From the very beginning of our lives we are learning how to interact with other people, how to respond to a smile, how to talk to each other, how to ask for things and many more skills that help us to get on with other people. For some the learning is not as natural as it is for others. This may be because of special conditions such as autism, attention deficits and other learning disabilities.
Star is such a person, she talks out of turn, talks only about what she wants without consideration to others, has difficulty in seeing things from another person’s perspective, zones out into a world of her own and generally finds it difficult to understand other people. She has received a lot of help with this and is learning these skills that often come naturally to others.
We were asked to review a short show about how we can learn these skills. The Show is called Flummox and Friends and you can see a pilot episode here. The show focuses around three inventors and their friends and neighbours. While they invent things to help them with their interactions it’s often their friends and neighbours that show them how it’s really done. The show also has musical pieces and animations which help to re-enforce the messages.
It took Star while to become engrossed in the show but I think that was mainly because it was something she was unfamiliar with. She particularly loved the music and animations. She laughed out loud at the characters silly dances and tried to copy them. When we talked about the show afterwards she was more interested in talking about the silly dances than anything else. I could see a lot of her behaviour traits in the main characters of the show and I do think that if it was a show she watched regularly then it would help her with her social skills. I’ll definitely be watching the website for when more episodes are available.
Along with the show there are downloadable guides for extended learning for both parents and schools. These focus on the messages Tune In, Connect and Have Fun. Each section has guidelines for talking and learning about these particular social skills.
Tune In is about tuning into yourself, those around you and the world around you. This involves self-awareness, perspective taking and and assessing the social context.
Connect is about communicating, predicting feelings and sharing and appreciating unique qualities.
Have Fun is about using play to re-enforce social skills and aid interaction with others.
This is a Sponsored Post, All thoughts and opinions are my own.
Sounds great that you have found something that works!
this sounds interesting, i will look more into this tomorrow. xx hope your well honey x
What a great idea for a show, it looks really helpful and I love that they have downloadable guides too. Thank you for linking to PoCoLo xx