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About the Author |
| Mary Jane Weiss, Ph.D., is a research assistant professor at Rutgers, The State University of New Jersey. She is Director of the Division of Research and Training at the Douglass Developmental Disabilities Center.
Sandra L. Harris, Ph.D., is a professor at the Graduate school of Applied and Professional Psychology at Rutgers. She is the Executive Director of the Douglass Developmental Disabilities Center, a program for children and adolescents with autism, which she founded in 1972. Drs. Weiss and Harris are co-authors of Right from the Start (Woodbine House, 1998).
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One of the most important yet difficult skills for children with autism to learn is effective social interaction. Reaching Out, Joining In introduces social skills programs to parents of children in preschool through early primary grades diagnosed with one of the Pervasive Developmental Disorders (PDD), including Autistic Disorder, Asperger's Disorder, and PDD: Not Otherwise Specified.
Reaching Out, Joining In is based on the authors' decades of clinical experience using Applied Behavior Analysis (ABA), a proven educational method, to teach social skills at home and school. This book focuses on four broad topics:
play skills
the language of social skills
understanding another person's perspective
functioning in an inclusive classroom
Reaching Out, Joining In helps parents work with their child's strengths to improve social skills. Following the suggestions and exercises in this book, parents can teach children to: pretnd-play, use toys appropriately, know when to use conventional responses like "excuse me," tell jokes, recognize that others' feelings and thoughts are different from their own, and initiate social interaction with peers.
Included are tips for using games, modeling, rewards, role play, videos, activity schedules, and social stories to teach social skills and make the learning experience fun for parents and children. A case study of one family's efforts and successes provides a real-life example that's informative and reassuring. Appendices listing resources such as books, games, and activities give parents additional material to explore.
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