I remember my parents always reminded me to greet people when I was young. Greeting is engraved in our social lives from early on and it is one of the social communication skills that children are exposed to at a young age.
As many of you might have known already, many children with ASD have troubles in initiating and responding to greeting. As a result, greeting has become one of the common training targets for children who are on the spectrum. Undoubtedly, greeting is a social communication element that allows us to further engage in a social interaction. However, to make greeting an effective tool for social communication and interaction, we need to pay attention to a child’s social relatedness (how much he/she enjoys people) and his/her ability to respond and initiate to others.
If a child has little interest in people, his/her motivation to learn to greet is probably not very high, and greeting might even seem meaningless to him/her. Even when a child is socially interested, if he/she does not respond or initiate to others consistently, it would still make greeting difficult. Thus, assessing and teaching relevant prerequisites are pivotal. Below is some basic skills that are worth looking into when evaluating the appropriateness of teaching greeting.
Responding to Name
A child can learn to respond to his/her name vocally and non-vocally, for instance looking at or going to the person who call his/her name. Typically speaking, responsiveness to name is affected by whether or not the child is engaged, how engaged he/she is (the interest level of activity/event that the child is engaged in), familiarity of the person who call his/her name, position and distance of the caller, busyness of the environment etc. Apart from limited social interest, low responsiveness to name might be related to not wanting to be interrupted as well. Thus, it might be helpful to include embedded reinforcers to increase motivation in initial training.
Receiving Objects
On the note of motivation, one can easily conclude that the more attractive an object is, the more likely for a child to receive it. So it is a good idea to use objects that the child enjoys before moving onto neutral items. Not only it increases motivation, but also makes responding more meaningful and functional. Games that involve receiving and passing objects such as Pass the Parcel and Hot Potato can be a fun way to enhance one’s responding.
Initiation
Initiation can occur vocally (speech) and physically (non-vocal actions such as giving things to others, pointing at something, or looking at someone). If a child has not acquired the ability to initiate for things or people that he/she desires, learning to initiate greeting does not seem to be meaningful and appropriate.
Unquestionably, there are situations where greeting is a good skill to teach. However, when designing programs for children with ASD, we need to ask ourselves why we are teaching certain skills and what prerequisites need to be developed in order to make teaching more effective and functional.
Information provided by Autism Partnership
Autism Partnership (AP) is one of the most established Applied Behavior Analysis (ABA) service providers for Autism Spectrum Disorders (ASD) in the world. Formed in 1994 in the United States, AP is run by professional clinicians and specializes in providing one-on-one therapy, group interventions and overseas consultation for children with ASD and their families.
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[:zh]我記得小時候父母總會提醒我看到人要打招呼。跟人打招呼從很早的時候就深深地植根在我們的社交生活中，它是孩子們在很小的時候就接觸到的一種社交技巧。
大家可能都知道，很多自閉症的孩子在主動跟別人打招呼和回應別人跟他/她打招呼這兩方面都有困難。因此，學習打招呼已成為這些兒童的常見培訓目標之一。問候是一種社交元素，它能讓我們進一步參與到社交活動中。可是，為了使問候成為一種有效的社交溝通和互動的工具，我們也需要了解孩子的社交關聯(他/她有多喜歡別人)和他/她回應他人和主動提出意向的能力。
如果一個孩子對人不感興趣，他/她學習打招呼的動機可能不會很高，甚至對他/她來說，打招呼似乎沒有任何意義。即使孩子對社交感興趣，如果他/她不能夠經常地回應別人或主動與他人提意向，教授他/她打招呼的難度依然蠻高。因此，評估和教導相關的技巧是至關重要的。以下的基本技巧能幫助我們評估教導打招呼是否合適：
回應自己的名字
孩子可以學會用語言和非語言來回應他/她的名字，例如看著或走向叫他/她名字的人。通常來說，回應名字會受這些因素影響：孩子是否忙著、孩子忙著的程度(孩子對忙著的東西的興趣程度)、對叫他/她名字的人的熟悉度、叫他名字的人的位置和距離、環境的忙碌情況等等。除了缺乏社交興趣，對自己名字的低反應度也可能與「不想被打擾」有關。因此，在剛開始訓練時，加入強化物的幫助可能會更有效增加社交動機。
接收物件
就動機而言，我們很容易得出這樣的結論：一個物件越有吸引力，孩子就越有可能接收它。因此，在使用中性物件之前，最好使用孩子喜歡的物件來做訓練。它不僅能更有效增加動機，而且能使回應更有意義和具有作用。接收和傳遞物品的遊戲，例如「傳遞包裹」和「燙手山芋」遊戲，都是有趣的方式來提高對人的反應。
主動性
主動性可以通過語言和支體行為 (非語言行為，例如給別人東西、指著某物件或者看著某人)來實現。如果一個孩子還沒有能力為自己想要的物件或人提出要求，學習主動打招呼似乎還沒有意義，也未合適。
毫無疑問，在某些情況下，打招呼是一項很好的社交技能。然而，在為自閉症兒童設計課程時，我們需要問自己為什麼要教導某些技能，以及需要開發哪些先決條件才能使教學更有效及實用。
資訊由Autism Partnership提供
Autism Partnership （AP）於1994年在美國成立，是全球最具規模為自閉症患者提供『應用行為分析』(ABA) 治療的專業機構。AP是由多位專業臨床心理學家、應用行為分析治療顧問及治療師管理，為患有自閉症譜系障礙（ASD）的兒童及其家庭提供一對一治療、行為干預小組訓練及海外諮詢服務。
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