Autism Spectrum Social Skills Groups Superpowers
image via WhiteRave
What would your super power be? If you are a young person, or remember being a young person, you know this is a powerful Rorschach test. For a socially awkward child, or a child with Autism Spectrum Disorder exploring this can be therapeutic.
The things I love most about the emergent curriculum we are committed to at Kids Cooperate, is the wonderful conversations that come about spontaneously. One of these opportunities came up last week out of a side conversation about the merits of Captain America vs Iron Man.
As a facilitator, I was faced with the decision to redirect the conversation back to the planned activity, or to take what the children brought to the group. So we talked super heros.
“Which super hero would be nice to have dinner with? Why”
“What would your super power be?”
“How would you use your super power?”
Some amazing conversations came out of this such as, if you were invisible around a child or adult you are nervous around, what do you think you would discover? (That they were nervous and scared too, that they probably pick their nose!)
I don't want to stretch the super hero metaphor too thin, but one of the pillars of super hero origin stories is a person who, through environmental factors or genes, develops a different way of seeing, doing, and being than the "normal" people. Sound familiar? Without needing to make an explicit connection, it is easy to see why the super hero is such a powerful totem for children and young adults on the Autism Spectrum.