Growing Friendships: a free comic for autistic children, with 8 activity sheets
Click HERE to download these resources from the Aide Canada website.
Growing Friendships: A Comic for Autistic Children
Illustrated by Elsbeth Dodman. Written by Joel Shaul, Fakhri Shafai & Elsbeth Dodman
Here is a fine, free comic made available for download by Aide Canada. It is inspired by a free card activity on my website, Friendship Growing Cards. There are some great activity sheets to use in combination with the comic book.
Here are some excerpts.
Growing plants is a useful metaphor for “growing friendships.”
You can show the comic on a computer screen to one child or a small group. Its high-definition images and text can also be projected or shown on a smart board.
Although the comic is designed to be viewed on a screen, it is possible to print the individual pages.
The eight activity pages are very useful to explore the particular ways children are affected by the matter of friendship. The sheets are designed to allow both short answers in written format and simple drawings.
Friendship Growing Cards, which can be printed or else shown on computer screens, add a game-like element to this social skills learning activity and may be used in conjunction with the comic.
I hope you find this collaboration with Aide Canada helpful. And I thank Aide Canada for making this free resource available to you.
Joel Shaul
Hebrew translations of free resources
Part 4: Coloring & decorating to add interest & levity to social & emotional learning.
Doing coloring during therapy activities can be beneficial in several ways.
In Part 2 and Part 3 in this series, I described ways that drawing can be used to help social emotional learning in various ways. In this following section, I provide examples and explanation regarding a rather different use of crayons, pencils and markers – coloring and decorating – and how this can enhance our therapy initiatives.
Coloring and decorating might seem like pointless and distracting activities to encourage in a therapy setting. But when used periodically and strategically, coloring can help a child to relax, focus on a therapy task and prolong their attention to an issue of concern during the session. Having the child color or decorate a therapeutic tool has the potential to personalize the task and to help a child to increase investment and commitment to the work.
Here are some examples of therapeutic coloring from my free downloads and from one of my children’s books.
The Self-Control and Problem Fixer
This text on this customizable resource is typed into textboxes on the free download. You assist the child with this at the computer, acting as advisor and “secretary.” After you print it and help the child to cut it out, the child picks out colors and shades the background. This coloring portion can be time consuming, but it affords you, the therapist, a very good opportunity to discuss therapy issues while the child is looking downward, relaxing and coloring.
Remote control channel changer for conversation topics
The Remote Control Channel Changer looks like the Problem Fixer shown above, but it has an entirely different function – to help raise a child’s awareness of diverse conversation topics. Each of the ten central buttons is blank to begin with and then you fill them in with the child. The free download provides a PowerPoint option in which each button contains a small text box. You and the child type in topics while seated at the computer together.
After you print it and help cut it out, the child colors it in. This provides a relaxed occasion to try out some of the conversation topics listed on the buttons.
Anime emotion cards and coloring worksheets
In my extensive experience using these resources in my own work, nearly all young people on the spectrum, from young child to young adult, elect to color these when given the option of coloring or not coloring. Some adjust the skin tones to more closely resemble their own skin color.
These arrows are components of the Customizable Behavior Meters resource featuring the option of coloring. I include this small example here to emphasize the value of allowing the child to personalize the therapy tools we employ, even in little ways like this, to enhance their own commitment to the work.
Train coloring pages from The Conversation Train Book (2014 Jessica Kingsley Publishers)
This is a page from my book that uses the parts of a train to represent the different parts of conversation.
The next in this series: Part 5: Creative use of others’ images and AI for social & emotional learning.
Joel Shaul, LCSW
Part 2: Assigning individual drawing tasks for social & emotional learning.
Part 3: Assigning collaborative drawing tasks for social learning.
Part 4: Coloring & decorating to add interest & levity to social & emotional learning.
Part 5: Creative use of others’ images and AI for social & emotional learning.
Part 6: Encouraging & validating the child’s own artistic expression in therapy & teaching.
Part 3: Assigning collaborative drawing tasks for social learning.
So many autistic children love to draw. Doing art with others is new to most of them.
Here are some art projects that emphasize the social potential of art – children showing their art, enjoying others’ creations and working together on various creative endeavors. Some examples shown below are projects that you organize from scratch yourself. Others are facilitated by free downloads from my website.
Autistic kids who enjoy creating art may be accustomed to doing so entirely alone – which of course is fine! However, they may have limited experience with the many ways that people can be creative in social contexts, viewing other people’s work and even collaborating on art projects.
In section A, I describe four art projects to put together on your own, each with a different social component.
In section B, I describe four socially collaborative projects that make use of my free downloads.
Section A: Four social component art projects for you to put together on your own.
Facilitating interaction between children drawing together
Children accustomed to drawing alone might take little notice of other children nearby and what they are doing.
An adult’s careful and tactful social coaching has the potential to transform this solitary, parallel play scenario into a more interactive experience. One way is to offer verbal prompts to offer a comment, compliment or question regarding another child’s drawing. Another way to do this is to set a timer to go off every few minutes, at which point each participant has to stop drawing, take stock of what others are doing, and make some comments or compliments. In both cases, providing simple written scripts nearby for children to refer to (if they read) can be very helpful (see the verbal prompt example below).
Organizing an art collection featuring individual works by members of a group or classroom
I often facilitated projects like this at a summer teen program that I ran for some years. With groups of teens that included many who enjoyed drawing, it was a favorite activity and really helped some solitary autistic artists to more fully appreciate the creativity of their peers.
Collaborative sign coloring project
The first step of this project is for you to prepare a number of separate pages featuring the outlines of letters comprising the words you want to display on the wall of your classroom, office, social group room, etc. You can draw the letter outlines by hand, or else type them on your computer.
If you do it on your computer, I suggest you select the font “Impact,” configuring the letters in white with a black outline. Make each letter take up one full sheet of paper.
Each child is assigned to color and decorate one letter. When you finally assemble the letters to make the sign, it creates a sort of entry-level collaborative art project.
I used this project often in social skills groups and a summer teen program.
Assigning a few children to create a unified drawing together in the same space
This is a fun project, but also challenging and potentially very frustrating for young people on the autism spectrum. It’s very worthwhile provided you set it up carefully and offer coaching and troubleshooting from beginning to end.
After clearly describing the scope of the assignment, you should post written rules that include language children should use and not use with one another while working together. It’s also worthwhile to enact instructive role plays in which you, the teacher/therapist, demonstrate “right” and “wrong” ways to verbally interact in a collaborative activity.
The finished project could end up looking something like these pictures below.
Section B: Four collaborative art projects using free downloads from the website
This download comes with the worksheet and the rule sheet below.
If your young clients like drawing the pizza, there is a another very similar project for you to try, Draw a Cookie with a Partner.
Groupworld project for three or more children or teens
This is a more involved project involving both writing and drawing. The adult facilitator will need to get involved to a significant extent to mediate and keep the work collaborative. It’s easy for this activity to dissolve into a bunch of kids drawing and writing apart from one another, quite disengaged from their peers.
This free download provides several kinds of puzzle templates which, when completed, allow the participants to put together a puzzle representing the connection of their interests. It’s a great activity, but be advised that you will need to cut out the puzzle pieces in advance and that is time-consuming.
The next in this series is: Part 4: Coloring & decorating to add interest & levity to social & emotional learning.
Joel Shaul, LCSW
Part 2: Assigning individual drawing tasks for social & emotional learning.
Part 3: Assigning collaborative drawing tasks for social learning.
Part 4: Coloring & decorating to add interest & levity to social & emotional learning.
Part 5: Creative use of others’ images and AI for social & emotional learning.
Part 6: Encouraging & validating the child’s own artistic expression in therapy & teaching.
Part 1: Reasons to use art in social & emotional teaching. Some guiding principles & professional concerns.
Some reasons to use art
A. Art can add levity and variety to social-emotional learning.
By the time young people with ASD find themselves in our offices and classrooms, they may have experienced a lot of stress, confusion and disappointment with their social and emotional learning. Incorporating some art into our therapy and teaching activities can be one good way to make this difficult work fresh and interesting for many of them.
B. Incorporating art into therapy activities can help to reduce emphasis on spoken exchange in our counseling and teaching.
For many young people with autism, uninterrupted, reciprocal spoken exchange – especially face-to-face – can cause fatigue and resistance.
Having the child look downwards towards a therapeutic art project, rather than constantly upward to meet the adult’s gaze, can actually have the effect of increasing focus and stamina.
C. Artistic expression can enhance self-revelation and self-reflection.
We often ask children to do hard and painful work in our therapy sessions. Our queries about their problems must feel like relentless interrogation sometimes. Furthermore, the thoughts and feelings we ask children to reveal might be challenging to articulate or uncomfortable for them to put into spoken words. Drawing and coloring offer children other ways to communicate with us.
D. Drawing and coloring are activities which in themselves can be calming and centering for many people.
Helping children to feel good and relaxed during our sessions with them can help them get ready to talk about problems. I have often seen young people in individual or group therapy calm themselves while coloring and drawing. Frequently, while holding crayons, markers and colored pencils, they seem more amenable to talking about things that are troubling them.
E. Artistic expression can offer a medium for collaboration and connection.
Employing creative expression can help a child to work more effectively with an adult.
Introducing even a little bit of drawing, coloring or cutting something out can help a child to feel engaged with therapy activities introduced by the adult.
Facilitating art activities can connect socially isolated children with other people.
In my group therapy sessions and classroom interventions, I have often observed children forming social and emotional bonds while looking at the drawings and artistic creations of other young people. Helping children to show their art to others can facilitate social connections for autistic youth, many of whom are accustomed to doing their art entirely in private.
Facilitating collaborative art activities can strengthen perspective taking and working with others.
Coaching autistic children while they are working on creative group projects can help them acquire valuable experience in understanding other points of view and creative preferences.
Principles & professional practices when using art in social-emotional teaching
A. Maintain focus on your therapeutic agenda.
Therapy activities involving art should always have therapeutic benefit – that is, they should all work towards promotion of improved social communication, interaction and emotional regulation.Our art-based activities should focus attention on the therapy, and if drawing and coloring is merely diverting, it’s best to switch methods. Although it may be useful on occasion to use an art activity as a reward, as a rule a therapist or teacher should avoid doing art just for fun or to “kill time.” Above all, we should resist the temptation to assign art activities just because kids find it enjoyable or because we happen to find their art interesting or endearing.
B. Facilitate artistic expression. Don’t force it.
Usually it’s best to provide the options of drawing, or writing, or both. Here is an example below. The person using the CBT Worksheets shown here can draw in the face outline or leave it blank.
Since an art-based intervention might not work out, we should always be prepared with back-up activities that do not emphasize artistic expression.
C. Account for ability levels and preferences.
Allow for different kinds of intelligence, dexterity, drawing ability, writing ability.
Take into account the age level of participants, but don’t dismiss activities that might be perceived as too juvenile by neurotypical youth. Autistic teens and even young adults might accept and greatly benefit from activities that neurotypical teens might consider too “childish.”
D. Respect privacy and authorship.
Avoid sharing, distributing or posting a child’s art unless you have the child’s permission, a parent’s permission and a valid therapeutic reason for sharing the art.
The next in this series is: Part 2: Assigning individual drawing tasks for social & emotional learning.
Joel Shaul, LCSW
Part 2: Assigning individual drawing tasks for social & emotional learning.
Part 3: Assigning collaborative drawing tasks for social learning.
Part 4: Coloring & decorating to add interest & levity to social & emotional learning.
Part 5: Creative use of others’ images and AI for social & emotional learning.
Part 6: Encouraging & validating the child’s own artistic expression in therapy & teaching.
Part 2: Workplace preparation printable teaching panels
Workplace preparation panels, Hebrew translation
This set of 10 simply-designed teaching panels is designed for individual or group work as well as small classroom work. This resource is to help guide teaching/therapy and provide structure for essential points of discussion with regard to getting ready for the workplace. The panels may also be suitable for wall display.
Projecting the pdf display or showing it on a Smart Board is a useful way to guide group discussion on the topic of vocational preparation.
This first pair of teaching panels concerns typical thoughts that can discourage young people with autism who are contemplating the prospect of work.
Our aim should not be to gloss over real challenges and obstacles – young people with autism may have many – but rather, to reduce the debilitating potential of some exaggerated or unsubstantiated concerns.
If you want to explore further regarding automatic negative thoughts, you might check out this short video and these CBT thought bubble materials.
Many people with autism are successful in work, but aversion to changes in expectations and routines can hit them hard, especially at first.
If you would like to broaden your discussion of rigidity, you could check out this video on rigidity or these Rigidity/Flexibility Cards.
Young people with autism are familiar with hierarchies in their homes and schools, but when entering the workplace, they might be confused with new and complex systems of authority and accountability. You might wish to reference portions of this simple and visual guide to hierarchies based on moveable sticky notes.
Please reference the videos and learning materials in Section 4 of this series, which is all about job interviews.
YouTube videos by autistic people about their own job preparation and interview strategies are a rich source of practical advice and inspiration – also reference in Section 4.
Quite a lot of the advice to young workers would of course apply to everyone – not just young people on the autism spectrum.
This resource is designed to be used with other materials you may access below.
Joel Shaul, LCSW
Intro: Workplace preparation resources for young people with ASD
Part 2: Workplace preparation – printable teaching panels
Part 3: Workplace preparation – Q & A cards
Part 4: Job interview skills – how to teach it and provide practice
Part 5: Tailoring CBT methods & media to the individual
Our aim in doing CBT with children should be to extract helpful and useful methods from CBT concepts. The children we see vary a great deal in age, intellect, temperament and predilections, so we should avoid getting locked into CBT treatment practices that are too rigid. As much as possible, we should allow our interventions to be shaped by the individual child we are treating.
Factors one should consider when selecting psychotherapy tools for children
There are so many different things to be considered when planning therapy interventions. Here are some factors I have thought of, along with examples of resources I have developed in an effort to accommodate different learning styles. Although I do quite frequently employ resources developed by others in the field, in this article I am primarily displaying resources I have developed myself, available for free download or in my books.
Attention span
Many children need frequent, positive prompting to stay focused. Some benefit from token prompts, like the ones shown below.
Preference to face towards therapist directly vs. indirectly
Many children, especially children with autism, have a limited capacity to look directly towards the therapist. It can really help to arrange for both you to direct gaze towards something in between both of you. The example shown below is a laptop with one of my CBT videos on the screen.
Levels of intellect, education, language comprehension and reading ability
It is easy for us to end up confusing our young clients with our language and concepts. There are some resources available that are simple, appealing and very helpful. An example, shown below, is a screen shot from one of the hundreds of Everyday Speech Videos.
Special interests
Many children, especially children with autism, are strongly motivated by therapy content that references their particular interests. For example, a child with an interest in Godzilla movies could be reinforced by an anger management activity that involves drawing Godzilla.
Ability to remain seated vs. need to stand and move around
In my own work years ago in a community-based summer teen program for kids with autism, we sometimes did CBT-based activities in small groups while standing. In one such activity, I spread CBT Thought Bubbles all over the floor and asked the participants to walk around and match up “Poison Thoughts” with corresponding “Antidote Thoughts.”
Receptivity to information and instruction coming from a computer screen
Many children are strongly conditioned to pay close attention to information presented on a computer screen. We therapists sometimes overvalue our spoken words. Most kids, and not just the ones with ASD, often consider information viewed on a screen as somehow more noteworthy that the same thing viewed in the “real world.”
For that reason, quite a few of the CBT activities on my website can be accessed in both printable and screen-based versions. One example is the Mint New Thoughts activity, in which “Old Thought” play money is torn up or shredded and then replaced with “New Thought” money. When I later made it available in an animated, screen-based version, most of my clients came to prefer it that way. See the example below – check out the short YouTube demo.
Preference / need for having something in their hands
Quite a few of the children I have seen in therapy, especially children on the autism spectrum, need to be holding something while they are talking with me. I have spent a lot of time creating things for them to hold which are related to our therapy work. An example, shown below, is one of three CBT-themed paper fortune tellers on my website.
Aversion to prolonged out-loud verbal interaction with the therapist
Many children, most notably ones with ASD, need to be offered productive alternatives to merely talking in therapy sessions. Many children highly value activities in session in which the therapist is saying relatively little while the child works on something meaningful. Below are two worksheets that go along with the Emotional Thermometer download from this website. These simple sheets can expedite an inquiry while affording the child a chance to not hear the therapist talk for a little while. Many children will in fact express things by writing, circling or drawing that they would be averse to saying aloud.
Preference for tangible product of the therapy session
Many children value doing and making things in therapy sessions more than talking about them. The image below shows a “board game” similar to ones I have made with children in therapy sessions. You create these in PowerPoint and after you play the game with the kid, you can print it out, or email it to the child’s home, if the child feels this would be helpful.
Need for family participation to generalize learning
Most of the kids we see in therapy will need to follow up at home with real-world practice. If children want or need parental involvement, then it helps if the tangible product of the session is something the child can actually help show and explain to the parents. Below is a mock-up of the sort of email one might send in these kinds of situations.
I wish you success with your own CBT interventions with children.
Joel Shaul
Click on links below to access other parts of this series on CBT refinements for children.
Intro: Refinements to Make CBT Better Suited for Kids [link]
Part 1: About CBT YouTube Videos & How to Use Them [link]
Part 2: CBT Token Systems – CBT Cards, a Free Download [link]
Part 3: More CBT Token Systems – Using Mr. Yuk Stickers [link]
Part 4: Creating Thought “Enemies” and “Heroes” in Child CBT [link]
Part 5: Tailoring CBT Methods & Media to the Individual [link]
Intro: Refinements to help make CBT better suited for kids
Refinements to make CBT better suited for kids
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.
Intro: Refinements to Make CBT Better Suited for Kids [link]
Part 1: About CBT YouTube Videos & How to Use Them [link]
Part 2: CBT Token Systems – CBT Cards, a Free Download [link]
Part 3: More CBT Token Systems – Using Mr. Yuk Stickers [link]
Part 4: Creating Thought “Enemies” and “Heroes” in Child CBT [link]
Part 5: Tailoring CBT Methods & Media to the Individual [link]
Role play practice in social skills work for children with ASD. How to do them. Free printables to help.
Role playing is an essential social skills training method when we are working with young people on the autism spectrum. Most of us probably employ them often in our work. But years ago when I was learning how to use role plays, I muddled through it on my own, and if there was anything out there that instructed professionals how to do role plays, I was unaware of it.
Here is a summary of using role plays for social skills training, with links to free download resources which support the use of role plays.
When we are teaching young people with autism what to say and do in social situations, we should never just expect them to implement this learning on their own. They need to practice it in a safe setting where they can be coached, guided and encouraged.
We should be doing role playing often enough in our work that our clients expect it. I have a few clients who actually ask for it.
A simple role play set-up can be carried out by printing these How Was Your Day? script sheets and then following the prompts, with both you and the child being yourselves.
In my own work, my clients are accustomed to me saying things like, “Okay, I am going to play the role of Maria, a girl in your lunchroom.” You might assume that children with autism are too concrete to allow this, but actually that is seldom the case.
When you are setting up role plays like this, make your own role as executive director clear. A fun accessory is this free download to create a “Director” lanyard for you to wear when you are running the role plays.
Here is a guide to using puppets in teletherapy – something you really should try if you do teletherapy.
On my website, I have a great many written scripts to help guide role plays. Shown above is part of a free download on empathy / showing concern skills. A related empathy kit sets up role plays with pictures and brief scenario descriptions.
Don’t worry if you are kind of a bad singer (like me). Here is a short YouTube video in which I demonstrate a simple demo of useful language to “script” for showing concern for another person.
Everyday Speech Videos are invaluable for setting up role plays. You get them via subscription – they are well worth the cost. Here is a free sample on YouTube.
It is very useful for the adult to show what the incorrect social response looks and sounds like. Don’t have the child do it – just you, for instructional purposes. The image above is from a set of illustrated social skills print-outs on dealing with losing and disappointment.
Children receiving social skills training get sick of being scrutinized, criticized and corrected by adults all the time. They always appreciate the opportunity to be the “expert” and point out flaws in somebody else. There are no downsides to using this technique – I do it all the time in my own work.
The scripts shown above are Validation Word Prompts and Question, Compliment and Friendly Comment prompts (go to page 8 of download).
Other common gestural prompts include the one for “Cut!” and the one-handed gesture signalling “That’s enough…wrap up what you’re saying.”
The resources shown above are Volume Meters and Compliment Picture Word Prompts.
It might sound strange if you have never tried it, but it can be very engaging and effective to conduct role pays at the same time you manipulating objects between the role play participants, or having them move the objects themselves. The balance is an extremely useful, moveable prompt for reciprocal role plays. I explain how to use it here. The Train Conversation Printable Kit is used to map out a conversation in real time while it is happening, with beginning, ending, changing topics and “off track.” The picture cards shown are two pairs of matching 23-card decks which two conversation participants use to compare interests and find common ground (Green Zone Picture Card Activity).
You can use token prompts in a variety of ways in role plays. For example, if you are trying to get a child to practice hellos and goodbyes, or give compliments, you could hand out these free downloadable money tokens.
I shoot video and replay video all the time in my sessions. It almost always makes role play work better. Most young people like it a lot. I honestly cannot figure out why other clinicians don’t use video cameras very much these days, except to avoid having to fill out permission forms and so forth.
I have a very good tutorial on using video cameras, and some nice download accessories, on this website.
Many of the card game activities on my website have role plays built into the game. One of them, Fix the Problem Game, is shown above.
I hope this information, and these resources, helps to make your role play work engaging and productive.
Joel Shaul, LCSW