Excerpted from chapter 9 of Teaching Children with Autism: Strategies for Initiating Positive Interactions and Improving Learning Opportunities, edited by Robert L. Koegel, Ph.D., & Lynn Kern Koegel, Ph.D.

Copyright © 1995 by Paul H. Brookes Publishing Co. All rights reserved. No part of this excerpt may be reproduced or reprinted without permission in writing from the publisher.

Social relationships and friendships are important to all individuals, including individuals with autism. The absence of meaningful relationships in a person's life can be very detrimental to his or her development as well as quality of life. Unfortunately, individuals with developmental disabilities and autism have an especially difficult time in establishing meaningful relationships. There are several reasons for this.

First, children with developmental disabilities are not often given the opportunity to interact with other typically developing children. Instead, they are placed in segregated, impoverished environments, with no emphasis on developing friendships.

Second, children with developmental disabilities, especially children with autism, may need some assistance in acquiring friends. Unfortunately, when assistance is given, an emphasis is placed on teaching the child a set of social skills. The assumption is made that once the child learns these social skills he or she will be worthy of or ready for participation in a relationship. In the worst case scenario, the acquisition of social skills becomes the end product, with no mention of the importance of establishing social relationships. To further complicate this issue, the social skills that are selected as targets appear to be selected based on an adult value system instead of a child value system.

Third, an emphasis is placed on changing the child with the disability of attempted to make him or her "normal" (i.e., if Jimmy acted "normal," he would have friends). It is quite possible that children with developmental disabilities and typically developing children can have meaningful friendships, but these relationships will probably be different in many ways from the friendships in typically developing children--not less important or atypical, just different. An emphasis should be placed on teaching children who to establish a relationship through joint effort. Typically developing children often need to modify their existing attitudes regarding disabilities as well as their behavior and expectations.

Fourth, it is often believed that individuals with certain disabilities (i.e., autism) are not capable of developing meaningful relationships with others. Instead, individuals with autism are described as preferring to be left alone in their own worlds. Unfortunately, many of the descriptions and defining characteristics of autism have been based on clinical observations as opposed to empirical investigation. Recent data suggest that this may be a false assumption. At a minimum, the social behavior of children with autism deserves another look.

Consideration of these four roadblocks to the development of relationships for children with developmental disabilities should assist researchers, teachers, and families in designing studies that will yield important and valid information. The evolution of a theory of the development of friendships of persons with developmental disabilities is long overdue and must proceed based on a strong methodological foundation.