Description
Students with Asperger Syndrome (AS) are often left with no social skills support
because they perform academically as well as their typical peers, and therefore their
disorder is misdiagnosed or misunderstood. In Saudi Arabia, social skills support is
especially lacking for these students. In this paper, the author has developed an afterschool
program called Shoot for the Stars for elementary students who have AS in
Jeddah, Saudi Arabia. Shoot for the Stars is designed to be a fun one-hour after-school
program that concentrates on improving students' social skills through a combination of
recreational activities and an appropriate social curriculum. Different social skills strategies
are used to help students with AS achieve successful social functioning, including emotion
circle time, social stories, role-playing, video modeling, sensory integration therapy, and
the Stop-Observe-Deliberate-Act (SODA) strategy. Recreational activities will be held to
give students the chance to practice the learned behaviors and interact with their peers. The
recreational activities will include field trips to museums, zoos and parks, swimming
lessons, martial arts lessons, book clubs, and art clubs.
