Making Friends at Work. Saffron Gallup

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      Making

      Friends

      at Work

      Learning to Make Positive Choices in Social Situations for People with Autism

      Saffron Gallup

      Jessica Kingsley Publishers

      London and Philadelphia

      Preface

      When I was young, I was a big fan of the type of adventure book where you could choose your own ending. What I liked most was that if I wasn’t happy with the way things turned out, I could go back and choose an ending that I was more satisfied with. Now, it’s not as if I’m ever going to need to escape from an ice palace or out-smart an evil sorcerer in real life, but I enjoyed the process, nevertheless; it made me feel as though I had options, and it made it easier to take risks.

      Through my work as a speech and language therapist I have used many resources that support “flexible thinking” and “social interaction,” but I wanted to develop something that would allow more autonomy and a broader range of possible outcomes. And so I came back to this idea of the “adventure story” and how it could be used as a tool to explore social interaction.

      If you are unfamiliar with such adventure stories, the format is this: after the introduction you are offered a choice of what to do next. The choice that you make influences the path of the story. The story is not sequential like a normal story: you may go forwards or backwards at any point as you pursue a new story line. You will come to an ending sooner or later, which can be positive (you defeat the sorcerer) or negative (you get trapped in the ice palace for ever!).

      This book aims to use a similar format to address a social situation. The reader is presented with a scenario (in this case, wanting to make a new friend) and then given choices about what to do next. This will direct the story path. There are a number of endings to this book. The ending may be positive (in this case, you make the first steps in starting a new friendship) or negative (the choices you make don’t result in friendship).

      Please don’t be worried or stressed if you feel the story ended badly; the whole point of this book is to be able to take a step (or more) back and try something else. Perhaps you can then find an ending you are more satisfied with. And if you are curious about what may have happened in some of the less positive endings, turn to the appendix at the back of this book for some possible explanations.

      Although this story is based on real life, the outcomes are fictional and as such it should be kept in mind that events will not happen in real life in exactly the same way as they are described in this book. Different people will have different responses on different days and according to their mood. The idea of this book is to explore different choices and outcomes. Feel free to write your own endings based on your own experiences or those of people you know. Maybe you wouldn’t choose any of the presented options at all! Talking the choices over with friends/family/key workers/carers will result in a wealth of additional social information. If you want to try things out in real life, you will probably find it helpful to talk over your plans and thoughts with your own circle of support beforehand or afterwards, as a kind of review.

      A final note: this story is about a specific area of interest (art). This could easily be replaced by another area of interest if art just isn’t your thing (e.g. cinema, sports, graphic novels, music).