Lunch and Recess Social and Recreational Programs
Volume 5, Issue 1 ~ January/February 2010
Lunch Conversations: A Group Social Skills Intervention
by Nicole Caldwell, M.Ed.
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During the course of my work in schools, I have noticed that many students on the Autism spectrum do not readily socialize with their peers during lunch time. For the majority of students, lunch is an important social time with friends, and I want to make sure that our students with Autism are included in this daily event. While at times it may be necessary and beneficial to “single out” particular students for a social skills intervention during lunch time, I prefer to use interventions that include the entire class of students. Several “Lunch Conversations” programs that I have developed can help all students be included in lunch time conversations without specifically intervening with any particular student. The following article with briefly describe two school lunchtime social interventions. The materials for use with these intervention programs can be found on Positively Autism’s free downloads page at http://www.positivelyautism.com/links.html .
“Question of the Day” 
One method of increasing all students’ lunchtime conversations is to use a “question of the day” that all students must answer. I pass out one card to each table of students in the lunchroom that has the day’s question written on it. An example question might be, “What is your favorite food to eat for lunch?” The card would then list several possible answer choices, with a blank space by each one. The students are to talk to all other students at the table, get their answers, and record how many students chose each answer choice. A problem that I ran into while using this strategy was that the students would often just write down their answers without talking to each other. If this occurs, it may be helpful to simply remove the blank spaces and just have the students discuss the question without writing anything down. The goal of this program is to help all students be included in a conversation at the lunch table. Skills that I would work with my students in advance of lunch time are:
 In this program, two students are selected each day to (1) read a riddle aloud to the class, and (2) hold the card with the riddle answer and tell students if they have guessed correctly. I usually take a monthly calendar with a “Q” for question and an “A” for answer written on each school day. I pass this around to the class before lunch, and students can sign up for the days they want to read either the question or the answer. I often find that some of my students with Autism are hesitant to sign-up to read a riddle or answer. I usually allow them to watch the other students have turns reading the riddles for several days before they sign up for one, if they would like. The goals of this program are to get students involved in solving a common problem, the riddle, together and to give students on the Autism spectrum the opportunity to be involved in the group by reading the riddle question or answer. Skills that I would work with my students in advance of lunch time are:
These skills could be practiced either with a teacher before lunch time, or at home with a parent. It has been helpful for my students to practice the skills in advance with sample riddles or conversation questions, and then have the opportunity to practice them in the natural setting of the lunch room. All of the materials for both of these lunch social programs can be found in Positively Autism’s free downloads page. |
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