Teach Activities Preferred by Peers without Disabilities
Students with autism should be taught to use the materials that are commonly part of the social repertoire of typically developing students. For example, Koegel, Werner, Vismara, and Koegel (2005) found that teaching students with autism to engage in activities preferred by peers without disabilities, such as playing board games, playing with dolls, and painting, resulted in improved reciprocal social interaction and child affect. Therefore, as part of the ecological assessment process, teachers should carefully observe the types of toys, games, activities, gestures, verbal expressions, popular culture references (e.g., Star Wars™), and perhaps even clothing that are preferred by peers without autism. Then children with autism should be taught typical use of these materials and activities as part of socialization interventions.
Reduce Challenging Behaviors
Before and even while placing students with autism in natural social contexts with typically developing peers, teachers and others must address challenging behaviors exhibited by the students with autism. Challenging behaviors should be assessed using functional assessment (see Chapter 3 ), and interventions should be implemented to reduce those behaviors and establish functional replacement behaviors. Behaviors such as self-stimulation, self-injury, and aggression will undoubtedly result in fewer social initiations from peers and may result in the student with autism being restricted from participating in those activities. Furthermore, children with autism who exhibit such behaviors may become targets of negative social interaction such as bullying (Didden et al., 2009). Children with autism probably do not need to be completely free of negative behaviors before socialization interventions (Simpson, Myles, Sasso, & Kamps, 1997), but they must be basically compliant and safe (e.g., pose no threat of harm to themselves or peers) and have ways to communicate their wants and needs.