The Autism Society Event and Education Recordings Archive

We are teaching students with special needs how to be social beings via the use of avatars, language based scripts, and formal social skills instruction. Schools and professionals are hearing from parents that what they want most is for their child to have a friend, not just complete math calculations. Social learning has throughout the years been secondary to academic learning and behavior programming. This view appears to be changing. Historically, social skills training was boring! Students were required to complete worksheets and practice skills through role play. Avatars on the other hand are interesting, exciting, and most importantly fun. SiLAS was created to promote student interest and to ensure learning and carry over.

In a recent study at Princeton University, the researcher stated, "Comparing SiLAS with a paper-and-pencil social skills class, I found that SiLAS resulted in far greater improvement in social skills. The students continued to exhibit improved social skills three months after classes had ended. Not only did SiLAS parents observe improved social skills in their children, but they were also satisfied with the skills their children learned. SiLAS leads to improved generalization of social skills, allows children to practice their skills in a variety of safe contexts, and offers a great deal of promise for social skills instruction for children with autism."

The session will include a live demonstration of the SiLAS learning system and time will be included for Q & A and a discussion with session participants.

Learning Objectives

Participants who attend this presentation will be able to:

1. Identify and refer children who have social language disorders.

2. Gain an understanding of what a social language disorder is! Who it affects, how we diagnosis SLD and what options we have therapeutically.

3. Gain an understanding of alternative computer/technology based programs like SiLAS as opposed to paper and pencil programs.

4. Identify the advantages of using computer/technology based programs to motivate special needs students to learn to be social and to carryover those skills into real life.