teaching emotional understanding

[gallian]

I teach a daily social skills group to teenagers with severe communication challenges. I am autistic myself. I find this ironic at times. However, what I find most striking is the unwillingness of my students, on and off the spectrum, to identify negative emotions. I have come to believe it is the way that we teach this skill that is flawed, not

Comments

[q10]

I am autistic myself. I find this ironic at times.

shouldn't make you a better teacher?

yes, being a good teacher requires an understanding of the material, but, much more than that, it requires an insight into what is non-obvious and needs to be explained.

more substantial reactions later, if i have anything else.

[nightengalesknd]

I'm about to start helping with a social skills group for autistic teens, and am experiencing the same irony. There are some aspects I probably understand and teach better, and some aspects that a non-autistic colleague is going to understand or notice better. Probably ideally, these skills should be taught by both. The problem is the frequent assumption that all teachers (and I include doctors, therapists and other professionals as "teachers" here because I know gallian doesn't mind) both are non-autistic and should be non-autistic

[khava]

This whole thing seems so weird to me because of my perspective as a mom of a preschooler. We are just through the intense toddler stage of learning to recognize and control your negative emotions, though of course this is an ongoing process. I'm not an expert in any of this, but I want to write a bit about my experience and the standard advice that is being given to parents these days and used in day care settings for toddlers aged around 15-36 months about acting out on emotions

[gallian]

I'm aware I'm more or less reinventing the developmental model. However, for my students, not being able to grasp that model in the preschool years is frequently one of the things that gets them referred for services and identified as having a disability in the first place. They have needed different services and supports in order to be successful for a very long time. While I am not a fan of the developmental model at the expense of other models, I am aware that there are some developmental milestones that area crucial to developing independence. I believe this is one of them, and I believe my students are ready to master it. It's a different (and longer) means to the same end.

[khava]

If LJ had a "like" button, I would have clicked it here.

[wotyfree]

Also, adults misread the affect of autistic kids all the time and tell them they're feeling things they're not feeling - and then behavior programs prevent autistic kids from developing the skill of contradicting people effectively. Telling people with that background how they feel is likely to be *really* counterproductive.

[whuffle]

*hug*

Just the fact that you think that hard about how to give that to your kids when they can't get it any other way makes you one hell of an amazing teacher and a world shaker in their lives.

[foleyartist1]

Fascinating stuff. I like what you are preparing to do, because even without a full understanding of what the inner lives of your students are like, it seems perfectly natural to me that if only some aspects of themselves are being verbally acknowledged and only some behaviors & emotions get a reaction, which is always either an extreme "No!" or "Great job," then of course they're going to be left on some level going, "So what the hell am I supposed to be doing the rest of the time?!" Especially since the presupposition is that there is always a "supposed to."

It seems perfectly natural to me because it's just human. I think most humans wouldn't be able to figure themselves out this way, with the focus only on rewarding behavior, including the behavior of saying you're not sad or tired or angry or having a bad day.