Building Social Relationships. A Systematic Approach to Teaching Social Interaction Skills to Children and Adolescents With Autism Spectrum Disorders and Other Social Difficulties

Editorial Review
2007 ASA Literary Work of the Year - Parents and professionals often ask how to teach social skills and how to design social skills programs for children with ASD. Often they are seeking answers to basic questions such as where do we start and what strategies do we use? This book addresses the need for social programming for children and adolescents with ASD by providing a comprehensive five-step model. The model incorporates the following five steps: assess social functioning, distinguish between skill acquisition and performance deficits, select intervention strategies, implement intervention, and evaluate and monitor progress. This model will also show you how to organize and make sense of the myriad of social skills strategies and resources currently available to parents and professionals it is not meant to replace other resources or strategies, but synthesize them into one comprehensive program.
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Customer Reviews

An excellent book for teachers, school psychologists, and parents

2006-07-23
As a professor of educational psychology, I have looked for a way of showing my students (at Central Michigan University) how to work with children with Autism Spectrum Disorder. As the rate of those identified climbs, it is an almost certainty that general education teachers will have several students in their classes with ASD, and this book is a practical way of giving them the tools they need to understand a very effective method of working with those children to acquire the tools to interact with more typical students and in the social situations of everyday life. This book is written clearly, in an authoratative but user-friendly voice, and a plethora of resources are available not only to special ed. teachers, but to all stakeholders. Dr. Bellini has done the education community a major service, and this book is a terrific tool to bring understanding to what can be a challenging situation. I cannot recommend this book more highly.

a boarder line kid

2008-05-31
It is really hard to find help for a child who is border line. He has social difficulties and several "asberger like" issues but doesn't have asbergers. He needs help recognizing, understanding social cues and proper behavior in social settings. I think there where parts of this book that was helpful and a few good exercises that we tried. I like the common sense approach this book takes to dealing with children with social issues. I also like the "through a child's eyes" prospective, what is socially appropriate behavior for adults doesn't apply to the playground. That is so true! The examples used are funny and made me laugh in an otherwise difficult part of our family life.

I did skip over several chapters because they didn't apply to our situation. For example there is a large part of the book that deals with how to tell if your child has social difficulties. We have seen 3 therapists and 2 pediatric neuropsychologists we understand his strengths and weaknesses so this part of the book was redundant for me. This is also the 3rd book I have read. The first few chapters help explain what are social difficulties are and how they affect your child and your family. If you are having trouble understanding why your child is having problems at school I think this would be helpful.

Building Social Relationships

2008-05-14
I attended a workshop presented by author Scott Bellini. It was excellent and so is this book. Lots of hands on activities and forms you can use to help you identify social skills difficulties. Easy reading and well organized.

Very helpful and postive

2008-01-13
This book is very helpful and positive. I really like books that are positive, and that tell you about solutions to problems.

As someone with Asperger's Syndrome myself, I know that if there had been books like this 30 years ago, I would have learned much earlier in life what things are appropriate to do and say in what situation. It's too bad that there were no books like this until very recent years!

A must have for clinicians, educators and parents

2006-10-25
This was an enjoyable read and an extremely insightful publication. It is the most comprehensive book available for teaching social skills to children and adolescents on the autism spectrum. The book contains over 30 social skill strategies that can be implemented by educators, clinicians, and parents in variety of settings. The author also provides detailed information on how to assess social functioning and evaluate outcomes. A social skill checklist is included that is helpful in identifying specific social skill deficits and in developing social objectives. Perhaps most impressive, the author translates a complex conceptual framework into an understandable and useful social skills training model. This book gets my highest recommendation.

Robert Linhares, M.A.
Portland, OR

I can't say enough good things about this book!

2006-10-13
This is the best book I have read and used on the topic of teaching social interaction skills. Dr. Bellini speaks from an incredible depth of experience and provides more than enough information for teachers and parents to follow through with the strategies. "Building Social Relationships" definitely should be read by anyone who wants to positively impact the life of a child who struggles in the social arena. Children diagnosed with an autism spectrum disorder and many others who struggle with social skills deficits and impaired social cognition can benefit from his approaches. I can't recommend this book highly enough!