in School and Clinic, 36(5), 310–313. Ask a range of questions about a specific situation or type of social interaction. The autistic person answers by speaking and drawing their response.

Colours can also help people to distinguish between paperwork, for example different household bills. Gather information about the situation to help to complete the picture and guide your child’s drawings. Some example questions are: Comic strip conversations can help autistic peopleunderstand concepts that they find particularly difficult.People draw as they talkand use these drawings to learn about different social situations. Timmins,Dr.S.(2017)Successful Social Stories for School and College Students with Autism, Jessica Kingsley Publishers Basic symbols to allow a person to express an opinion,egby putting a thumbs down symbol next to that one of today’s activities, to show they didn’t enjoy itCreating or using a social story can help you to understand how the autistic person perceives different situations. Example Social stories™ and comic strip conversations can be a good way of illustrating the consequences of an action. They can help people to understand why it's good to be organised, and what might happen if we don't meet deadlines or attend an activity at a particular time. Find out more about Social stories™ and comic strip conversations.

Here are some ways in which people on the autism spectrum can organise and prioritise daily activities and tasks. At first, other people may need to have a lot of involvement introducing the strategies. You may use the strategies in more than one place, for example at home and at school, so it is important that everyone who is using them - be it family members, employers, teachers or friends - uses them consistently. Social skills or self-esteem lessons can help to boost confidence. These can help autistic children and young people to increase their understanding of social situations, interpret non-verbal signals and practise skills such as turn-taking, listening and negotiating. Classes should be tailored for the pupils who are attending. It is important that your child has identified adults that they can talk to about concerns. Having more than one person will avoid them becoming stressed due to the absence of an identified adult. Visual supports can be used as prompts for your child or young person. For example, they may have a card that reminds them to go to the safe and quiet place if they become anxious. Schools should have a zero tolerance no bullying policy that is consistently enforced. Any incident of bullying must be investigated and pupils should be encouraged to report any kind of intimidating behaviour. Your child should feel comfortable talking about bullying they are experiencing and be confident that action will be taken.Comic strip conversations can be used to plan for a situation in the future that may be causing anxiety or concern, for example an exam or a social event. However, remember that plans can sometimes change.It'simportant to present the information in a way which allows for unexpected changes to a situation. How to make your own comic strip conversation By seeing the different elements of a conversation presented visually, some of the more abstract aspects of social communication (such as recognising the feelings of others) are made more 'concrete' and are therefore easier to understand. Time (how much depends on the child), pencil, colours, paper – use a template if desired. How do you create a comic strip conversation?

Pierson, M. R., & Glaeser, B. C. (2005). Extension of research on social skills training using comic strip conversations to students without autism. Education and Training in Developmental Disabilities, 40(3), 279–284. Homework, assignments and deadlines can cause great anxiety for some people. Others will not register their significance. The following strategiescanhelp: The basic tools are paper and pencils, but you might also usecrayons, coloured pencils and markers.Lists can remind us of the tasks we need to do, and to help us prioritise. Lists can also be a good way of registering achievements (by crossing something off when you've done it), and of reassuring yourself that you're getting things done. Lists can be visual, written, or in the form of a task list app. Some autistic children and young people may not recognise bullying, so it’s important that teaching and support staff observe behaviour in and out of the classroom.

They can make communication physical and consistent, rather than fleeting and inconsistent like spoken words can be. Processing of instructions can be difficult, so it may be useful to use communication books, online learning environments, and voice recordings to reduce the pressure on the student of trying to remember what they are supposed to be doing. Gatherinformation about the person including their age, interests, attention span, level of ability and understanding. Tailor the text Timmins,Dr.S. (2016)Successful Social Stories for Young Children with AutismJessicaKingsley Publishers Many autistic children and young people will have difficulties during unstructured times, but empathy and understanding from others will help.

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Stories should appeal to the interests of the personthey are written forand avoid using words that may cause the person anxiety or distress. The content and presentation of social stories should be appropriate to the person's age and level of understanding. Use age-appropriate photographs, picture symbols or drawings with text to help people who have difficulty reading or for younger children. It’s important that autistic pupils also have the opportunity to interact socially, but use this resource carefully by monitoring the need for and benefit of it with your child regularly.