Social Skills Classes

Social Skills Opportunities    

Some of the core challenges in autism are being able to communicate with others, understand social cues, and understand another person’s perspective.  Our belief is that children with autism are capable of acquiring these capacities given the support and opportunities to do so.

Therefore, at Lakeside Center for Autism, we make it a priority to promote social interactions whenever possible, not only in social skills classes.  This means that we often share space between therapists and children and encourage them to interact with each other while also working on their individual goals.  In addition, because we are a multi-disciplinary clinic, your child is also exposed to different types of therapies such as OT, PT, DT, and SLP, which allows for a more holistic view of your child.

Social Skills Classes

Social skills classes at Lakeside Center for Autism are designed to promote coping skills, engagement, communication, perspective taking, and problem-solving in social situations.  Both social skills programs are led by the children with the clinician there to support their interactions.  The key is to have the children develop an internally motivating relationship with their peers which creates the desire to learn to share attention, engage, and relate.  This differs from other philosophies that target behavioral social skills such as sharing, turn taking, and greeting others as discrete skills that are difficult to generalize to various social settings.  Our philosophy is founded on the belief that when a child is motivated by the feelings of others, they will seek out peer relationships independently.

We have two kinds of social skills programs:  ROOTS and TAG!  We determine the appropriate social skills program for your child by assessing the Social Skills Checklist and the Sensory Profile  that you fill out and return.   Once returned, we will contact you with information on the social skills program we recommend and any information on upcoming dates and times.

The following are short descriptions of our two social skills program.  For more detailed information, please click on the link to the right .

The ROOTS Program

Building Relationships from the Ground Up!

  • ROOTS is an individual therapy program designed to target the first 3 stages of development of the functional, emotional, developmental capacities (FEDC) created by Stanley Greenspan, M.D. and Serena Weider, PhD.  The first 3 stages are:  shared attention, engagement and relating, and back-and-forth communication.
  • Each class will have 2-3 children who are supported by a one-on-one clinician, who creates and assesses the child’s goals during each session.
  • The session is led by the children with the clinicians supporting each child in their interactions with the other peers in the group.
  • Our ROOTS program is billable to insurance.

For more detailed information about the ROOTS Program, please click on the link to the right.

The TAG! Program

Fostering Social-Emotional Development

  • Together Achieving Goals (TAG!) is designed to target stages 4-6 of the functional, emotional, developmental capacities (FECD) created by Stanley Greenspan, M.D., and Serena Weider, PhD.  These stages are:  Problem-solving, creating ideas, and logical thinking.
  • TAG! is semi-structured with a structured schedule.  The children then lead the play within the schedule.  The therapists help the children reflect and support social interactions.
  • Each group will have up to six kids with two or three therapists who will foster the expansion of ideas, social reciprocity, and reflective thinking according to each child’s individual needs.
  • Our TAG! program is a private pay group program and is not insurance based, so this group is not billable to insurance

For more detailed information about the TAG! program, please click on the link to the right.

For more information about either of these programs please contact info@lakesideautism.com.