social skills teaching - Social Skills Activities for Children with Autism

March 27, 2012June 27, 2026

Teaching children with autism the social skill of discerning silly from serious

A free downloadable kit to help children with ASD to increase awareness of different levels of formality

Silly to Serious Explanation and Panels

Silly to Serious cards only

Silly to Serious Set, PowerPoint Version

This is also available in Polish

Young people with other autism spectrum disorders often struggle to understand what I call “levels of formality” in social situations. In a milieu where a serious bearing might be indicated for a child, a young person on the autism spectrum might behave and speak in a casual and informal manner. For some kids with ASD, the opposite can occur also, and they can at times act too proper around peers where more laid back words and actions would be more appropriate.

There are several reasons why children on the autism spectrum find this set of social skills hard to grasp. First, they tend to not easily understand the subtleties of social hierarchies and how they themselves rank within them. Second, a child with ASD often tends to have difficulty making quick shifts in attention, so if such a child is transitioned suddenly from, say, playing Wii to meeting Mom’s boss who has just stopped by the house, the child might find it extremely difficult to alter his behavior and words quickly enough. Third, many kids with autism have difficulty regulating extremes of emotion. Exerting control over feelings of excitement can be hard for them.

To help children with ASD to learn this social skill, I find it very helpful to divide levels of formality into four different levels. They are basically defined in the visual above. Then, you can help the child by saying, “We’re going into Chucky Cheese. You can be level 1 in there.” Or, at a big family get-together, you can help the child by saying, “In the backyard pool, that’s a level one. When we go inside to see great-grandpa, who is sick, that is a level 3.”

What is included in the Silly to Serious Card Activity:

1. A set of eight 8 1/2 by 11 illustrated panels

components of this ASD social skills activitiy — These are the Silly to Serious visual and word prompts for the four levels. You post them on the wall or lay them on the floor. The visuals shown here can be used alone with kids on the spectrum for social skills lessons. Printing out the socials cards below is recommended if you want to make a game out of it.These are the Silly to Serious social skills cards. There are 32. Each card poses a question or sets up a role play. These are the Silly to Serious social skills cards. There are 32. Each card poses a question or sets up a role play.

2. A set of 32 question cards you use in a game-like format to increase awareness of levels of formality in diverse social situations.

How to introduce the activity:

“People can’t be serious all the time when they are around other people. People can’t be silly all the time either. They have to be the right amount of serious or silly, depending on who they are with and what is happening.”

Now, show the Level Cards to the kids and help them to understand the varieties of social situations within each of the levels. Practice greetings and goodbyes within each of the levels. As you get into this, you may easily find you have enough to do for one or two classes or sessions without even getting to the card activity.

“We are going to play the Silly to Serious game. There are four different kinds of cards in this deck, and when you draw a card you have to do what the card says.

If you draw a “What Level” card, you have to figure out which of the four levels the person in the card is going through.

If you draw a “Fix the Mistake” card, you have to find out how the person in the card is either too serious or too silly and then fix their problem.

If you draw a “Your Own Life” card, you have to answer the question about about YOU.

If you draw an “Act it Out” the card, you have to act out what the card tells you to act out.”

I hope this social skills activity is helpful for you.

Joel Shaul, LCSW

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

Green Zone Book Cover Click to Learn More

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.

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.

Here are two free downloads on social cause and effect. Check them out.

Pencil / Pen Memories Worksheets

Words Hurt/Words Help Worksheets

I hope that these social skills activities for kids with autism are helpful and useful for you.

Joel Shaul, LCSW

February 5, 2012June 27, 2026

Visual strategy for autism social skills training: using a toy balance

using a balance social reciprocity, speech reciprocity

Here is another free conversation social skills resource for teaching reciprocity, but with more than two people present:

Pie Chart Prompt for Proportional Talking

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

January 30, 2012July 23, 2026

Filter the Anger: A hands-on social skills activity to help kids with autism to manage angry verbal outbursts

In social skills training in schools and psychotherapy settings, young people on the autism spectrum often struggle with controlling angry verbal outbursts. This is a cut-out paper kit that creates a hands-on activity to teach and practice filtering upsetting thoughts and avoiding blurting out things that are frightening or confusing to others.The Filter the Anger Activity is designed to:

* Raise awareness of okay vs. not-okay things to say when you are mad

*Introduce and reinforce the idea that thoughts can be “filtered” before they are turned into words.

To create the materials for this free activity, click on these free download links:

Filter the upsetting thoughts kit

Übung-zum-Filtern-verbaler-Ausbrüche

This kit is also available in Polish.

Filter the upsetting thoughts kit, on-screen version for teletherapy (great if you don’t want to print and cut out this kit)

Sample introduction to this activity:

“When we are upset, we can have many, many upsetting thoughts going through their mind, very quickly. The thoughts can be so many, and so powerful, that they can “escape” out of your mouth if you are not careful. Your mind has a filter in it, to help us to say the right things, instead of every one of our thoughts to rush out of our mouths.”

(Now describe a filter; depends on knowledge level of participants. Show them the filter visual)

“There are different kinds of filters.” (have them name some: coffee filter, water filter, oil filter, etc. If you have a prop to demonstrate a filter now, that is good—try a colander, a coffee filter, etc)

“You can’t see the filter in your brain, but the way it works is kind of the same. It is especially important to use your brain’s filter when you are upset or angry, so that you say things that are good, and get you help, and so you avoid saying things that frighten, confuse or anger other people.”

How to use the upset thought strips: On a big table or on the floor, have the participant(s) sort the statements into things that are okay to say, sometimes okay to say, and almost never okay to say. Use the “Filter These Out” and “You can say these” visuals to help them with the sorting.

Usually, the child will spontaneously start talking about times they made unfiltered angry statements. This provides opportunities for learning and adds a visual dimension that is very helpful.

Variations: You, the adult, can try acting out the role of an upset person who is not succeeding in filtering his words. Ask the young participants to help you to filter what you say. Ask them to offer you alternative ways to express your upset feelings.

This is a good teaching/therapy activity for social skills training and anger management for kids with autism spectrum disorders. I hope you find it helpful.