A Training Program for Developing Emotional Intelligence Skills and Improving Social Interaction among Children with Asperger Syndrome

Abstract

In 1944, the Viennese physician, Hans Asperger (1906-1980), described a group of children who were affected by a severe, but sometimes well-camouflaged social impairment, he termed "autistic psychopathy". While Asperger initially described the syndrome in 1944, it wasn't until 1991 that "Lorna Wing's" seminal work re-introduced Asperger Syndrome to North American researchers and practitioners. Subsequently, a myriad of research on the topic has been conducted. Since the inclusion of tentative diagnostic criteria for AS in both the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorder "DSM-4" and the International Classification of Diseases "ICD-10", there has been a reported increase in the clinical of AS. According to American Psychiatric Association (DSM-4 2000), Asperger Syndrome is a developmental disorder characterized with a lack of social skills and relationships, bad attention, low average of interests, however normal intelligence quotient and sufficient verbal skills, they haven't observed delay in language although they suffer from difficulties in acute understanding for sup-conversations such as laugh. And they have average to superior rang of intelligence. The presence of social and emotional difficulties has been widely accepted as a hallmark of AS. In most systems of classification and in research, one of the primary features of AS is the failure to develop age-appropriate social skills, despite typically developing cognitive and language skills.Wing (1981) summarized the social interaction difficulties of individuals with AS as including: an absence of reciprocal social interaction; difficulties understanding hidden or implicit rules of socialization; naïve and/ or inappropriate social behaviors; and a lack of empathy. Various researchers have further outlined weakness in appreciating socialcues and socially/emotionally inappropriate behaviors , difficulty behaving according to social conventions, difficulty sensing feelings of others , detachment from the feeling of others, and avoidance of others or preference for being alone. Additionally, atypical cognitive styles and idiosyncratic behaviors likely contribute to the social-emotional difficulties individuals with AS experience with peers. Significant difficulties developing social competencies, despite an eagerness to connect with other