Tag Archives: Adolescents with Autism

Pick of the Week: NEW! “Smile & Succeed for Teens” by Kirt Manecke

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A crash course in face-to-face communication, Smile & Succeed for Teens: Must-Know People Skills for Today’s Wired World provides teens and tweens with a quick, easy, and fun way to improve their social skills and job skills. This week, we’re discounting the book by 15%, so grab your savings by applying our promo code SMILE when you check out online or over the phone with us.

Developed by a team of teens, parents, and educators, the proven methods in Kirt Manecke’s book provide your kids with the people skills and confidence they’ll need throughout their lives. Whether your teen is looking for work, holding down a job, making friends, or taking part in leadership or service positions, Smile and Succeed for Teens will give them the education he or she needs to thrive.

Each lesson is presented in an entertaining style, with quips, tips, fun and informative illustrations and captions, and easy-to-adopt strategies that will teach your teenager the critical elements of good communication. Click here to read a guest blog post from Kirt on how he used strategies outlined in the book to improve the social skills of teens with autism at his local farmers’ market.

Check out this excerpt from the book — “Say Please and Thank You”.

In this book, your teen will discover how to:

  • Develop self-esteem and beat crippling social anxiety
  • Make new friends and speak with confidence
  • Sail through the most difficult of interviews for scholarships, programs, and jobs
  • Improve their school programs and community through effective fundraising
  • Succeed at work and stand out to their employer, and much, much more!

Smile & Succeed for Teens is an attention-grabbing, easy-to-use course that has already supplied thousands of teens with the skills to do better in school, develop meaningful relationships, and establish fulfilling careers. Don’t forget to use our promo code SMILE at the check-out this week to save 15% on this great new resource!

*Promotion is valid until July 19, 2016 at 11:59pm ET. Offer cannot be applied to previous purchases, combined with any other offers, transferred, refunded, or redeemed and/or exchanged for cash or credit. Different Roads to Learning reserves the right to change or cancel this promotion at any time. To redeem offer at differentroads.com, enter promo code SMILE at checkout.

Teaching Social Skills to Teens on the Spectrum

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This week, we’re pleased to share a piece from Kirt Manecke, author of one of our newest additions Smile & Succeed for Teens, who offers his advice and take on how to teach teens and tweens very important social skills such as handshaking and saying “please,” “thank you,” and “you’re welcome.”

Please, Thank You, and You’re Welcome:
Teaching Social Skills to Teens on the Spectrum
by Kirt Manecke

Saying “please”, “thank you”, and “you’re welcome” are extremely important for social and job interactions. Why then is it so rare to hear these words spoken by teens and tweens? I recently had breakfast with my friend and his two kids, who are 12 and 16, at a restaurant. Both kids frequently failed to say please, thank you or you’re welcome to the waitress. I found myself saying thank you to the waitress for them! Their father did not seem to notice their lack of manners.

Research from Harvard University (Deming, 2015) says social skills are the top factor for getting a job. In my former life, when hiring teens for my specialty retail business, I looked for friendly teens with good social skills. Teens who smiled and said “please” and “thank you” were often the ones I hired. I knew they could engage customers and keep them happy and coming back. Often, we are drawn to making friends with people who have these same good social skills.

 

Social skills are especially difficult for teens on the autism spectrum, but many of these skills can be learned, and with practice, can become habit. Social skills are critical to make friends, get a job, and to live a fulfilling life.

Recently I helped some teens and tweens with autism prepare to sell products at a local farmers’ market. I acted as the customer in the initial role playing scenarios and found that the kids did not say “please”, “thank you” or “you’re welcome”. I then used information from my book Smile & Succeed for Teens: Must-Know People Skills for Today’s Wired World to teach them these skills. We took turns being the customer and the employee while role-playing how to say “please”, “thank you” and “you’re welcome”. Using their new social skills, the kids were able to sell chips and salsa at the local farmers’ market the next day.

You can do the same type of role playing with your kids. To improve their social skills, role play the skill with them. For example, have your teen or tween read the section, “Shake Hands Firmly.” Then, practice shaking hands with them, being sure to show them how “Too Tight”, “Too Loose” and “Just Right” feels.

I spent nine months meeting with teens to get their input for the book, and that’s a big reason teens and tweens find it appealing and are reading it. The font is large enough to make reading easy, plus there are fun, informative illustrations with educational captions every few pages.

Since, the book has received praise from teachers and school administrators, as well as Temple Grandin, author of Thinking in Pictures, and The Autistic Brain, who called me one evening after reading Smile & Succeed for Teens. She urged me to use her testimonial, “Smile & Succeed for Teens is a fantastic resource to help teens be successful at work”, to get the book out to all teens and tweens.

A firm grasp on social skills is key to maneuvering through all stages of life. Mastering these skills boosts teens’ confidence and gives them the skills they need to succeed in school, work and relationships. Please share the following book excerpt with your teen or tween to give them a head start in mastering these important social skills.

REFERENCES

Deming, D.J. (2015). The growing importance of social skills in the labor market (Working Paper No. 21473). Retrieved from National Bureau of Economic Research website: https://www.nber.org/papers/w21473.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Kirt Manecke is a an award-winning author and sales, marketing, fundraising, and business development specialist with over 30 years of experience surprising and delighting customers. Kirt’s books have won 11 awards. Quick-easy social skills for teens! He spent nine months meeting with teens for his award-winning book on social skills for teens. Kirt is currently at work on two children’s books. For more information, contact Kirt at Kirtm@SmiletheBook.com.

Pick of the Week: “Executive Skills in Children and Adolescents”

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Executive function in individuals with autism has become a hot topic, and this is the bestselling guide that helped put executive skills on the map for school-based clinicians and educators.  This week only, you can save 15% on your copy of the second edition of Executive Skills in Children and Adolescents.  Just use our promotional code EXECSK5 at checkout.

This manual explains how these critical cognitive processes develop and why they play such a key role in children’s behavior and school performance. Concise and practitioner-friendly, the manual provides step-by-step guidelines and practical tools to promote executive skill development by implementing environmental modifications, individualized instruction, coaching, and whole-class interventions.

Included in this book are sections on developing behavioral objectives and measuring intervention effectiveness, strategies to intervene at levels of the student and the environment, routines in getting ready to begin the day, collecting homework, writing papers, studying for tests, managing open-ended tasks, managing anxiety, and much more. With these strategies, you will be able to address executive skills such as task initiation, sustained attention, working memory, planning, organization, time management, emotional control, and response inhibition, among others. More than 24 reproducible checklists, questionnaires, planning sheets and assessment tools are also included to empower readers to immediately help teach executive skills.

We’ve also included a sample chapter on our site so you can have a sneak peek at this edition!  Don’t forget – take 15% off your order of Executive Skills in Children and Adolescents: A Practical Guide to Assessment and Intervention by using EXECSK5 at checkout this week!

Resources for Adolescents & Adults with Autism

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With so much of the focus on the exploding rates of Autism in the U.S., the majority of attention has been focused on diagnosis, early intervention and services for school-age children. Not as much attention has been focused on what is available for these individuals after the age of 21 and unfortunately, service options rapidly diminish after this age. ASAT (Association for Science in Autism Treatment) has posted a good article on where to look for resources for older students and adults who need support. To read the article in full, click here.

This will prove to be an even greater issue over the next 10 years as so many individuals on the spectrum transition to adulthood. For those parents and caregivers who have children over the age of 21, is there any advice you can offer or resources you can direct others to that you have found particularly helpful?