social skills group - Social Skills Activities for Children with Autism

March 31, 2012July 27, 2026

TALK less and SHOW more: Many kids with autism need fewer words in social skills teaching

Many children with autism spectrum disorders can get bogged down with our spoken teaching. In this blog post, I offer some guidance on how to establish a visual oriented social skills training style for those children on the autism spectrum who appear to favor this modality.If you work a lot with children who have autism spectrum disorders, you have seen the following: A child listens to your words for a short time, and then their brain hits a kind of inner mute button, and your session or lesson is effectively finished.

button created by autistic woman — An autistic woman who at times finds verbal communication overwhelming (her website is shown on the bottom of this button) creates and sells cool jewelry, including buttons featuring visual prompts

There can be a number of reasons for this. We might be using boring words, speaking too fast, using language that is too complex, or neglecting to reference the child’s preferred interests. But a common reason for “losing your audience” in social skills training with kids on the autism spectrum is that many kids with ASD seem to learn better in a visual modality. Temple Grandin is a well-known example of a person with autism who learns visually. She articulates this beautifully in this quote: “When I think about abstract concepts such as relationships with people, I use visual images such as a sliding glass door. Relationships should be approached gently because barging forward too quickly might shatter the door.” (From Teaching Children with Autism, by Kathleen Ann Quail )

Temple Grandin, autistic person with visual learning style — Temple Grandin

There are certainly many children with autism who do not learn in a visual manner like Temple Grandin. But for the ones who do, I believe is important to keep on hand a variety of engaging and meaningful props for your social skills learning activities. Here are a few examples.

For many kids with ASD, our frequent verbal prompts regarding nonverbal factors just become part of the unwanted noise they tune out. But when you keep on hand pictures of eyes, hands, a face and a ruler, and use these as visual prompts during social skills activities, you can get much better attention and retention.

Children with ASD can tune out our words after years and years of verbally prompting to talk less, talk more, stop talking about that, and so forth. For individuals who might be withering under all this scrutiny and badgering, try a social skills teaching approach. This toy balance, available for about 15 dollars online, is terrific for social skills activities to teach reciprocity in conversation and relationships. Learn more about this here.

I invite you to explore dozens of other visual-based, engaging autism social skills training methods on this website.

Here is a one minute video that explains much of this.

Joel Shaul

Your comments on these resources are most welcome, and often helpful. Click HERE to send an email.

March 23, 2012June 27, 2026

Eye contact in children with autism – Times to AVOID it in social skills teaching with kids on the autism spectrum

Teachers, mental health professionals and speech and language therapists all work hard to help children on the autism spectrum to improve their use of face and eye contact. However, when we rigidly insist on eye contact, we actually risk diminishing engagement in our social skill teaching activities.

All of us who are experienced in teaching young people with ASD becomes aware of this dilemma. Children with ASD ought to enhance their orientation towards others strategically in order to get more useful information during conversation. But for so many kids on the autism spectrum, practicing this social skill comes at the price of increased distress and anxiety – and decreased attention to your social skills learning activity!

Brian R. King, LCSW, a psychotherapist with autism, provides some useful insights and advice on this topic in his book, Strategies for Building Successful Relationships with People on the Autism Spectrum. As an individual with ASD, he finds prolonged eye contact uncomfortable and actually a hindrance to communication. He notes that blind people function quite adequately in conversation without the benefit of eye contact.

I have devised here a series of visuals to suggest alternatives to traditional face-to-face teaching when we are counseling and teaching children with autism spectrum disorders.

I hope you find these ideas helpful.

Joel Shaul, LCSW

traditional face to face eye contact — This is more or less the way I was trained as a psychotherapist thirty years ago.

Face, child look away — Here is one alternative. The child with autism may be able to concentrate better on what you are saying.

Face, both look away — Here, you are dispensing with most eye contact and both you and the child with ASD are looking at the same computer screen, IPAD or other instructional visual

Face, holding cards — In my own work, I keep on hand dozens of meaningful visuals. For some kids on the spectrum, it is more productive to teach by having us both look at the same object than for us to look at each others’ eyes.

Green Zone Book Cover Click to Learn More

March 17, 2012June 27, 2026

Pie chart visuals: Great social skills tool to help kids with ASD to talk MORE or LESS in groups or class

autism social skills speech therapy — For children on the autism spectrum who talk too much – or too little – in group situations, this is a useful visual strategy.

Children with autism who talk too much or too little in group situations

Neurotypical people find this skills difficult also! Remember that person who would not stop talking at the last party you went to? Young people with autism spectrum disorders can find reciprocal conversation skills particularly perplexing. They may say little or nothing on the playground or in class discussions. Or they may hold forth in a lecture of monologue fashion, not noticing the signs that others are becoming impatient.

Often, explaining a social skill combined with a meaningful visual will make a lot more sense for a child on the autism spectrum. This particular visual can be very helpful. If you make a few copies of the pie chart sheets below, I believe you will use them often.

How to create the pie chart visuals:

Follow the pdf download instructions below:

Pie chart prompts & directions

Grafico para la toma de turnos y conversaciones proporcionales en grupos

Polish language translation

How to use the pie chart visuals:

*Use simple language while describing the sheets. For example: “When people talk together, it’s like people sharing a pie [or cake or whatever in case the kid does not like pie!]. Everybody gets their turn to take their share. If one person is talking too much and not letting others talk, it’s not fair. He is “using up all the words.” Also, if somebody is just listening and is not sharing their own thoughts and words with the others, that’s not good. Everybody’s ideas are important.”

*One way to help a child who lectures and monologues in your class or group is to ask him to become your “helper.” Prepare for him the blank circle sheet below, and divide it into the number of kids who are present in your class or group. If you like, you can write into each “slice” the names of each person present. Then, you can ask the child to shade in with a pencil the various slices as the various children speak. This directs the attention of the monologuing child towards what others are saying and raises his awareness of proportion and reciprocity in group conversation.

I wish you success with this simple visual technique for helping kids with ASD to have better group conversation skills.

Joel Shaul, LCSW

Here is a related conversation social skills resource for reciprocity in conversation, but for when just two people are talking.

Using a Toy Balance for Talking Back & Forth

Your comments on these resources are most welcome, and often helpful. Click HERE to send an email.

March 5, 2012June 27, 2026

The Conversation Box: Conversation training tool for children with high functioning autism and Asperger’s

cards for conversation training for Asperger's and high functioning autism

Children on the autism spectrum usually don’t easily grasp the many functions of conversation. Here is a good activity to help them. The various functions of two-way conversation are clearly explained and word examples are provided. It is loosely based on concepts outlined in Relationship Development Intervention (RDI). ( This activity requires some reading ability. Please see links below to conversation learning activities that rely less on reading.)

How to create the Conversation Box activity:

Follow the directions for PDF download below.

social skills activity speech therapy for kids with asperger's — Here is the box I use for my own Conversation Box cards.

Put the cards in a box. It’s nice to decorate it.

How to do the Conversation Box activity with kids on the autism spectrum:

Use words something like this:

“We are going to play the Conversation Box activity. It’s a fun activity to help us to practice all the good ways to talk back and forth with other people. Inside the box are cards showing all the good ways that people talk back and forth with each other.”

Now, show them the cards, as well as the eight prompts providing word examples for each card category.

“We will take turns reaching inside the box to randomly draw a card. When you pick a card, you have to have a back-and-forth conversation with another person here. You can look at these signs [show them the eight word prompts] to help you know what to say.”

I hope you enjoy this social skills activity.

Joel Shaul, LCSW

CLICK HERE: Conversation Box, & directions

This activity is also available in a PowerPoint version (in case you wish to show / project it instead of printing it):

Conversation Box PowerPoint

En Español: La caja de diálogos: Un método para ayudar a los niños con autismo a conversar

For dozens more free downloads for conversation and social communication,

follow this link.

Your comments on these resources are most welcome, and often helpful. Click HERE to send an email.

March 1, 2012June 27, 2026

Helping kids with Asperger’s to give compliments: Worksheets for social skills teaching

worksheets for autism social skills teaching

Four-Compliment-Worksheets-Free-Download-1 Download

There are many other resources on the website to help children with ASD to learn and practice giving compliments.

Here are several:

Compliment Picture Panels

Say Something Nice Board Game

Paper Fortune Teller for Compliments

How to Play Compliment Tag

Your comments on these resources are most welcome, and often helpful. Click HERE to send an email.

February 25, 2012June 27, 2026

Cognitive Distortion Thought Bubbles–Simple Cognitive Behavioral Method for kids with High Functioning Autism

Cognitive behavioral therapy method for children with Asperger's and autism spectrum disorders

Pre-written-CBT-Thought-Bubbles-Free-Download Download

This resource is also available in Polish.

CBT Thought Bubbles Teletherapy / On-Screen Version; no printing needed

Here are some other free Cognitive Behavior Therapy resources for children with autism:

8 Simple CBT YouTube Videos for Kids

Simplified CBT Worksheets for Kids

Mint New Thoughts CBT Activity

Emotion Thermometers

Your comments on these resources are most welcome, and often helpful. Click HERE to send an email.

February 19, 2012June 27, 2026

Empathy autism social skills training, Part 2: Teaching concern using photos (22 downloads for you here)

In this download, there are 22 photographs of people in distress, accompanied by very simple word descriptions. These are to help set up role plays for practicing empathy / showing concern skills with children on the autism spectrum. It is very useful to use the Showing Concern Picture Cards in combination with the Showing Concern Wall Display.

To download the Showing Concern Wall Display, please click on the link below:

Showing Concern Wall Display Download

To download 22 picture cards to practice showing concern, click on this next link below:

Showing Concern Picture Cards

Suggestions on using these empathy social skills materials:

Use the panels in the Wall Display, especially the one showing specific things to say, as word prompts.

Role play where you, the adult, play the person in distress

Role play where pairs of children play roles of distressed person and helper

Role play where you play the role of the person showing concern, but you make mistakes when you do it–with eye contact, tone of voice, what you say, etc. The kids watch and point out your mistakes. Have the kids point out your mistakes.

Joel Shaul, LCSW

Your comments on these resources are most welcome, and often helpful. Click HERE to send an email.

February 7, 2012June 27, 2026

Visual strategies for autism social skills training, Part IV: Two more visual methods to teach about social cause and effect

There are many good ways to help children with autism to increase awareness of what other people think, feel and remember. This blog post describes how to use a “Magic Drawing Slate” to demonstrate what people might remember about other people.

Children with autism spectrum disorders have trouble with “theory of mind,” that is, imagining and predicting another person’s thoughts. Children with ASD often learn better when they are taught with engaging and meaningful visuals. In this blog post, I explain how to use the inexpensive “Magic Drawing Slate” toy, pen and paper to help children with ASD to “picture” what kinds of things others are likely to remember about them.

Here is an anecdote to help illustrate how impaired theory of mind awareness can affect a child with autism socially. A colleague I met at a conference had a nine-year-old son on the autism spectrum with gifted intelligence. He had, at his age, read and mastered books on Norse mythology. However, he has a problem with remembering to zip up his pants while at school, and he could not be motivated to do it more consistently. The boy’s excuse: “What’s the problem? Nobody ever looks down there!”

How to use the Magic Slate to demonstrate what people learn and remember about other people:

1. Get a Magic Drawing Slate. They are available online for a couple bucks. This is a toy that erases what you write when you lift up the transparent plastic sheet on top. A small dry erase board will also suffice.

2. Draw on the Magic Slate the outline of a person’s head. Do the same on four pieces of paper.

3. Write over the head outline on the Magic Slate: “Things other people forget.”

4. Write over the head outline on several pieces of paper: “Things other people probably remember the next day [first sheet of paper], one week later [next sheet of paper] and six months later [third sheet of paper]”

5. Say something like this to the child: “Other people might hear you or notice what you do, even when when you would not expect them to. It’s like you are putting memories into their brains, as if you are programming a computer in their minds. Some things other people will forget about after a while. Other things they will actually remember for a long time. Let’s try to figure out what things people will probably forget and which things might remember later.”

6. You get the idea. You are adding a visual dimension to your autism social skills activity. Help the child write down on the magic slate things other people will not remember later. Examples: What you ate for lunch yesterday. The color you wore last Tuesday. Then, help the child to write down with pen and paper some things others will remember later. Try doing it in categories by dividing the paper “brain” into two columns, one side labelled “Nice things people might remember” and the other side “Not-nice things others might remember.”

Doing this social skills activity can generate revealing results. Some children really regard other people’s minds as a kind of “Magic Slate” that erases itself frequently. The activity seems to help many children with autism to be more aware of how their own words and actions can affect other minds in an enduring fashion.