UBC Press Learning About Friendship book Paperback

Making friends can be a challenge for all children, but those with autistic spectrum disorder (ASD) can struggle more than most. This collection of ten fully-illustrated stories explores friendship issues encountered by children with ASD aged four to eight and looks at how they can be overcome successfully.Key problem areas are addressed, including sharing, taking turns, being a tattletale, obsessions, winning and losing, jealousy, personal space, tact and diplomacy, and defining friendship. The lively and entertaining stories depersonalize issues, allowing children to see situations from the perspective of others and enabling them to recognize themselves in the characters. This opens the door to discussion, which in turn leads to useful insight and strategies they can practise and implement in the future. Each story has a separate introduction for adults which explains the main strategies within it.This book will be a valuable resource for all parents and teachers of children with ASD, along with their friends and families, and anybody else looking to help children on the spectrum to understand, make and maintain friendships.

K.I. Al-Ghani is a special educational needs teacher who has worked for more than 30 years in the field of education. She is currently a specialist teacher for inclusion support and is involved with training professionals, students and parents in aspects of ASD. As an author and a mother of a son with ASD, she has spent the last 20 years researching the enigma that is autism. Haitham Al-Ghani is an author, illustrator and cartoon animator. He earned a triple distinction in multimedia studies and was the 2007 winner of the Vincent Lines Award for creative excellence.