Dr. McGinnis-Smith earned a PhD in special education with emphasis in EBD at the University of Iowa and an administrator certification from Drake University. She is coauthor of the social skills teaching series "Skillstreaming." She also coauthored with Richard Simpson "Skillstreaming Children and Youth with High Functioning Autism…

Video-based intervention (VBI) has strong evidence supporting efficiency in teaching social, communication, functional, behavior, play, and self-help skills and emerging evidence for teaching academic skills to students with autism spectrum disorder (ASD). VBI allows opportunities to electronically provide personalized, consistent, and prerecorded…

Social skills are prerequisite to academic performance and success in school. Training of these skills is particularly important for students with emotional and behavioral disorders (EBD) who have social deficits and struggle maintaining appropriate and accepted behavior in and outside of the classroom. Educating through the "physical" model is a…

The academic and social challenges facing public schools are enormous. For example, the pressure to meet the demands of the current high-stakes testing environment and reach adequate yearly progress (AYP) goals has arguably never been greater (Luna & Turner, 2001; Sanders, 2003). The energy devoted to academics has supplanted the little time spent…

This article discusses the "hidden curriculum" in schools, its impact on social functioning, and strategies for helping children and youth with Asperger Syndrome learn the hidden curriculum. Strategies include using social stories, acting lessons, self-esteem building activities, cartooning, social autopsies, and the SOCCSS (Situation,…

Social stories and comic strip conversations were successfully used to teach social skills to a 14-year-old student with Asperger Syndrome. As a result of the training, the student's behavior changed. The student enjoyed using comic strip conversations and began to request their use from others at school and home. (Contains references.) (CR)

This article discusses the social interaction deficits of persons with Asperger Syndrome and describes a social behavioral learning strategy, SODA (Stop, Observe, Deliberate, and Act), that will enhance the social interaction skills of persons with Asperger Syndrome. It explains the components of SODA and provides a set of teaching guidelines.…

Strategies teachers can use to teach parents to teach their children to be prosocial are described. These strategies include teaching incidentally, performing social skills autopsies, coaching emotions, and assigning homework. Issues to be considered when working with parents and children from culturally and linguistically diverse backgrounds are…

This interview with an individual with Asperger Syndrome (AS) discusses the characteristics of autism, how AS differs from autism, and common characteristics of AS. His experiences in school are described and recommendations are made for teachers who work with students with AS and for parents of children with AS. (Contains references.) (CR)