Supporting Your 7-Year-Old with Social Communication Disorder: Strategies for Building Friendships

It's heartwarming to see your child struggle with social communication disorder (SCD). Supporting your child in navigating friendships is a vital part of their emotional and social development. This article outlines effective strategies to help your 7-year-old child build meaningful friendships and improve their social communication skills.

One-on-One Play Dates: A Stepping Stone to Friendship

One-on-one play dates can be particularly beneficial for children with SCD. These sessions allow your child to practice social interactions in a low-pressure, supportive environment with one other child. As your child builds confidence and friendship bonds, you can gradually introduce more children. Over time, your child will become more at ease in larger groups and will have built up a solid foundation of friendships.

Enhancing Social Communication Skills: A Learning Priority

Children with SCD often require more explicit instruction and support in social communication than other children. Treating social communication as a priority, similar to learning to read, ensures that your child receives the necessary attention and support. Here are several activities that can help:

Emotional Recognition and Expression

Make a chart with emoji faces depicting different emotions. Have your child identify emotions on your face and practice making those expressions on their own. Reinforce this learning by pointing out facial expressions and emotions in books and TV shows.

Connect emotions to the reasons behind them. Brainstorm a list of common emotional triggers and expand the emotional vocabulary to include more nuanced feelings. For example, 'pleased,' 'joyful,' and 'excited' can enrich your child's emotional understanding.

Different Greetings and Conversations

Teach your child the appropriate greetings for different situations. Practice how to say hello to parents, classmates, teachers, and principals. Discuss the body language and facial expressions associated with different greetings.

Practice structured conversations with a sequence of greetings, opening questions, and acknowledgments. Use prompts like 'How are you today?' or 'Did you do anything fun over the weekend?' to get your child started.

Interrupting and Maintaining Appropriate Conversations

Demonstrate appropriate interrupting techniques through role-playing. Rewatch scenes in TV shows and discuss whether the interruption was appropriate. Play the 'Interrupt' game by having conversations silently and using pauses to interrupt naturally.

Write out two different conversations on strips of paper and mix them up. Have your child separate the scenarios into logical orders and practice maintaining a coherent conversation flow.

Contextual Awareness for Tone and Volume

Go beyond basic voice levels and teach your child how to adjust their volume and tone in different contexts. For instance:

The 'two-person voice' The 'around the table voice' The 'answering questions in class' voice Different character voices to practice different tones, such as Eyore, Batman, or a fairy godmother

Building Friendships Through Kindness

As your child develops stronger social communication skills, consider how to further expand their social skills and popularity through kindness. Encourage your child to volunteer, participate in team activities, and engage in community service. These experiences can help your child form meaningful friendships based on shared values and interests.

Remember, building friendships takes time and patience. Celebrate small victories and provide consistent support and encouragement. Your role as a parent is invaluable in helping your child navigate the challenges of social communication disorder and build a supportive network of friends.