Welcome to Plural Publishing's companion website, intended to enhance your use of the text The FILTER Approach: Social Communication Skills for Students with Autism Spectrum Disorders by Stephanie D. Sanders.
About the Book
The F.I.L.T.E.R. Approach - Social Communication Skills for Students with Autism Spectrum Disorders is a social skills curriculum workbook for speech-language pathologists (SLPs) and professionals providing social skills training to students or individuals with high-functioning autism, social communication disorders, and/or social anxiety.
Stephanie Sanders created this curriculum after verbal attempts to teach the concept of using a "social filter" to students with high-functioning autism. Saying a person "has no filter" is a common expression for a socially inappropriate or abrasive person. However, the connection between a literal and figurative filter makes little sense to high-functioning ASD students. Research and experience confirm the rote memory skills of children with high-functioning ASD and this workbook capitalizes on this to provide a simple, yet memorable tool for conversation. The F.I.L.T.E.R. curriculum first teaches the literal versus figurative filter concept and then presents an acronym for connecting the concept to social skills to help students before, during, and after conversation.
- F - Facial clues: look for information about how someone is feeling.
- I - Inappropriate: avoid "red light" comments and topics.
- L - Listen: tune in to the person talking and tune out distractions.
- T - Target: are you hitting or missing the target in conversation?
- E - End the conversation (and start it) at the right time.
- R - Repair mistakes made in conversation.
Contact Us
We invite your reactions to both The FILTER Approach: Social Communication Skills for Students with Autism Spectrum Disorders and this site. Please feel free to call Plural Publishing, Inc. at 858-492-1555 with your questions and your suggestions for improving the book and the companion website. Additionally, do not hesitate to email us at [email protected] if you need help or have comments to pass along. Please include the phrase “The FILTER Approach” in the subject line of your e-mail message(s). We look forward to hearing from you!
