Social Skills & Interactions for Children with Special Needs

My older middle school Life Skills students need some community-based work experiences, but our school is located in a rural area without many opportunities nearby.  What can I do to help them learn some beneficial work skills?

One of my students has great difficulty sharing playground equipment with his classmates. He tends to push them away when they try to climb up beside him or yell at them if they’re ahead of him in line for the slide. He’s not making any friends this way. How can I help him share his space?

My students often imitate and I want to avoid reinforcing “wrong” or poor skills and behaviors. How can I teach and reinforce positive skills and behaviors?

I have a student in my elementary school classroom who sometimes hits when he is on the playground. We are currently working on a Positive Behavior Support Plan. He has been suspended for this behavior before and I’m hoping we can come up with another alternative when the behavior does occur. I don’t think he should be suspended! What consequence might be appropriate and satisfy the team?

My son has autism and recently has be removed from his father’s house to go live with his grandmother. He may experience another change soon as I am hoping to get full custody of him.   In this case, he will move in with me. I realize this amount of change is difficult, and I would like some ideas to make his next move (hopefully with me) less stressful.   In addition, the move in with me would require a trip in a plane. How can I best prepare him for upcoming changes?

What do you do with a student who continually asks questions unrelated to the topic being discussed? When they are not allowed to ask off topic questions they become upset or angry.

How can I stop one of my students from pushing to get in front of the line and running into students every day when the bell rings? When we hold him for safety he kicks and yells.

When someone gets hurt or is talking about a painful event, my son often laughs. He has had this inappropriate nervous laughter since he was young, but it has become an issue in the work environment. He is 22 years old. This has offended others. He  explains that he is nervous and can’t control it, but  would really like some help finding a workable solution. Is there anything I can share with him that may help?

As a parent I would like to know some ideas or tips to help boost my children’s self esteem. It seems that they both struggle with not having much self confidence in what they are doing, mostly in school. They are very bright but doubt themselves in most things they do. Does anyone have any helpful ideas or tips that I can try? Thanks!