ASA's 36th National Conference on Autism Spectrum Disorders (July 13-16, 2005)

All children want friends, to play and to feel accepted by their peer group. Making friends for children with autism can be a difficult task since they often lack the social skills needed to achieve their goal. However, their lack of skills should never be confused with a lack of desire. All children regardless of their unique challenges or gifts have the intrinsic need to play and make friends. Children with autism are no different - they just express this need differently.

The key to friendships for children with autism is to build awareness by building understanding, acceptance and empathy in peers, siblings and classmates in an age-appropriate and sensitive manner. The goal of the Friend 2 Friend Program is to help all children and especially those with autism spectrum and related social communication disorders develop to the best of their abilities through the play and socialization that results from these friendships.

Importance of Friendships What do we remember most about school? Our friends! For all children, friendships and peer relationships are one of the motivating factors for getting up in the morning and going to school. Imagine what it must be like for children with ASD when no one asks them to play at recess, to sit beside them at assembly, to go home with them after school, or to celebrate a peer's birthday party? The most significant and memorable events a child will experience will include making a new friend, and attending a friend's birthday celebration.

The Challenge: The Social Void Several issues impede the development of mutual friendships for children with autism. First, typically developing children often lack understanding of invisible disabilities such as autism. Second, typically developing children notice the differences between themselves and their peers with autism but are often afraid to ask questions and express their feelings. Third, children with autism know that they are different, causing them to feel excluded from their peer group. Fourth, children with autism often have delayed social skills. All of these factors combine to create a social void between children with autism and their typically developing peer.

All children regardless of their age or developmental level require the correct information to draw conclusions and make decisions about themselves and their peers. By supporting children to understand, accept and empathize with what it feels like to have ASD we are taking to first step towards fostering friendships between children with autism and their peers. And helping all children develop a sense of belonging and acceptance that translates into a healthy self-esteem. Acceptance by one's peers and the friendships that blossom from that acceptance is the starting point for learning and development in all children, especially those with autism.

Features of this Presentation The purpose of this session is to illustrate the practices of the Friend 2 Friend Program that is designed to foster understanding, acceptance, empathy and mutual friendships between children on the autism spectrum and typical peers. In this seminar we will introduce useful tools and techniques for carrying out the practices of the F2F model within home, school and community settings. We will specifically focus on strategies that we have found to be effective in supporting mutual friendships in a wide range of children with ASD and their typical peers, classmates and siblings. Overheads, video, creative artwork, poems and pictures will be featured in this session.

Friend 2 Friend Program The Friend 2 Friend Program is a performance-based awareness and educational program that uses an age-appropriate approach (Puppet Presentation for children ages 3 to 8 and Simulation Game for children ages 9 and up) to promote mutually rewarding friendships between children with autism spectrum and related social-communicative disorders and their peers, classmates and siblings. This is accomplished by providing direct services for children by visiting schools and other community settings to explain the sensory and communication challenges of autism spectrum and related disorders. Using a fun and interactive approach, Friend 2 Friend puppets and volunteer presenters Model, Label, Explain and Normalize the sensory and communication characteristics of autism, while teaching social communication skills needed to interact successfully with their classmates with ASD. With the help of the Friend 2 Friend Program, children enjoy learning about disabilities such as autism spectrum disorder and how they can be an important part of the social success of their classmates.

Friend 2 Friend Program has been featured in publications like North Shore News, The Province, Groundworks Magazine, CBC Afternoon Show, The Quesnel Times and the Vancouver Sun Dec 2004. Friend 2 Friend will also be featured in an upcoming article in the Autism Asperger's Digest Winter 2005. Friend 2 Friend has also been nominated to several community service and innovation awards such as United Ways 2003, Volunteer Vancouver 2004, and Innovation Award (Volunteer Vancouver 2005). “Whether it's a four-year-old pre-school class or a grade 7 class, the children teach us something new very time” (Heather McCracken, Groundworks Magazine)