Transition into Adulthood

One strategy that I am implementing with my case study, that I believe promotes skills for independent living, is the use of picture schedules to promote independence for task participation and completion. Picture schedules are utilized during activity participation as well as during self-care tasks which help to decrease Emily’s reliance on adult prompting and promote independence.


Providing Emily’s family with information regarding the correlation between social competence and vocational success, will hopefully help to encourage the family to pursue social opportunities for Emily. We have discussed the possibility of the family enrolling Emily in a summer community program to meet some of her peers that she may be going to kindergarten with. This transition into a community group, while having some support from the Early Intervention Program, may help to build positive relationships with her neighborhood peers. Building successful social interactions early in development, we have learned, helps to build motivation for continued desire to form social relationships. Again, drawing the connection between social competency and increased vocational success to help the family see yet another important outcome of social opportunities.

Module 7 Living with Autism: Impact on Family and Siblings

Emily lives with her mother and father who both report special education needs growing up. Her mother is very concerned with Emily's behavior but is afraid for her to be labeled special ed. based on her own experiences. While family is very loving and there is extended support from grandparents, carryover or follow through is limited. The family tends to spend most of their time indoors watching TV or playing video games with little exposure to other children outside of the school environment. Socio-economic resources are also limited for this family further reducing Emily's exposure to novel situations or activities. Due to work schedules, parent involvement in school related activities is limited. Information is shared with the family via written documentation in her backpack. Her scheduled IEP meeting is coming up and I am looking forward to meeting her parents and following up a bit more on the family dynamics and finding out how we can be more supportive of their needs as a family. At her IEP meeting I will also be asking what the family’s plans are for Emily during the summer months as her Head Start classroom will be closing. I want to reiterate the importance of Emily being around peers – encouraging the family to look into low cost or no cost summer programs such as local playground opportunities where she would possibly be exposed to children that she would be in kindergarten with. The family has not pursued Wrap Around Services as of yet, but it may benefit them to initiate the process to assist with community and school age support.

Module 6 - Social Skills and Perspective Taking

Emily demonstrates adequate abilities to identify an emotion based upon a facial expression (happy, sad, angry, etc…) but has difficulty processing the emotions displayed on the face and then altering her behavior or interactions accordingly. When she is involved in a play activity with a peer and a conflict arises, Emily often is unable to interpret the emotions connected with facial expression of her peer and therefore is unable to alter her interactions to correct the play interaction. When facilitated by an adult, Emily is able to describe the facial expression as being mad or sad but then cannot take it the next step to identify how that person is feeling. When asked if she thinks the other child is enjoying or having fun or wanting to play more, Emily typically incorrectly responds.

This difficulty also plays into the challenges with perspective taking as she is unable to understand why the child would no longer want to play with her. She will state that the other child should want to continue to play because, “I am having fun.” She believes that just because she is enjoying the activity, as she is directing the activity (and not incorporating any of the play ideas of the peers), the other child should also be enjoying herself. Emily also tends to position her body very close to others when talking or interacting with them. Often her peers will try to move back or even push her away; Emily typically repositions herself close to the person again. She is not correctly adjusting her body position to meet the needs of those around her.