Children with disabilities, autism and a variety of behavior problems often do not display social skills such as sharing, greeting others, offering to help others, praising others and making small talk. The following are some tips on how to encourage these skills during your child's daily schedule.

1.The first step is to identify the skill you want teach.  Social skills can be taught, which is often not acknowledged by caregivers. 
2. Once the social skills are identified then prioritize which ones you will focus on first. Always work informally on all types of skills so that the training is even faster. Intensive focus on the highest priority skill does ensure that you will make faster progress with the more important skills for the child.
3. There is research that  Sharing and getting along can be reinforced and developed in a child. Some children are friendly and share on their own. The children that do not do this on their own can be taught to do so. Also, if caring and sharing are not encourage a child that is predisposed to be friendly might become less friendly.
4.  During the daily schedule be sure to include time for socializing. If your child's schedule includes only solitary activities such as his ipad or books and chores he may not have any opportunity to socialize and become friendly with others. For example, you can have time to talk at dinner, time for interactive games, talk in the car or at night before they go to sleep.  
5.  Include reinforcers for socializing such as a preferred item or activity if your children play a board game nicely. 
6.  If inappropriate behaviors do occur during the interactive activity be sure to stop the activity. Also,  do not give any preferred activity or item to anyone involved in the interactive activity. 
7.  Modeling and prompting appropriate conversations during interactive games can also be helpful for children. Often the children may not have the skill or forget to perform the skills. Social skills, sharing and friendliness are  important skills since getting along with others affects every area of the child's future including job, how they treat their family members,  friendships and general happiness of your child.

Parents or caregivers might consider the following in choosing a chore for there child.  
1.  Consider the physical abilities and limits of your child. If the chore involves lifting something heavy or using alot of motor movements that the child cannot do easily it will be difficult to motivate them to do the chore. For example, if you want the child to put things away on a high shelf or use a heavy vacuum this should be considered. You might want to purchase a lighter vacuum that does not have a cord in order to make the chore easier and more likely to be preformed. 
2.  The parent should consider the mental or intelligence level in choosing a chore. If you ask a child with a low IQ or to clean his entire bedroom this may be overwhelming and it may not occur. In contrast if you ask the child to put the blanket on the bed and pick up the blocks this may be easier. Giving him simpler chores may be easier for the child to accomplish and to motivate him to do on a daily basis. 
3.  The task should be one that the child might enjoy. Try to match his preferences or reinforcers with the chore. For example a child that likes sensory reinforcement may enjoy the water while washing the dishes. Another example is a chore such as serving guest lemonade may be enjoyed by a child that likes social interaction and praise! 
4.  The parent or caregiver should consider the long term goals for the child in choosing a chore. For example, if the child goals is going to be living with with his natural family (rather than  in a home or a group home) maybe try to choose tasks that are useful to the other people in the household with tasks such as cooking.  If the child is trying to learn a trade for the future making some money for himself perhaps a chore such as washing cars would be useful and he could later work in a car wash. If the child is going to try to work on the computer in the future perhaps helping the family by printing coupons for groceries' will help to develop the skills needed for a job with computer work. 
Generally, all of the above factors should be considered in choosing a task for the child. The caregiver or parent should try to find a task that the child can do, that is enjoyable for the child, that is physically and mentally possible to do and finally that fits in with his long term goals and dreams for the future. This type of chore will be more useful to teach him/her and more likely to be consistently performed by the child. 

People often start to get agitated and then it escalates into a tantrum. Parents and caregivers often have to   deescalate the situation or calm it down after it occurs. The following is a list of possible steps to take beginning with deescalation and then to calming a situation. Each person is different so an observation and analysis of the tantrum behavior will help and is essential to identify which methods to use.
1.  If the caregiver or parent observes any facial expressions, movements or behavior that show agitation it is best to intervene at this point. The intervention can include relaxation techniques, redirection or a cue word to calm the person down.
2.  Once the behavior starts to begin or even when the precursor facial expressions begin the parent/caregiver can redirect the person to another activity or distract them by discussing another topic.
3.  Another method of deescalation is to provide some relaxation methods for the person. Perhaps the person is tired and the caregiver can ask if they want to lay down or take a drink of water to relax. 
4.  Finally, if the behavior has started to occur then usually removing the person from the environment, moving the audience away or ignoring the person and engaging in another activity will deescalate the behavior. 
5. Finally any major reinforcers such as affection or activities preferred should not occur if the behavior has escalated at all into verbal or physical aggression. 
6. Also, in some cases training or physical management might be necessary if tissue dammage is imminent. 7. 7. However, on of the  best way to avoid aggression or tantrusm from occuring is to fill the time during the day with activities and reinforcers for those activities.Finally one should seek advice of a trained Behavior Analyst for aggression or tantrums. 

Exercise is important for children (and adults) with behavior problems, disabilities or autism spectrum diagnosis. Daily exercise can help to relax the child, redirect inappropriate behavior, replace inappropriate behavior with appropriate behavior, exercise can be a reinforcer, exercise can eliminate excess energy that might have been used for inappropriate behaviors. The following is a list of some methods of encouraging and arranging for the behaviors that are called exercise. 
1.  Parents or guardians can arrange a schedule for the day (including the week-end) to make sure that exercise is included each day.
2.  The daily schedule should have the exercise(if it is preferred) after the non-preferred activity (ex. such as homework). If exercise is a non-preferred activity then it should be scheduled before the preferred activity ( such as a computer game). 
3. Exercise can be an organized activity such as soccer or basketball outside or it can be built into the routine. 
For example, when parents go shopping they can park far away from the store so that the child has to walk. 
4.  Exercises should be designed to address any specific weakness the child needs to overcome. For example, if the child has poor fine motor co-ordination with the fingers games with the hands such as shooting basketball, playing with play dough, hand games with clapping, playing the piano or other games that require exercise and movement of the fingers would be great! 
5.  Another example is if the child has poor muscle tone in the stomach exercise such as aerobics with sit-ups. 
6. If the arms are week movements with the arms such as  pull-ups at the park, helping to carry groceries or carrying boxes of toys from the bedroom to the living room.
7. Finally a reward or reinforcer at the end of the day if the schedule is followed is important. The most effective is to have a choice from a token store of a variety of reinforcers or activities that they enjoy as a reinforcer!   
8. Finally social praise is very important throughout the day especially if that is a  major motivator for your child!:)

Parents and caregivers often forget or do not realized the importance of a daily schedule. This schedule should include two specific types of events at the least. These are describled and listed below. A detailed schedule which includes both activities and rienforcers will usually lead to elimantion of inappropriate behavior and maintenance of good behaviors.

The first thing that should be included in a schedule is the actual activities and the time frames in which they occur.  Some examples include activities such as school, workshop that occur on a daily basis during week-days. Also, include activities such as outings or vacations that may occur only once a  month or once a week. 
Another type of activity are  self-care activities that occur daily such as going to the bathroom, brushing teeth, eating breakfast, dressing. Also, daily living activities such as chores of wiping the table, taking the trash, making the bed, moping, cooking  or cleaning the dishes.  Bedtime and time to wake up are important factors to include in the schedule since children need more sleep and behavior problems are often correlated with a lack of sufficient sleep for people. The more detail is preferred so that if another caregiver is there even just for a few hours the routine is still followed. Also, children with autism and developmental delays as well as any child prefer to have a routine which reduces frustration and confusion related to what activities will be done that day.  

Secondly, caregivers or family should include in the daily schedule reinforcers. For example, time to use the computer, television, radio, toys can be built into the schedule as available if the behavior is good.  A token exchange or time to choose a reinforcer can also be included in the schedule. The schedule should be updated and reviewed regularly for any changes needed in order to assure that it produces the maximum beneficial effect on the childs' behavior! 

The latest trend is to purchase an iPad or computer and assume that this will teach your child everything!
There are three important things to note about the use of an electronic device.

First, the computer itself does not teach your child. If the software has reinforcers built into the games or activities that you purchased then this might work. However, if your child does not like the particular reinforcer in the program then the child will not learn. For example, if your child likes music and the reinforcer in the game is music delivered for a correct response then the child will not learn.  Before purchasing a game it is important to look at the game and see if the reinforcers are included.

Secondly, it should be noted that many games are specifically designed to include reinforcers and many are not.  Some are based on psychological research including games such as those developed by "Headsprout" ( recently purchased  by another company) and many others. Parents should read and look at the information about the games to see if they are based on research or psychological principles such as reinforcement. 

Third, parents should also consider the skills taught by the electronic device. Are these skills you want your child to learn. There are games to learn most anything such as spelling, reading, self-care skills, morals, social skills and much more.  I contrast it should be noted that children might model some behavior in games and there is such discussion and research that indicates that some aggression can be learned from modeling of television or games. This should be considered in your purchase of a game. Games your children might like might have some benefits and some deficits in their affect on your child's' behavior. All of these factors should be weighed and considered before purchasing a device and programs for your child.