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About the Author |
| Sandra L. Harris is a Board of Governors Distinguished Service Professor Emerita at the Graduate School of Applied and Professional Psychology and Department of Psychology at Rutgers, The State University of New Jersey. She is the Founder and Executive Director of the Douglass Developmental Disabilities Center at Rutgers, which serves people with autism from toddlers through adults. Dr. Harris is also the editor of Woodbine House's Topics in Autism series and the co-author of the books Siblings of Children with Autism (2012), Right from the Start (2007) and Incentives for Change (2004).
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Mary Jane Weiss is a behavior analyst who has worked in the autism field over 25 years. Her clinical and research interests center on the identification of best practices for teaching learners with autism, facilitating family coping and adaptation, and teaching and training in ABA. She is the author of several articles and books, co-author of Woodbine House books Right from the Start (2007) and Jumpstarting Communication Skills in Children with Autism (2011), and a regular presenter at regional and national conferences.
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One of the most important yet difficult skills for children with autism to learn is effective social interaction. Reaching Out, Joining In introduces social skills programs to parents of children in preschool through early primary grades diagnosed with one of the Pervasive Developmental Disorders (PDD), including Autistic Disorder, Asperger's Disorder, and PDD: Not Otherwise Specified.
Reaching Out, Joining In is based on the authors' decades of clinical experience using Applied Behavior Analysis (ABA), a proven educational method, to teach social skills at home and school. This book focuses on four broad topics:
play skills
the language of social skills
understanding another person's perspective
functioning in an inclusive classroom
Reaching Out, Joining In helps parents work with their child's strengths to improve social skills. Following the suggestions and exercises in this book, parents can teach children to: pretnd-play, use toys appropriately, know when to use conventional responses like "excuse me," tell jokes, recognize that others' feelings and thoughts are different from their own, and initiate social interaction with peers.
Included are tips for using games, modeling, rewards, role play, videos, activity schedules, and social stories to teach social skills and make the learning experience fun for parents and children. A case study of one family's efforts and successes provides a real-life example that's informative and reassuring. Appendices listing resources such as books, games, and activities give parents additional material to explore.
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