Social and life skills:
Young people with ASC have difficulties with social and life skills so groupings to help our young people develop the skills are put in place on entry to the Resource Base. These include: developing emotional literacy; transition preparation (including main school and secondary transition); and table top activities incorporating ‘learning to learn’ skills (waiting, eye contact, listening, sitting, turn taking and sharing), cooking; travel training and others that are identified.
Young people are supported to enjoy main school sessions and or lessons with age appropriate peers which may include them taking part in art, IT, swimming sessions, cooking, PE, Music and a variety of visits in the local and wider community. Young people are additionally taught and provided with opportunities to practice everyday skills like looking after ourselves, making friends, staying safe and learning about the wider world.
Young people are also supported to understand about emotional regulation using Zones of Regulation.
This program teaches a variety of social-emotional skills to children, starting with early emotional skills and advancing on to self-regulation and navigating social situations.
Here are some skills taught covered in The Zones of Regulation:
- Identifying your emotions by categorizing feelings into four zones (more on this below)
- Self-regulation: Achieving the preferred state of alertness (zone) for a situation. This is all about regulating your body and emotional regulation.
- Identifying triggers: Learning what makes you “tick” and why
- Coping strategies: Various techniques and strategies that help achieve emotional regulation and manage strong emotions
- Size of the problem: Introduces the idea that the size of your reaction should match the size of your problem, how to identify the size of your problem, and strategies for problem-solving.
- Expected behaviour vs unexpected behaviour: This also covers perspective taking and how your behaviour affects the thoughts and feelings of the people around you