The problem of practice that has been identified is the lack of games as a social skills tool. Individuals with Autism may face many daily challenges. One of the known deficits for this population is their challenges related to social skills. One way to provide social skills instruction is through game-based strategies. When thinking about play it is not uncommon to automatically envision young children, but the inclusion of game-based play during social skills instruction can be appropriate for all age groups. As children age interventions tend to move away from the inclusion of play. In order to teach social skills the individuals must first be willing to come together as a group and interact with each other. One way to bring resistant individuals together is through play. During the pilot study of social skills training, for middle school aged students with high functioning autism, it was discovered that the inclusion of playing board games became a positive and productive way to bring resistant individuals together for the purpose of social skills training. With the inclusion of game playing as part of the social skills pilot study the results were positive interactions between individuals who initially avoided any interactions, other than negative ones, with each other. The model will be implemented with individuals who have autism and may also have other disabilities who are functioning at a much lower cognitive level. The goals of the pilot program are to increase social interactions and to improve social skills through the inclusion of play during social skills instruction. Social skills instruction requires individuals to be engaged; the inclusion of play is a natural non-threatening way to promote cooperative social interactions as a precursor to social skills instruction.
| Identifer | oai:union.ndltd.org:ucf.edu/oai:stars.library.ucf.edu:etd-5532 |
| Date | 01 January 2014 |
| Creators | Fenaughty, Joan |
| Publisher | STARS |
| Source Sets | University of Central Florida |
| Language | English |
| Detected Language | English |
| Type | text |
| Format | application/pdf |
| Source | Electronic Theses and Dissertations |
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