Reply to MERLD / receptive expressive language disorder and friendships

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Reply to "MERLD / receptive expressive language disorder and friendships"

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[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous]My kid has HFA, but qualified as mixed expressive and receptive language disorder at one point. Now, while expressive and receptive are considered bottom of normal range there still are language issues. He has friends. He had friends even at the worst of it, but back in preschool it was orchestrated by parents. Now he makes friends on his own. Social skills are a work in progress-lots of improvements, but I still see major differences from NT peers.  His friends are both kids with special needs and typically developing peers. I do think in addition to ST, and social skills work mainstream at school and regular camps have helped tremendously.[/quote]

MERLD kids often do not fit into social skills classes as they are more for ADHD/ADD and behaviors and needs can be very different.[/quote]

I would focus more on the approach the group uses rather than the diagnosis you imagine the other kids have. My son has pragmatic language disorder as well as expressive language delays (his receptive is now "average" though during previous testings it was not). He has been in a social skills group for years (but not in DC area) with kids with ASD, ADHD, and LD (most of them have at least 2 of these diagnoses, some all 3, I know this because we parents have had lots of time to chat in the waiting room). The therapist loosely uses a curriculum from the Social Thinking work of Michelle Garcia Winner. It's a great match for all of them. The rigid kids work on being flexible, the chatty kids work on making space for other people to participate in the conversation, too, the grabby handsy kids work on understanding why other kids don't like that and what they can do instead, and my kid works on being assertive and staying on topic as best he can (because he can also lose the thread of a conversation and he needed to learn to say "wait, what?" rather than just wander away or go off on a tangent).

Also, as the parent of two boys I have to say I think being a girl with a language delay is probably more of a challenge than it is for a boy. My kid is not particularly cool or athletic, but in 4th grade he is largely accepted because he can play football at recess with out being a jerk and knows how to talk sports and video games. The girls seem to already have a very complex social hierarchy and, the days I have been there for lunch and recess, spend most of their time not engaged in an activity but negotiating some self created drama. I think it's normal, but probably perplexing to anyone who is behind language or social wise. Maybe it would help to get your daughter engaged in some hobbies that she can do with other kids so that there is an activity to focus on (sports, arts, theater, dance, whatever). Then they have something in common to do and to talk about. It might not necessarily translate into school friends, but friendships outside of school can be great, too.[/quote]

Logically you are correct but it depends on the child.  Mine is bothered greatly by grabbing kids and kids who are annoying.  So, a social skills class with ADHD and ASD would not be best.  Mine had a tuff time with the behaviors in a mixed SN and regular classroom as several kids were very loud/distracting and grabby.  The grabbing (which may have been hugging) was really upsetting to the point my child didn't want to go to school.

Often inclusive activities can be just as good or better.  We worked hard to try many activities and then narrow it down to a reasonable amount based off preferences.  Cub scouts is good for being inclusive.  We have several girls in our troop.[/quote]

True, it depends on the individual group of kids and the skill of the therapist. My child was also very uncomfortable around grabby, bossy kids. The therapist and I talked about it when he enrolled and I felt like there was enough structure and supervision that he could work on being assertive with those kids while they worked on respecting his limits. It took a while but it's been great for him. Those boys have given him opportunity to work on skills he would not have gotten with a group of kids just like him (which I couldn't find, anyway).

But that was 1 hour a week with 2 adults and 5 kids. I would not have wanted him in the typical "self-contained" class in our local public schools. The funding and support is not good here and quiet kids get ignored because there is just too much for the teachers to do.[/quote]

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