Chaya: I’m really glad this trip came up — it pushed me to take action that will help Leizer for life!

Leizer: New York was cool. I want to go to California next.

Therapist: The best way to make progress is by incorporating the work into Leizer’s regular life.

Chaya checks in with me every week. “Choose one WH question and focus on it for a week,” I tell her. “Practice with the photos at night, incorporate it into your life wherever you go. Then move on to another WH question for the next week, but keep it cumulative.”

Of all the WH questions, “who” has the most dimensions. “Who” incorporates not only the people present but also their actions and feelings.

Just as Leizer needed to learn the concept of “thought,” he needs to learn the concept of “feeling.” Here, too, Chaya needs to incorporate the skill into Leizer’s daily life by labeling feelings throughout the day.

We brainstorm together. “If he’s waiting on line for the ice cream truck, you can use the label ‘excited.’ ”

“Or, when he comes home with a project, I can talk about ‘proud,’ ” Chaya suggests.

“When he gets something new, you can discuss how it makes him feel — happy, appreciated….”

I give Chaya an idea: Stand with Leizer in front of a mirror and show him your facial expression: your big smile, your happy eyes. Have him imitate you in the mirror. That will help him learn to read facial expressions and body language.

These human clues are the key to the mystery of social situations.

Starting two weeks before their trip, Chaya begins showing Leizer photos of the people they’ll be spending time with, the house they’ll be in, what New York looks like, and photos of events similar to those they’ll attend. Even if real life doesn’t look exactly like the photos, Leizer will be good enough at picking up the clues to go with the flow.

I don’t hear from Chaya for a while. (Life is a mystery, after all.) She finally calls a week after their trip.

“Nu?”

The little chuckle in her voice tells me everything. “Listen,” she says, “it wasn’t perfect. He was still needy. But it was so much better.”

“What was different?”

“Well, first of all, wherever we went, as soon as we walked in, I would run through the who-what-when-where with him. Once he was oriented, he was more relaxed.”

“That’s great!”

“Yeah. The pictures helped, too — the places weren’t totally unfamiliar. By the end of the trip he was running around with his cousins like the rest of the kids. I also noticed that he looks at my face when we talk, and he looks at the kids’ faces when they play. I think that made it easier for him to keep up.”

“You did a great job, Chaya.” With her commitment and his practice, Leizer’s progress is no mystery.

We work on skills according to their natural progression: first awareness, then thought process, then action.

It’s best to use positive situations to draw attention to feelings. Although negative emotions are easier to identify, negative situations are not teachable moments. When Leizer does something wrong and Chaya is angry, he’s not able to learn a new skill at that moment.

Take It Home

Kids with poor situational awareness often feel overwhelmed or anxious in new situations. Help them acquire awareness skills so they can become more secure and confident:

Train your child to assess the who, what, when, and where every time he enters a new situation. Answering those questions will tell him exactly what’s going on.

Use photographs to practice looking for the who, what, when, and where in every scene.

Wherever you go, ask your child to identify the who, what, when, and where.

Take it a step further by asking, “What do you think might happen next?” Encourage your child to come up with many possibilities.

Make it a fun activity by giving your child a camera and having him take pictures as you go from place to place throughout the day.

Before a new situation or event, analyze relevant pictures to help prepare your child. Examples: airport, grandparent’s house, wedding hall.

Teach your child about thoughts and feelings, and to pay attention to the thoughts and feelings of others. When he can read facial expressions and body language, social situations will no longer be a mystery.

Stand in front of a mirror and demonstrate different expressions and what they mean.

Label emotions throughout the day as your child experiences them.

Talk about your own emotions to give your child a model for emotional processing and regulation.

Read and discuss books that describe feelings.

Originally featured in Family First, Issue 603. D. Himy, M.S. CCC-SLP, is a speech-language pathologist in private practice for over 15 years. She is the creator of the Link-It reading comprehension and writing curriculum for elementary school students and directs continuing education programs for speech-language pathologists and educators.