A high school student has been given an assignment to develop a communication exercise, and present it in the form of an interactive game. He chose the social/communication interpersonal aspects of AS as his topic.

I rather liked the brainstorming notes that he came up with -- and have included them here to see what y'all think of his idea. :)

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

I think it would be interesting to set up a scenario where one person is challenged to interact and communicate verbally and socially with others. Only there is a slight premise. The others speak a slightly different language, and have very different social/cultural customs, etc.

Many students are given cards which outline the intricacies in the proposed language, and their social customs. For example, the gesture of 'thumbs up' may be a huge negative put-down, such as the familiar gesture using the middle finger. Or perhaps, no matter what, one usually laughs when presented with a serious situation, and in this culture, this is the usual manner to diffuse the seriousness of the issue. Perhaps, a guy would be expected to smack another guy on the behind as a simple 'greeting' etc... etc...

Other students do not receive the cards.

Now, one student who is not given a card, is given the challenge to go thru a role-play where they are assigned to interact with a group of students who received the cards. They would have a particular goal to achieve, such as fitting in on the first day of a new job. But they alone have NO idea what the given 'rules of the game' or 'acceptable' and 'non-acceptable' words and actions are. They just do not really 'get' the nuances, and will quickly become lost.

How does this student feel?
Is the interaction 'difficult' and 'stressful'?
Does he become anxious when trying to get thru the social situation and achieve the given goal?
Does he feel unsure as to how to proceed?
Does he feel isolated?
Does he find it hard to make a connection with one or more of the others, due to the inevitable pitfalls?
Does he figure out the 'mistakes' he is making?
Does he desire to just pull away and finally 'throw in the towel' and give up?

Afterwards, discussion might include questions such as:

What were the pitfalls?
What may have made a positive difference in the outcome?
If the student had been able to be more 'aware' of all the different nuances, would it have made a difference in the interaction and the outcome?
How many students without cards were able to guess, or learn, what they were missing? etc...