Children with learning disabilities can have difficulty understanding the less obvious aspects of communication. We don’t only listen to people’s words, but we pay attention to their tone, gestures they might make, their facial expressions. We learn from an early age that all of these things tie together. It is important to realize that children with learning disabilities may have trouble processing so many factors. They also might not realize things implied by tone, such as sarcasm. It is important to convey to a child that there is more to a person’s communication than their words. It is important that children learn that body language can be telling.
Social processing skills are difficult to observe firsthand as we only see the results – what that process leads to, and not the actual processing. In order to better understand how a child who maybe having difficulty processing information is doing, ask the child to walk you through their thought process, that way you can see how they reached the conclusion they did and why they acted that way. Then, if there appears to be an error in that process you can explain why and try to steer them toward the right process. Remember that as with all skill learning a lot of repetition is key.
Here is an example I observed with a mother and her six-year-old boy who had just hit another little boy.
"Why did you hit Jason?"
"Because he was being mean to me!"
"What did he do that was mean to you?"
"He told me that I couldn't have the swing and I wanted it. He is mean to me and he doesn't like me so I hit him because he was mean to me first."
"Did Jason make a face at you when he told you that you couldn't have the swing? Did he call you a bad name?"
"No."
"When people want to take their turn, that is not being mean. You need to go tell Jason you are sorry."
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