Improving responses of students with autism - Research Paper Example

Children with autism develop weaker ties with their peers or do not develop them at all; instead, the prefer spending their time to observe and imitate everything they see around (Zager 2005). More importantly, ASD children continuously interact with animals, inanimate objects, and their parents (Nowinski 2003). These children are not willing or cannot share their thoughts and feelings with others and cannot communicate their needs openly and effectively. The lack of joint attention and nonverbal communication skills is a common problem for ASD children (Nowinski 2003).

 Verbal and non-verbal communication skills are not the only problem with ASD children. Such children also experience significant difficulties with trying to interpret gestures and facial expressions, they lack proper understanding of social engagement and rules and cannot develop productive relationships with peers (Whitman 2005). ASD children do not simply fail to understand social rules but they cannot react appropriately to different social situations. Very often, they would display inappropriate behaviors or comment inappropriately the situations and behaviors they witness in different social surroundings.

Expressive language is another problematic area for children with ASD: according to Whitman (2005), ASD children often experience a delay in expressive language development and thus tend to use gestures to communicate more effectively. Zager (2005) supports this line of research and writes that ASD children will always tend to be literal and concrete.