Many children with disabilities find it difficult to initiate appropriate social interactions, even when they want something badly. Students with Autism Spectrum Disorders have significant difficulty understanding the reciprocity necessary to create a regular conversation. These cartoons offer a visual format for them to create, rehearse and master conversations.
How to Use the Cartoon Strips
This set of Cartoon Strips are designed to support making requests. In self-contained programs you may have children with a broad range of skills. Social Skills deficits include a continuum from acquisition of the skills, performance to fluency. These strips meet the students at their own ability level. For students with limited language, the strips will support acquisition of the skills. For students with performance issues, it will help them create their own scripts with the visual support of the cartoons and the balloons. For students who need to reach fluency, they will be able to use these and cartoons they create themselves to gain fluency not only in the individual interactions, but more importantly, learn to decide which kind of interaction best serves their needs in specific situations.
For success, try these steps:
- Discuss requests: When do you ask for something? What things do you ask for? Do you ask each person the same way, a friend the same way you ask a principal?
- Model a request to a friend with a classroom aide or a high function students.
- Write the first request together. Accept lots of answers for each balloon, to make it clear there a many ways to appropriately make a request.
- Have students pair up and practice the interaction they have just cartooned.
- Move on to another request, ie. the teacher, the principal or a police officer. Note that we don't speak to each them the same way to do a friend.
- Practice, practice, practice. Give students lots of opportunities to practice and role play the strips they have written.
Free Printable PDF's:
A Request to a Child Your Student Doesn't Know.
Making a Request of your Teacher.
