Neurodiversity Affirming 'Social Skills' Support for Autistic Children - Part 2: What Is and What Isn't Affirming

In this episode, we dive into the specifics of what a Neurodiversity Affirming approach looks like when supporting social interactions for autistic children. The key point is that we do not want to teach neurodivergent children that they need to act more neurotypical. This means all our goals, therapy approaches and resources need to teach that autistic children might be different, and socialise in different (but not wrong) ways to neurotypical kids. We need to stop sending the message that kids are missing social skills... because they DO have social skills, just different perhaps from neurotypical social skills.

We discuss that boundaries can still apply to autistic kids' communication & interactions (it's not OK to hurt others, physically or emotionally!), but we need to pause and think carefully about why we are asking a child to change.

The traditional approach of teaching autistic children that they are wrong, different, and weird in a bad way is not acceptable any more. We talk about the issue with asking children to 'fit in'.

So what should we do? We should focus on truly seeing neurodivergent children for who they are, what they enjoy, and help them be surrounded by people who appreciate them. We should teach self-awareness. We should teach self-advocacy.

Tune in for these ideas and more!

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Links

📝 Free download for parents of autistic and neurodivergent children - ✅ Checklist: How Neurodiversity Affirming is your Child's Team?: https://playlearnchat.ck.page/8c5072e2e7

📝 Free download for therapists and parents of autistic and neurodivergent children - ✅ Checklist: Neurodiversity Affirming Social Support Approaches for Autistic Children: https://playlearnchat.ck.page/1fcf4c5759

👩‍💻 My on-demand webinar 'Affirming Ways to Support Social & Peer Interactions' for therapists and therapy assistants: https://courses.playlearnchat.com/offers/2ARTUmfd/

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