Cognitive behavioral therapy was developed originally not for children, but for educated adults. Over time, child psychotherapists have incorporated various refinements to make CBT accessible and useful for children.
This 5–part series pulls together some of my own efforts to make CBT as helpful as possible for young people.
The titles for each part are listed below. Read them in order or select any one by clicking on the link.
Boys and teen boys with autism often have a hard time knowing how to interact with peers.
This is especially noticeable when they are interacting with female peers and trying to comprehend female youth culture. There are many ways to help boys with ASD to increase their knowledge about girls. One way is to use girls’ magazines as learning resources, which I explain in detail later in this article.
Reasons why boys with ASD often lack awareness regarding females
Boys with autism may experience obstacles to social contact with females outside their families. This may be the result of rejection by neurotypical peers or avoidance originating from the autistic boys themselves. Boys with autism might be disdainful of girls, considering them somehow foreign or “weird.” Boys with ASD might feel confused or disturbed by emerging feelings of attraction to girls, which can in turn lead some boys to distance themselves from girls. And finally, boys on the spectrum often have considerable exposure to false, misleading or outright harmful depictions of females through digital media. (See screen shot below as an illustration of this)
Boys routinely view objectified, confusing or just plain harmful female images online. The sexualized girl depictions shown above are quite mild compared to other material boys commonly view in videos.
Resources I have already created to expand awareness of females
Years ago, I created two other free resources, Talk to Family Picture Sheets, which are to help children with autism to explore the interests of family members of any gender, and Helping Teen Boys Relate to Girls. The resource described in this article here involves something you purchase or somehow acquire on your own – illustrated magazines or books that are created for girls rather than for boys.
About using girl magazines to help autistic boys learn more about girls
Until just a few years ago, many tween and teen girls regularly purchased and read teen magazines. These magazines are much less common these days now that girls consume popular culture primarily through digital media. However, some good girls’ magazines are still published, such as Girls Life and Teen Vogue. Other fine magazines no longer published, like American Girl, are easily available for purchase second hand. You can get them in large lots, for not much money, from eBay, Etsy and other retailers. That is how I acquired most of the magazines I use in my work with autistic boys.
Boys with ASD needing increased awareness regarding girls should have engaging learning materials.
For many years, I have used girls’ magazines with boys individually, as well as in groups and small classrooms, to liven up discussions about girl youth culture. If you are able to get your hands on a small pile of these magazines, I believe you will find them truly useful again and again. Most of the magazines from even as far back as 15 years ago are full of valid references for girl culture and are still quite timely and relevant.
Girls’ magazines vary according to age range, quality and propriety.
Some I would certainly not recommend based on their confusing content or their promotion of problematic aspects of female youth culture. Look over the magazines carefully before you use them in your work. Personally, I have found back issues of American Girl (tweens and younger teens) and Girls Life (older teens) to be very good, as are some current issues of Teen Vogue. There are surely lots of other good magazines out there that I have not seen yet, in the US and other countries, although as I pointed out, printed girls’ magazines are in decline.
Here is an example of a girls’ magazine not appropriate to help boys learn useful information about girls’ popular culture.
An example of an old girls’ magazine NOT likely to be helpful for boys (or girls either – check out the stories).
Some ways to use girl magazines to promote expanded learning about girls
Pass out the magazines and ask questions, such as: “What are some things that girls do when they hang out together?” “What are some girl interests that seem different than common boy interests?” “What are some girl interests that boys often enjoy just like girls do?” “What are some examples of girl interests that seem just like boy interests?” “What are some girl interests that seem to change as girls get older?”
Girls Life is for older teens. American Girl is for tweens and younger teens. I have used both of these publications a lot in my work with boys.
An example of an article featuring an issue very relevant to social skills training for young people on the spectrum.
Check out the “Help” sections of girl magazines and read the questions posed by girl readers. This is one of my favorite learning activities. It provides fascinating insights into the lives of girls, revealing their unique girl concerns as well as generic youth problems which boys with ASD might also experience. You can pose questions such as: “What are some things that might make a girl sad?” “What are some things that might make a girl worried? Have you ever felt worried in this same way?”
This magazine is so old that girls actually WROTE LETTERS to the magazine’s mailing address. But much of the content is still timely and relevant.
Girls’ self-help books can be used in a similar manner as a gateway into female youth culture
There are many well-written self-help books for girls. Many of us therapists and teachers keep them around to use with our girl clients and students. These books can also be useful for boys on the spectrum, and they can be employed in much the same way as the magazines.
These are really good books you can use to offer boys insights into the lives of girls. Some may be out of print – there are certainly newer ones out there.
Excerpt from A Girls’ Guide to Sticky Situations. Useful for displaying the thoughts and feelings of female peers.
Page from A Girl’s Guide to Friendship Troubles
Media other than printed media for raising awareness of girl youth culture
There are multitudes of short videos on YouTube and TikTok for teens that are quite helpful. Among those I have used a lot (which are getting out of date now) are videos of teenage girls showing the insides of their closets, and teen girls giving advice on topics such as how to deal with bullying or how to survive as a high school freshman. (See screen shots below). Once you find your own “go-to” videos in which teen girls are actually talking about their lives, interests and struggles, it will provide remarkable learning opportunities for boys with ASD.
Two girls on YouTube offering social advice on surviving as a freshman in high school.
Girl offering a tour of her closet – clothes, purses, video games, art. I have shown this many times and boys always find it fascinating.
Carefully selected magazines, books and videos can provide windows into the world of girls for the boys we work with.
This can provide boys with invaluable insights and help to clear up confusing and distorted information they get from other sources. For therapists, speech pathologists and special education teachers, these magazines, books and videos can make our social skills work with boys on the autism spectrum more effective.
I have a kit of instructional panels and q and a cards for teen boys to learn more about interacting with girls. Click HERE to access these free materials.
I am an amateur (not at all accomplished) guitarist and very untrained singer. I have no musical training and I have not studied music therapy. Nevertheless, in my psychotherapy and social skill training work with young people on the autism spectrum, I have periodically employed music. This article summarizes some of what I do, in case colleagues working in speech, mental health or education might find something worthwhile to try in their own work.
Reasons I sometimes use music in my work
To practice fundamental words and phrases in social communication
Children with ASD often skip over essential elements of conversation such as greetings, goodbyes and words of validation. I have used two kinds of songs to help with this. The first kind of song is kind of a promotion or “advertisement” for an element of speech such as greetings. Here is one example. Click on the picture to view it on YouTube.
A second kind of song for teaching elements of conversation is one that children sing along with me to facilitate practice and memorization.
I believe that many kids on the autism spectrum are unusually good at learning and recalling the repetitive words and phrases in some of these songs. Maybe this is some functional manifestation of delayed echolalia.
Here below is an example is a song I have often used with younger children to help them get used to greeting / saying goodbye and using the names of other children in a social skills group.
The two songs below are to teach and practice what I call words of validation. These are common words to convey interest and maintain reciprocal flow in conversation, and many young people with autism need help mastering language like this.
To facilitate communication exchange within a group
In the hundreds of social skills groups I have run, my most most important task has been to enable the participants to talk with each other and learn about one another. Here is a call and response song I created to help with this.
To promote and reinforce an important message / lesson in therapy
These are songs that I use to focus on central therapy issues. I sing them to the child, or the child can join in if they like. I have often used variations of “If you’re happy and you know it…” to practice identifying emotions and talking about feelings. For children who have become over-enthralled with pretend and fantasy, I made up a song called, “Don’t Let Pretend Get Too Big.”
Here is a song by Cathy Bollinger about eye contact.
I made up this song about tattling many years ago and I use it occasionally.
To break up the routine of therapy and provide respite and levity
We ask our young clients to do really hard work, week after week, often for years. For many of these kids, a little music now and then helps maintain energy and morale.
To increase focus, comfort and commitment during therapy sessions
Many children with ASD have certain songs or music styles they like to listen to repeatedly. I have occasionally encouraged a child to let me play their favorite music in the background while we work during sessions.
Other ways I have used music in my work
Watching social skills song videos
I don’t do this too much myself, preferring instead to make up my own songs. Some videos out there contain good and useful songs, and others are not so great in my opinion, employing overly complex language and annoying features.
Exploring the child’s musical interests to identify strengths and concerns
I have often explored YouTube with young clients to learn more about children’s interests. I have sometimes discovered that my clients have found music that is helpful and inspiring and which furthers my own therapeutic agenda. Occasionally, I have discovered that a child is into music with negative and harmful messages.
When to not use music
If you are someone like me who enjoys music, you need to be careful that you don’t obligate a kid to participate in some musical activity just because it happens to be part of your therapy routine. I put away the guitar the instant any kid shows disinterest or aversion.
What I have not yet tried with music in therapy activities
As I stated in the Introduction, I am not a music therapist. Music therapists do all kinds of things I can’t do and they have all kinds of cool musical equipment to enable children to participate in a variety of meaningful ways. It would be fun and worthwhile to spend time observing music therapists at work with kids on the spectrum.
Conclusion
Whether you are a musician, or an avid musical dabbler like me, you might consider making music a part of your therapy repertoire when you are working with kids on the autism spectrum. It has often been worthwhile for me.
Making the social / emotional skill resource during the session – instead of before – can be very effective.
Children with persistent or complex problems can become weary and demoralized in response to the repetitive approaches we employ to help them. One important way to make the helping process more interesting and engaging is to have the child become directly involved in the creation of therapy resources during the session. With just a little preparation, quite a few of the free resources on this website can be created with some level of assistance by a child during sessions.
Quite a number of the free resources on this website can be created during a session with a child.
When you are co-creating a social skills resource during a session, there are different levels of involvement, depending on the child’s interest, temperament and ability. These include:
*Completion of the whole project, beginning to end, with the adult supervising
*The child decorates or personalized the project in some special way
*The child colors the project or helps to cut it out
*The child gets to do the “fun” part of the project, such as running the laminator
One of the most popular downloads on the website is the Train Conversation Printables. This requires printing, cutting and laminating – all things that a child might help to carry out.
The resource shown above is the Remote Control Channel Changer. Usually, you have the child help to figure out what conversation topics to place on the buttons. The child colors it in, and finally, you laminate it and cut it out.
The resource shown above is one part of Problem and Solution Cards. One way to do this project is to print out blanks which the child can complete during a session. This collaborative project can also be carried out entirely on the computer, in PowerPoint, with drag-and-drop images. That option is advantageous if you don’t have much prep time or the child does not like to draw.
Shown above are Green Zone Picture Cards. These are two identical sets of conversation topic cards that two people compare to find their “common ground” conversation topics.
Shown above is one of fourteen Paper Fortune Tellers on the website. You can spend a lot of sessions printing these and folding these with children. They cover many topics including conversation practice, play skills and emotional regulation.
Many of the adult / child collaborative therapy projects on the website require no printing at all and are entirely screen based.
An advantage of the screen-based projects is that there is minimal set-up and clean up. Another advantage is that lots of children like to involve a computer during sessions. The very easy project shown above is Create Your Own PowerPoint Social Skills Game.
I hope you find some of these strategies useful in your own work.
Children’s books by Joel Shaul translated into other languages
Other publishers have been granted translation rights to most of Joel Shaul’s books.
The Conversation Train is available in Mandarin, published by Huaxia Publishing House; in French, published by Autisme Diffusion; published in Polish by Wydawnictwo Harmonia.
The Green Zone ConversationBook is available in Mandarin, published by Huaxia Publishing House; in French, published by Autisme Diffusion; published in Polish by Wydawnictwo Harmonia.
Our Brains are Like Computers! is published in Mandarin by Huaxia Publishing House.
The ASD Feel Better Book is published in Japanese by Japan UNI Agency, Tokyo.
Greetings, saying goodbye and social skills training for children with autism
Teachers and therapists work hard to raise young people’s awareness of how and when to begin and end conversations. My free Train Conversation Kits can be helpful to teach these skills.
There is a different and more complicated set of conversation skills involved in saying a “long goodbye,” when one is taking leave of another person they might not see for a long time – or ever. In my own experience, young people with ASD’s find “long goodbyes” stressful and confusing, and they are usually very open to advice and role play practice. I have often used this “long goodbye” rubric on occasions when I am ending therapy with a child or helping groups of young people say farewell to one another following a summer program.
This 5-page pdf download includes:
*A rubric sheet for conventional Short Goodbyes
*A sheet with a brief description of Long Goodbyes with examples of when they occur
*A summary of the 4 steps involved in carrying out a Long Goodbye
*A practice fill-in sheet for a child to write down a Long Goodbye
*An explanation page for step 2 in Long Goodbyes (the most difficult step) in which one says, “I’ll always remember…”
