The Autism Society Event and Education Recordings Archive

Social challenges are associated with autism. In this session, participants learn how to use children’s literature to teach social understanding and to supplement social skills lessons. Participants also learn how to use children's literature to teach peers about autism. This session presents a bibliography of children’s literature that can be used to introduce a range of topics, including emotional management, manners, sharing, cooperation, sportsmanship, teasing, bullying, anger, anxiety, fear, perfectionism, perspective taking, stress management, friendship skills, and autism awareness. Individuals with autism spectrum disorder experience challenges in the areas of reciprocal social interaction skills, communication skills, and/or the presence of stereotyped behavior, interests, and activities. Because many individuals with autism do not learn incidentally from their environments, social skills may need to be taught directly. This session contributes to best practice to advance the field of autism spectrum disorders by introducing participants on how to utilize children’s literature to teach important social concepts.

 The learning objectives from this session include

1. Participants will learn how to use children’s literature to teach social understanding.
2. Participants will learn how to use children’s literature to supplement social skills lessons.
3. Participants will learn how to use children's literature to teach peers in schools about autism.

 Home, school, and community participation involves social interactions and requires the use of social skills and self-regulatory behaviors. Because of the social nature of participation in these environments, individuals with autism may have challenges. Problems with expressive, receptive, verbal, and nonverbal language, as well as the inability to recognize the subtleties of interpersonal communication, make social settings a challenge for individuals on the autism spectrum. In many cases, social skills must be taught directly and explicitly for individuals with autism to succeed socially. A major challenge of many individuals on the spectrum is understanding and dealing with people and social situations. This understanding is referred to as social cognition. One strategy that can be utilized to teach social understanding is children’s literature.

 Using children's literature to teach social skills has many benefits.

1. Social skill lessons can be embedded in the content presented in children’s stories.
2. As a teaching tool, stories provide creative and easy introductions to a wide array of topics.
3. Stories can be used to supplement social skills lessons
4. Reading a story provides relevant examples of how to use skills and what to do during social interactions.
5. Children’s literature can provide examples for discussion, activities, writing, and models for skills practice.
6. A story can provide social understanding about situations.
7. With a story, students may be able to relate to the character’s emotions and perspectives.
8. Stories encourage students to pay attention to their own behaviors and actions.
9. Students who enjoy stories are more motivated to learn.
10. Reading stories is fun and pleasurable for many and may not appear to be a typical lesson, but viewed as a leisure activity during class.
11. Reading to students can increase literacy, vocabulary, and listening comprehension.

 There are many books about autism written for individuals of all ages. This presentation references books that provide a positive portrayal of individuals with autism. This session presents a bibliography of children’s literature that can be used to introduce students to a range of topics including emotional management, manners, sharing, cooperation, sportsmanship, teasing, bullying, anger, anxiety, fear, perfectionism, perspective taking, stress management, and friendship skills. Using children's literature can be an effective tool to increase motivation and generalization of social skills. Children's literature provides an opportunity to increase language skills through activities that might include writing, additional reading, and practicing social skills taught directly in class.

 Additionally, this session will discuss how to use children’s literature to increase autism awareness with peers. Ideas will be shared for each grade level for elementary grades K – 5 on how to incorporate children’s literature to teach lessons about autism spectrum disorders.

 This will be an interactive session presented via a professional powerpoint. This powerpoint will include many examples of children’s literature. The handout available online for this presentation will include a children’s literature reference list. In addition, the presenter will have examples of lots of children’s books for participants to look at. The presenter is not an author of any of these books and is not affiliated with any of the authors or publishers. This session will be interactive in that participants will be asked if they have additional suggestions of children’s books as each section is presented.

 This session will contribute to an educator’s tool kit and should be considered for continuing education credit.

Learning Objectives: