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    Becoming a Social Thinker
    Becoming a Social Thinker
    Becoming a Social Thinker
    Ebook88 pages1 hour

    Becoming a Social Thinker

    By Travis Breeding

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    About this ebook

    "Context is King" is a quote by Dr. Peter Gerhardt a Behavior Analyst in the field of Autism. Understanding context is critical for social success. Communication is 93 percent non-verbal and it is important to use our social thinking skills to be able to read and understand social context and social dynamics. Learn how I taught myself to become a good social thinker by studying good body language. This book will teach you everything you need to know to become a good social thinker. You will learn how to read and decode body language and facial expressions to get a full picture of what people are trying to communicate with you. You will also gain the ability to read and understand social context or social dynamics in social settings. In a world where communication is 93 percent non-verbal and only 7 percent verbal it is important that we get a full picture of what people are trying to communicate to us. This book will help you learn how to read what other people are trying to say and help you communicate who you are in a more advanced way that will allow others to see you for who you really are. This is a great book for parents and professionals wanting to gain better understanding into advanced social concepts like social thinking and the ability to read and decode body language and facial expressions. This is also a great book for adults and teens on the autism spectrum to read in order to become better at understanding social thinking and social context.

    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherTravis Breeding
    Release dateJan 30, 2017
    ISBN9781370308484
    Becoming a Social Thinker
    Author

    Travis Breeding

    Travis is an author from Huntington Indiana how enjoys entertaining and educating through words. He enjoys telling a story and taking it from his mind to paper. He has authored several books on autism, mental illness, schizophrenia, and disability issues. He continues to write about those issues but also explores some fiction writing as well. Travis has a loving family and enjoys spending time with friends and family. He loves to play bingo and meet new people. One day Travis hopes to start a family of his own and give them so much love. Travis would like to thank his readers for supporting him on his journey of becoming an author. He could not have done it without you. If you would like to get in touch with Travis please email him at tbreedauthoratgmaildotcom,

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      Book preview

      Becoming a Social Thinker - Travis Breeding

      Becoming a Social Thinker

      Travis Breeding

      Published by Travis Breeding at Smashwords

      Copyright 2016 Travis Breeding

      All Rights Reserved

      Contents

      Chapter One: My First Friend

      Chapter Two: What Friendship Is Not

      Chapter Three: Social Thinking Context is King

      Chapter Four: Social Networking Sites

      Chapter Five: My Journal Entries

      About the Author

      Bibliography

      Chapter One My First Friend

      The year was 1992 and I was six years old. My parents held me back a year so when I began kindergarten I was already a year older than most of the kids in my class. Looking back, I recognize some of the red flags that were raised which could have helped me receive my autism spectrum diagnosis a lot earlier than I did. Back in the early 1990s people weren’t as aware of the high functioning end of the autism spectrum so parents and teachers didn’t identify the traits and developmental delays often associated with Asperger’s Syndrome.

      Kindergarten was a rough time. But, I recall my first friendship with Eric. I can’t tell you how the friendship began or developed; it just happened naturally. At that age there are fewer social norms and rules involved in making and keeping a friend. Things happen naturally. Eric and I ran around on the playground with some of his friends playing games like cowboys and Indians. These things took little or no effort for me. It was a situation in which I was able to live in the moment and develop a natural friendship with Eric.

      My friendship with Eric would carry me through most of my elementary school years. A lot of time was spent out on the playground. I did well with this. The friendship wasn’t about maintaining a conversation or making small talk. It was just about being in the moment and running around. Usually, I followed Eric around.

      Now, I’m 27 years old. I’ve learned that adult friendships don’t work like this at all and they definitely don’t come naturally or just magically fall into your lap. I suspect I’d have done a lot better in life than I have so far if friendships still worked the same at age 27 as they did when I was six years old in kindergarten.

      In fifth grade my world began to change. One October day Eric informed me that his dad had taken a job in Cedar Rapids, Iowa. By the end of the month, my best friend was going to be moving from my hometown of Andrews, Indiana, to Cedar Rapids. I was shocked. I didn’t know what life without Eric would be like. This was in 1997, which meant Eric had been my best friend since 1992 in kindergarten. I always expected I was going to see him every day at school and assumed we’d always be friends. But with one sentence, Eric was proving this to be untrue. He was leaving for Iowa and I was going to be left in Indiana without my best friend.

      By this time a few things had changed in the way the other students socialized at school. After Eric left in October I attempted to form a few new friendships but I just couldn’t relate to the other kids the same. It was different. By fifth grade cowboys and Indians was no longer a game other children wanted to engage in at recess.

      I was beginning to see the change in the way the kids socialized and connected with each other. I know now that this is a change in which children with Asperger’s Syndrome, or an autism spectrum disorder, do not adapt naturally. This was the period where the gap began to grow, both socially and emotionally, between me and my peers. The other children were more interested in talking and having conversations at recess than they were running around and playing games. Luckily for me I did enjoy shooting hoops and playing basketball and there were still a few guys who wanted to do so at recess. However, they never wanted me to play with them.

      My fifth grade teacher even tried to help facilitate a smooth transition for me since she could tell I was missing my friend, Eric. She helped me try and meet new friends. But it didn’t happen like it did in kindergarten. The end of my fifth grade year is where I started to notice things about myself that were different or unique. For the first time in my life I started to wonder about myself. What was wrong with me? Those thoughts are ones that I would keep well into my adult life. I still struggle with some of those thoughts today. However, today I understand what Asperger’s Syndrome is and how it affects me. So, I know that the thoughts are there because I have this condition, but they cannot be true.

      Middle school would prove to be a difficult transition as well. Not just for the changes in the way schooling was executed but also for the changes that would continue to develop in other kids that didn’t happen in me. As we all got older socializing became less and less about running around chasing each other on the playground or playing cowboys and Indians and it became more about talking to one another and relating and connecting with one another. It was about discussing who did what over the weekend, who was in trouble or who was going to the movies the following weekend. It was all about talking. I was lost. I didn’t know how to engage with my peers like that. I knew how to run around and play games on the playground and that’s what I tried doing. I received many funny looks from my peers. I was being inappropriate. But, in my mind, I thought they were the ones being inappropriate.

      I threw myself into music and band in middle/high school. I developed a hobby of playing the trombone, which soon became the autism special interest. I found my identity in playing trombone and I was great at it. Often, I was made fun of because I practiced so much that the other kids said things like The trombone is your best friend, or The trombone is your only friend. It was comments like those that would lead to my falling apart and crashing later in adult life. But, at the time, those comments had little or no meaning to me. I enjoyed playing trombone and didn’t care so much about what the other kids were saying.

      I could still see the way they were socializing and deep down I wanted to be like them but I just couldn’t; I didn’t know how. Wrapping myself up in the trombone helped me forget about that. It helped me not want to be socializing with the other kids so much. It helped me keep my own identity for a few years. Music was a part of me. Music was my friend. It was that music that would help me finish and graduate high school in 2004. My high school journey wasn’t pretty, academically, at all. It was even more of a train wreck, socially. But I made it. In June 2004, I received my diploma and was about to enter the real world; a world for which I was not at all ready.

      Chapter Two What Friendship Is Not

      Before we can begin to understand what friendship is we must first understand what a friendship is not. This is a process that comes naturally to most

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