This document outlines training modules for teaching social skills to students with autism spectrum disorders. It discusses how social skills must be explicitly taught through strategies like social scripts, social stories, video modeling, and power cards. These strategies use the student's interests and provide visual supports to teach appropriate behaviors in social situations. Regular practice of the social skills in different settings is important for students to learn the skills.

1. The Basics of Autism
Spectrum Disorders
Training Series
Regional Autism Advisory Council of
Southwest Ohio (RAAC-SWO)
RAAC Training Committee 2011

2. Training Series Modules
 Module One: Autism Defined, Autism Prevalence
and Primary Characteristics
 Module Two: Physical Characteristics of Autism
 Module Three: Cognition and Learning in Autism
 Module Four: Getting the Student Ready to Learn
 Module Five: Structuring the Classroom
Environment
 Module Six: Using Reinforcement in the Classroom

3. Training Series Modules
 Module Seven: Autism and Sensory Differences
 Module Eight: Sensory in the Classroom
 Module Nine: Communication and Autism
 Module Ten: Communication in the Classroom
 Module Eleven: Behavior Challenges and Autism
 Module Twelve: Understanding Behavior in
Students with Autism

4. Training Series Modules
 Module Thirteen: Social Skills in the School
Environment
 Module Fourteen: Functional Behavior Assessment
 Module Fifteen: Working Together as a Team
 Module Sixteen: Autism and Leisure Skills to
Teach
 Module Seventeen: Special Issues of Adolescence
 Module Eighteen: Safety and Autism
 Module Nineteen: Special Issues: High School,
Transition, and Job Readiness

5. Training Series Modules
 Module Twenty: Asperger Syndrome: Managing and
Organizing the Environment
 Module Twenty-One: Asperger Syndrome:
Addressing Social Skills

6. Social Skills
 Typical students learn social skills through natural
development and observation of their peers.
 Students with Autism, however, must be taught
social skills for every environment they will be
participating in.
 We can not assume that students with Autism know
what the social “rules” are in an environment. For
example, students with Autism have to be taught
that when walking up and down the steps at school,
stay on the right side and try not to crowd the
person in front of you.

7. Social Skills
 For students with Autism that are considered “lower
functioning” social skills instruction can include
teaching : 1. taking turns during a game, 2. waiting
their turn, and 3. standing in line.
 For students with Autism that are considered
“higher functioning” social skills instruction can
include teaching: 1. bathroom rules, 2. rules in the
hallway and lockers, 3. rules in the lunchroom, 4.
conversational rules, and 5. recess rules.

8. Big Idea
When a student with Autism is demonstrating
inappropriate social behavior (i.e. yelling out in
class), one must not assume that they are
doing it “on purpose”. We should assume that
the student with Autism does not know that
the social rule for talking in class is to raise
your hand quietly and wait for the teacher to
call on you.

9. Strategies
Strategies for teaching social skills to students with autism
include:
1. Social Scripts
2. Social Stories
3. Video Modeling
4. Power Cards
These strategies should be utilized on a daily basis prior to
the student entering into the social situation the strategy is
targeting. For example if the social skill being targeted is
teaching a student how to walk in the hallway, and the team is
utilizing a social script to do this, the social script should be
read every time before the student goes out into the hallway.

10. Social Scripts
 Provide support and  Social scripts often contain
instruction by describing pictures and/or photographs.
social cues and appropriate
responses to social behavior
and teaching new skills.
 These are written by an
educator.
 Social Scripts match the
reading level of the student
that will be utilizing it.

11. Example of Social Story

12. Example of Social Story

13. Video Modeling
 Students learn how to do something by observing a
video of others doing the desired task, activity, or
behavior.
 Video modeling is proactive. The student watches the
video before the specific activity, task, or behavior
occurs.
 Video modeling can be used to teach a student
expected behaviors in various situations.

14. Power Card
 The Power Card is a visual aid that uses the student’s
interest to help him/her understand social situations,
routines, and expected behaviors.
 The Power Card is the size of a business card or trading
card, contains a picture of the special interest and a
summary of the behavior the student should exhibit in a
specific situation or how to handle a stressful situation.
 The Power Card Strategy consists of a script and a Power
Card.
 The Power Card should be portable, used across multiple
environments, and portable.

15. Example of Power Card
Scenario:
Ben is a 9 year old boy. His special interest is the Cincinnati
Bengals. If Ben does not understand what he is expected to do,
he becomes frustrated, quickly pacing around the room, becoming
verbally aggressive and refusing to listen to what people are trying
to explain.
Using a hero based on his interest (Carson Palmer, the Bengal’s
quarterback), Ben’s Power Card gives him 4 options or appropriate
choices to help him calm down.

16. Carson Palmer wants you to
remember to choose one of the
Power Card following to help you calm down.
Example
Script: Being a quarter back is fun. It is exciting to
play football. Sometimes though, Carson gets
frustrated, especially when he does not understand a
play or what the coach is saying to him. He used to
get upset and yell, but he realized this was not the
best way to handle his frustrations.
Instead he has learned several ways to calm down.
He wants to share these ideas with you. If you get 1. Take 5 deep breaths
upset, just try one of the following. If you are still
upset, try a different one.
2. Close your eyes and count to 20
1. Take 5 deep breaths.
3. Listen to your favorite CD with headphones
on.
2. Close your eyes and count from 1-20.
4. Go to quiet place and look at football
3. Listen to your favorite CD with your
magazines.
headphones on.
4. Go to a quiet place and look at football
magazines.

17. Big Idea
Use the student’s special interests as a
way of motivating him and teaching him
social skills. These skills must be
practiced several times a day, with
different people, and in different
places when they are first being
learned.