Children on the spectrum often have challenges related to social skills. This is typically due to their overall diagnosis. For mainstream children with ASD they often find it hard to navigate social norms, peer pressure, struggle with imaginative/abstract thinking consequently, developing a wider gap between them and their peers. So often we hear parents feel their child’s social and peer rejection “my child is never invited on playdates, birthdays, and when we would invite others to our child’s birthday not many would even show up”.

In my experience at ATIC, both in Singapore and UAE, it is especially difficult not only for the child but also for the parents of these children. Both simultaneously feeling at times a sense of rejection and overall lack of support.

What can we do about this predicament, many parents often ask? I believe its multi-layered and complex to say the least. On a broader scale the inclusion process is indeed extremely important. On a Governmental level this is happening with advocacy, sensitivity and ultimate support. As a therapist, I often have to witness miss-interpretation of reports intended to provide further insight and support to a child, not for it to be used as a discriminatory document, leaving me bemused. In an attempt to be fair, in any developed country with an inclusion process it takes time to fully realise a cohesive mechanism. School’s I believe are developing resources and we should appreciate the fact that, in general, schools have qualified, supportive and skilful teachers, SEN coordinators and support staff. It does take time for resources to be fully developed and meantime expectations need to be managed. However, we cannot ignore the fact that we still see children even those high functioning refused entry into school and that includes Emirati students. Evidently these schools have discovered a loophole as SOME parents are advised the school is unable to support their child because too many children with additional needs have already been enrolled. This may well be the case but if so, authorities as well as private sector will have to develop services to manage increasing number of special needs students. In an increasingly competitive and commercialized education sector, it is the cost and the bottom line that dictates policies and procedures at main stream schools, after all it is indisputable that additional support means additional cost, both at schools and therapy centres/clinics. Parents are increasingly left with no choice but to compensate for the shortcomings and provide their children with external resource and therapy which can prove a burden for those with limited resources.

From a therapeutic standpoint, what can we do? We should firstly understand the reality of the situation. For such children I believe they have to fake it until they make it – social skills can be learnt however there is no escaping the fact that it may not come naturally to them. I believe in this approach as an appropriate intervention, especially in support of social skill development, I have seen its many benefits along the years.

Art Therapy with individuals diagnosed with ASD offers them an opportunity to learn and re-learn information in a non-conventional manner, which may be non-verbal, through this focus on expression and creativity, providing a rich sensory experience and intervention (Elkis-Abuhoff, 2008; Epp, 2008). There are many children, adolescents and even adults within our community who are non-verbal. Art Therapy, is therefore appropriate avenue due to its ability to support non-verbal populations and mitigating cognitive functioning (Malchiodi, 2005). Art therapy allows a collective understanding, supporting feelings of isolation in children with ASD who through an art therapy social skills program can collectively discuss frustrations, feelings of anxiety, depressive symptomology, visual feedback and in the development of formulating trust, appropriate boundaries, mitigating their innate vulnerability due to a lack of social awareness (Martin, 2009). A recent research study in USA indicated (from an art therapy social skills program) that art therapy enhanced the ability of children with ASD to engage and assert themselves in their social interactions, while reducing hyperactivity and inattention (D’Amico & Lalonde, 2017).

As a social impact company with a deep connection to the UAE, the founding principles of ATIC is to provide an alternative psychotherapeutic intervention (Art Therapy) in addition to traditional psychotherapy and counselling services. This addition to the social care sector may not be for everyone, and that is ok, but it should be an option available to parents, children and adults, as it is readily on offer in developed communities such as USA, UK, parts of Asia.

All in all, we still have a long way to go but a small step at a time may help assist improving status quo. For a start, mores services should be made available, insurance providers should seriously look at including and covering psychological support, schools should foster none-discriminatory policies, no child should be refused entry into school.

We should be minded of the fact that nothing is perfect, we all have a role to play, we as a community need to individually and collectively support the inclusion process. More resources are always a big help but realistic costing for creating opportunities for inclusion, are to be considered, as appropriate.

If there are additional resources currently emerging we would love to hear from you. ATIC also runs social skills groups for children with additional needs as well as in typical development, we run school programmes and provide support groups for parents of children with additional challenges