April is Autism Awareness Month and with a growing population of students on the spectrum, it is a perfect time to work on a social skill that may be difficult for our students. Smiling is basic to human nature, and learning this simple social skill can change a student’s life—making them more socially acceptable, inviting relationships, and easing social tension.
Autism and Social Skills
Becoming Likeable is one of the workbooks in the Daily Living Skills series and discusses what makes people likeable and unlikeable. It then gives students ten keys to becoming likeable. The keys are created so that each skill can be learned—they take no special talent or inborn “likeability.”
A modeling video is available for each key both on Teachers Pay Teachers or on my Youtube channel at: Transition 2 Life.
But you can download the most obvious key—“Smile”—from this newsletter to help your students practice this key way to become likeable.
Did you know that humans are hard-wired to smile back at a smiling person? In fact, it only takes 4/100’s of a second to coax the other guy to smile back at you. Additionally, research tells us that if a person makes us smile we automatically feel good about that person. By learning to make people smile, students on the spectrum can take a giant step toward making themselves likeable.
Practice Social Skills
In this activity students practice smiling at themselves in the mirror then use that smile in five different situations until greeting others with a smile becomes second nature.
Have students complete the first two pages to understand the concepts and have them do #1 of the Simple Six to practice their smile in the mirror at home.
Over the rest of the week, choose one of the Simple Six to practice smiling and have students record their efforts on the Simple Six Graph. Allow students to share the most interesting encounters they had with people while smiling.
For More Information
If you like what you see, go to our Teachers Pay Teachers Website, or check us out our shop on our very own T2L & DLS Website! Books are written on a 3rd/4th grade level and include grading sheets, answer keys and parent information letters to comply with federal standards for transition skills. The Teacher’s Manual (sold separately) provides information on program set-up and maintenance along with pre/post-assessments, written ITP (Individual Transition Plan) goals for each book, and parent/student interest inventories.
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