To re social skills group

[Guest guest]

Dear ,

How did you start this social skills group? We found out about a social

skills group for teenagers with Asperger's syndrome run by a nearby

psychologist and enrolled Owen, but after about four months I don't see any

positive results. The group consists of two girls with Asperger's and one

boy besides Owen. All of them have better social skills than he does (at

least they respond when I say hello to them), and the boy, , seems to

have a real rapport with Owen. But the way the group is run, from the

little I can find out (they have all been told that discussions within the

group are confidential, so Owen takes this literally and does not tell me

anything), is that the kids talk about topics any group of teenagers would

talk about if guided by a therapist -- college plans, dating (!!apparently

this subject upset all of them), proper etiquette, etc. I feel more and

more as if Owen doesn't look forward to group meetings, and one of the girls

seems to have decided that he is really weird, and doesn't hesitate to let

me and him know. When I come to pick Owen up after the group meets, he

often is standing as far away from the other kids as he can, or actually

going to another floor of the building. If I stop to exchange a few words

with the parents, he starts making weird birdlike noises. Because he also

makes these noises during group meetings, his psychologist recently called

me and said she thinks he has Tourette's syndrome and would benefit from

medication. I called his neurologist at her suggestion, and the neurologist

said that she didn't see any need for medication (especially not the drugs

that are typically prescribed for it, which are anti-psychotics) and that if

he had gotten this far without it, she didn't think it made sense now. My

friends who know Owen well also scoff at the idea that he has Tourette's

syndrome, since he never makes weird noises around them.

I would like to start a smaller group consisting of perhaps Owen and

and any other boys with Asperger's I can find. I don't think girls with

Asperger's act much like Asperger boys or have the same concerns, but maybe

this is just because of the small sample I know -- consisting of these two

girls and one other.

So how did you go about it?

Jill

[Guest guest]

This sounds like a social group, as opposed to a social SKILLS group.

attended social skills, and it was very structured. One skill per session.

An example of a skill is " listening " . I have a bunch of sheets on it

somewhere. Will have to dig them out and make a post on it ...

/ 4makelas@...

Way, Way Up in Northern Ontario

----- Original Message -----

From: <RNMOM72668@...>

The way it got started was a new family moved down the

> block from me, she has a son with HFA and a son with AS. Her son and my

son were

> really different, but we decided to start a social group together, we met

for

> lunch and went from there.

[Guest guest]

In a message dated 12/19/2003 5:01:38 PM Eastern Standard Time,

4makelas@... writes:

This sounds like a social group, as opposed to a social SKILLS group.

attended social skills, and it was very structured. One skill per session.

An example of a skill is " listening " . I have a bunch of sheets on it

somewhere. Will have to dig them out and make a post on it ...

IT is a social skills group as well, we teach them social skills

such as how to properly go food shopping how to get along while playing games

ect.. ation we just do it in a fun way. And at least we are not paying

big bucks too some professional who states they are doing a social skills group

only to have the kids hate it. And it was the best we could come up with

after all we are mom's first and then social skills teachers second lol.