Social Communication and Interaction (Part 1) Transcript

My name’s Giulia and I am a speech and language therapist within the Islington Social Communication Team.

 

Our team have put together this video to help you understand more about social communication and interaction in autism.

 

To summarise what is on this video, firstly I am going to talk about what social communication and interaction is.

 

Then I’ll talk about how autistic children might communicate and interact

 

And also, I will look at the ways in which our thinking about autism and social communication and interaction has changed.

 

And lastly, I’ll talk about the key things you can do to support you and your child to communicate and interact well together.

 

So what is social communication and interaction?

 

It’s basically about how we communicate and interact in social situations.

 

There are many ways in which people communicate together.

 

Talking can be one of the ways, but we communicate together in other ways too.

 

We might communicate through our gestures such as waving to say hello to others or to attract their attention.

 

We might use facial expressions, for example to share with someone how much we are enjoying something.

 

We might use the volume or intonation in our voice for example to show we are excited or angry.

 

We might also use symbols to communicate things such as emojis in a text to express how we are feeling, or symbols on road signs to show drivers what to do.

 

We might communicate using written text as well, such as in text messages.

 

These are all valid ways of communicating.

 

We also vary in how we interact with each other. Some people may be very loud and chatty and want to be around people a lot of the time.

 

Other people may be quieter.

 

They might prefer having more time to themselves or they might prefer interacting more in a one-on-one situation.

 

So how might a young autistic child communicate and interact?

 

All autistic children are unique and how they communicate and interact will vary.

 

Some young autistic children might be speaking in long sentences and some may speak just a little or not at all.

 

Some may have a wide vocabulary but not use their words to communicate with other people.

 

Some may use phrases they have copied from video clips or those around them.

 

Some may speak more in certain situations such as at home or when talking about a favourite topic, but not so much in other situations with other people or on topics that are not so interesting to them.

 

Some may communicate in more physical ways.

 

For example, they might pull another person over to what they want or place their the other person’s hand on something they want help with.

 

Some might look at others when interacting, particularly if they are really interested in something, or they really want something and some may prefer to avoid making eye contact and find eye contact difficult or uncomfortable.

 

Some might use some gestures such as pointing, waving and some may not use gestures so much or they way in which they use them might be a bit different.

 

For example, we might see some young autistic children waving as if they are waving to themselves.

 

Some may use a wide range of different facial expressions to express how they are feeling and others may just show more the extremes of emotion on their face such as happy or upset.

 

Sometimes their facial expression may not always match how they are feeling.

 

For example, some children might show more of a neutral facial expression, or they might be smiling, even though from their other behaviour it appears they may actually be feeling something else, such as anxious or scared.

 

Some may try and interact with other children.

 

For example, they might try and join in with running games but may find it hard to understand the rules of games or how to share and take turns.

 

Others may play mainly alone and find it difficult when other children approach them.

 

These are just some of the ways in which young autistic children may communicate and interact in social situations.

 

So now I am going to talk about the changes in the thinking about social communication and interaction in autism.

 

So previously, autism was viewed through a medical model lens.

 

What this means is that autism was viewed as an impairment and autistic people were described as having social communication and interaction deficits.

 

Then a social model of autism came about.

 

Within this model autism is viewed as a difference and that difficulties arise for autistic people because society tends to expect everybody to fit a ‘norm’.

 

Following on from the social model, autism has been viewed as part of ‘neurodiversity’.

 

This is the idea that people experience and interact with the world in many different ways.

 

There is no one ‘right’ way of thinking, learning and behaving.

 

So if we look through a neurodivergent lens, autistic people are just different in how they communicate and interact with others in social situations.

 

Now going back to the medical model of autism a dominant view was that autistic people have an impaired theory of mind.

 

Theory of Mind refers to the ability to understand and imagine what somebody else is thinking and feeling.

 

It was thought that if autistic people have an impaired ability to do this, then they will have difficulty understanding and predicting the behaviour of others and this is going to make it more difficult to communicate and interact with others.

 

But we could say the problems go both ways which brings us on to the double empathy problem.

 

We could say that an autistic person may struggle to understand the communication style of a non-autistic person but also a non-autistic person can have difficulties in understanding the ways in which an autistic person communicates.

 

We know that many autistic people show sensory differences and can be distracted or overwhelmed by their sensory experiences.

 

However, a non-autistic person may struggle to understand or be aware of how an autistic person’s sensory differences might be affecting that person.

 

This difficulty in understanding each other’s communication styles and understanding what each other may be thinking and feeling can make interactions harder between autistic and non-autistic people.

 

Now an autistic person may consciously or sub-consciously mask their true selves in order to fit in.

 

Non-autistic people might not realise this is happening and they might not understand the pressure that an autistic person may feel to mask their autistic features.

 

So as you can see Autistic and non-autistic people may have difficulties understanding what the other is thinking and feeling.

 

What this also means is that autistic people may be more likely to understand each other and the same for non-autistic people.

 

This kind of fits with what we sometimes see, which is young autistic children gravitating towards other autistic children.

 

So what does this mean for you and your child.

 

The most important things are knowing some key things that will help you and your child communicate effectively together and to have fun.

 

So what are the key things that could help you and your child in communicating and interacting together?

 

So the first thing is to be aware of how the sensory environment can affect your child and how it can make them feel uncomfortable or possibly overwhelmed.

 

Autistic children can show sensory sensitivities such as sensitivity to noise, touch, bright lights amongst other things.

 

When a child is feeling uncomfortable they are going to be distracted and might feel quite overwhelmed, so try and make sure your child is as comfortable as possible, as this will help them be able to focus on communicating and interacting with you.

 

Tuning into what your child is interested in and what they are motivated by is going to help, as we all tend to focus more on things of interest, particularly autistic people.

 

Autistic people may find processing spoken words more difficult.

 

So to support their understanding, we can use more visual ways of communicating such as using more gestures, pictures or objects, for example to show them what’s going to be happening next.

 

Reducing your language and pausing more can also be really helpful. It gives your child more time to process what you are saying to them and for them to be able to respond.

 

Even autistic children who have a very good understanding of language can have difficulties understanding spoken language.

 

Their ability to process spoken language may be impacted in times where they are feeling overwhelmed, anxious or are affected by sensory distractions in their environment.

 

Autistic children often like predictability and routine so you could introduce more predictability and routines into play and games.

 

For example, you could create games that have the same steps in and in which you have the same key phrases that you say, such as “Ready, steady go” games. Autistic children can feel anxious when they are unsure of what is happening and when.

 

Make their day more predictable by giving them warning of when things will finish and help them understand what is happening next.

 

For example, you could count down on your fingers from 5 down to 1 to help them process that something is finishing.

 

Then you could show them what is happening next, for example, blowing bubbles.

 

If you think your child can understand more then you could use pictures to show them more of the key things that will be happening that day. Introducing predictability into their day can really help them feel calm and in the right space to learn, communicate and interact.

 

Thank you for watching this video.

 

We hope you have found it useful.

 

You can now take a look at our part 2 video called “where to start?”

 

Please take the time to complete our feedback form to let us know what you thought of the video.

 

You can access the form using the web address or QR code on this slide.

 

We are always looking to improve our services and your feedback is very important to us in this process.

 

Thank you again.