Social responses may come naturally to us. If someone walks by and gives you a smile, you would naturally smile back. If you are playing legos with a friend, you take turns to put blocks on one-by-one! However, these skills do not come easy to a child with ASD. We have to break these into small steps by ensuring they know how to get other’s attention, initiate conversations and respond appropriately to questions, play and share toys with friends, and accepting rejections from others.
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Buddies’ program pulls and adopt activities and content from internationally published social skills programs such as Michelle Garcia Winner’s ‘We Thinkers!’ series and Dr. Elizabeth Laugeson’s empricially supported UCLA ‘Program for the Education and Enrichment of Relational Skills (PEERS®) curriculum.
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Through our ‘Buddies’ program, they get a chance to meet new buddies, learn to share, play and laugh through social games, turn-taking games, snack time, role-plays and even social outings!