Who are the children with social communication problems?
Very often school age children with disabilities have extraordinary difficulty managing social situations. Rather than use language to facilitate their interactions, they often resort to inappropriate, challenging behaviors, such as grabbing, hitting, or crying. These children are often out of control and in trouble; they are also the children that are eventually described as having difficulty making and keeping friends. At worse, these problems give rise to children who are at risk for long-term alienation and dependency, “youth at risk.” Social communication problems in school age children can reflect broad neurological deficits, specific deficits in social-emotional adjustment and/or language, and/or environmental obstacles. Very often children with social communication problems exhibit cognitive abilities within normal limits for their age. These children demonstrate an array of deficits and diagnoses, including but not limited to: Autistic Spectrum Disorders, Specific Language Imp
