Customer Reviews

The Social Skills Picture Book Teaching play, emotion, and communication to children with autism

5 star:		(33)
4 star:		(9)
3 star:		(2)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

This book is a godsend to any parent and child dealing with Aspergers, add, adhd ... trust me - but to be perfectly honest, every parent should read it with their kids especially children that learn better visually ... but who doesn't learn better visually using real life photos of classroom and social behavior? This is a must have for EVERY child that is entering preschool and/or kindergarten. Every library needs this book ... tell yours!

I read alot of books and have never felt a need to post a review until now. Teaching our children how to fit in socially in the world, whether they have *disabilities* or not, is our job. This is the tool every parent needs to encourage socially acceptable behavior prior to bad behavior being the issue at hand! We can tell children until we are blue in the face, but this shows them in a way they can understand ... real life examples they face or will face as the enter school. Must have.

My 5 year old with PDD-NOS took to this book immediately. He actually sat still and looked and listened for a long period and wanted to keep reading more. He even asked me, more than once, if there was a story on hitting. The photographs appear to be a much more effective approach than the graphic icons. I hope that the author will consider writing another book addressing even more social situations, like hitting. This book is definitely worth every penny.

This is a great book! I was immediately so impressed that I took it to my son's school to show the school psychologist, and she loved it so much she bought a copy, as well! My son loves to sit on the couch with us and read this book together.
We all know that kids with Autism are visual learners, and we also know that our kids need help in the area of social skills. It only makes sense to combine the two into one book! This covers a variety of topics, including how to greet appropriately, conversation skills, personal space issues, and MUCH more. The photos are realistic and show kids in classroom settings, as well as other community settings.
This book has been a great way to educate our son, and I know that the school psychologist is using it with her social skills programs, as well.

The pictures and captions throughout this book are a very helpful visual aid to teach social skills and positive interaction. I'm the mom of a 7-year-old daughter with high-functioning autism, and this book has been quite helpful in helping my daughter understand concepts that can be difficult to teach. I don't recommend this book for younger kiddos, however. Even a year or so ago, our daughter would not have been ready for this. One other thing to consider, which the author does point out, is that for some children with autism, it can be counter-productive to point out how *not* to do something because it can unintentionally call attention to/reinforce behaviors that you *don't* want your child to emulate. Our daughter doesn't have a problem with this currently, but if your child does, then I would recommend that you review the book first, get some blank paper and tape over all of the "don't do this" examples, and then just share the positive examples with your child.

I expected two things from this book. One, I expected it to be a book I could look at together with my young autistic son to teach him social skills. It turned out to be a how-to book for making your own social skills material. Useful for teachers and ambitious parents, but not really directly useful for kids.

Two, I expected the aesthetic quality of the book to resemble the cover. It turned out that the book is based on a PowerPoint presentation, with relatively unprofessional photography and text layout. The beautiful photograph on the cover is *not* indicative of the quality of the other photos in the book. The other photos were taken in real classroom settings, and thus have clutter in the background and poor lighting conditions. I was also irritated by the hard-to-read text formatting (lines of text extend across the wide pages, instead of being broken into narrower, more readable columns of text). Luckily, the spiral-bound format was more user-friendly.

All in all, I learned a few things about breaking down social skills and other helpful basics, but the book wasn't what I expected.

This is the book people who have and/or work with children who have Asperger's Syndrome (AS) have been praying for. Baker has done an excellent job of bridging the gap betwen the a/A spectrum and NT (neurotypical) socialization, thus bringing readers into neuro-neurtral territory. This work helps readers decode facial expressions; pick up subtleties in stories based on the discussion exercises built into each story; describes activities most young readers are able to relate to personally.

For older children and adults with AS, be sure to check this book out. Although it does not rely on personal accounts, it is factual and objective and the information will prove invaluable.

I bought this book to help teach my 4 year old with Aspergers about how to deal with social situations. The book uses real photos of children in various situations to teach the right way to do something, like stand in line, and also shows a photo with the wrong way. It explicitly teaches, among other things, how to approach other children to play, how to ask a teacher for help, and how to have a conversation. My son loves reading the book together and I can already see him implementing the lessons after just a few weeks. For visual, step-by-step learners, this book is perfect. I own at least 6 books on teaching social skills and this is by far the best and most effective one I've used.

I am a speech-language pathologist in the public school setting and have used this book with kindergarten throught fourth grade students. All of the children enjoyed the photographs and were interested in the skills learned. It provides clear, simple explanations of what to do and say in various social situations. I have used it many times during therapy and it is the best resource that I have for social skills.
Sharlene Stger

If you buy one book to help your child, let it be this one. I have two children with Asperger's, and this book was the one and only resource that was able to get the message across. It was invaluable. I recommended the book to 4 others who have children with Asperger's, and they all felt the same way. It teaches skills in a way that Asperger's kids can comprehend. I recommend it for kids up to about 10 years old.

My 5 year old really enjoys this book. I call it his "big kid book" and tell him it will help him learn how to behave like a big kid. He likes that it shows the "right way" and the "wrong way" to respond in a variety of scenarios. My son recently came home from school asking if we could see if there was something in his "big kid book" to help him with a situation he encountered at school that day. I thought it was great that he considered the book a helpful tool to refer to when he was unsure of how to handle a social situation.