Course Description: “Persistent deficits” in social communication and interaction is a diagnostic criterion of autism in the DSM-5 (APA, 2013), and almost always a target for “autism intervention” through social skills training (SST). But did you know that SST has limited evidence supporting its effectiveness and that it is often viewed negatively by autistic people? Did you know that SST trains autistic masking, which leads to poor mental health outcomes, even for autistic children and adolescents?
Contemporary qualitative autism research challenges the medical model’s view of autistic social communication, and suggests that difficulties arise from mutual social-cognitive misunderstandings between autistic and non-autistic people. So how can providers who work with young autistic people address social communication in a respectful, trauma-informed, and neurodiversity-affirming approach?
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