For Younger/Less Verbal Children: 

• Determine if the child is at all motivated to interact with children on his own.  Does he engage in them in any ways?  (getting close to them, hitting them, watching them, listening to them, trying to talk?)
• If the child is interested, figure out what part of the interaction he is seeking.  Does he just want to be included in the group?  Does he want someone to talk to?  Does he want someone to play with him?  Does he want someone to pay attention to him?
• From this you’ll identify at least one internal motivation that the child has for initiating, what is it that he seeks?

For Older/More Verbal Children: 

• Tap into reasons that the child himself may want to interact with others.  Are there certain activities or games he likes to engage in that are better with multiple people?
• Talk about reasons that the child may need to interact with others to participate in classroom activities/assignments
• Talk about reasons that the child may need to interact with others to get his wants and needs met in the classroom (asking another child for something)
• Talk about the benefits of having friends and how you need to interact with others to make and keep friends

For Children Who Don’t Seem Motivated to Interact at All: 

1. If he’s old enough, talk to him about the benefit of interaction and why he should care
2. Provide opportunities for the child to engage in activities that are more fun with two people (playing catch, being pulled in a wagon, riding a teeter totter, playing a 2-person game, etc.).  Look for the activities that the child seems to enjoy the most.
3. Teach the child specifically how to initiate interactions to engage in those activities with others.  Role play initiating with you first and then bring in other peers.
4. Bring those cooperative toys and activities into the classroom so you can help the child initiate with his peers.

Once you have identified a reason that the child really may want to initiate an interaction, use that to build a skill.  Think about the most appropriate way for that child to get that need met.  For verbal children, you will teach them the specific words to say to initiate the type of interaction that they are seeking.  For younger or non-verbal children, you may be teaching them to use AAC, gestures, or short phrases to initiate.  

Once you’ve identified how you want the child to initiate, you’ll need to teach him the skill.  My favorite way to do this is with social stories.

Click Here to Learn How to Use Social Stories

Here are a few examples of social stories I made for my own children when they were having issues initiating interactions.  They were both interested in other people but their default is “crash and tumble” so they were both being too rough with the others.  The first story is for my second child, who was at the 1-2 word level when we wrote it and the second story was for my hyper-verbal 3-year-old so his story includes longer sentences to say.

Social Story for Younger Child to Initiate

Social Story for Older Child to Initiate

Once you’ve introduced the skill to the child, it’s time to role play it out.  Read the social story with the child again and then, have him practice the skill on you.  Give him a scenario (like, I’m playing with blocks in your classroom) and then have him practice what to say and how to say it.  Make sure to provide feedback on good body language, such as proximity.  Also, make sure you give him a chance to role play several different responses to his initiation as well.  Sometimes, you’ll need to say “no, I don’t want to play” and help him navigate how to accept that as a response.  Because it’s going to happen eventually.  Once he can role play the concept with you, have him practice with other adults and peers as well.

Finally, you’ll need to help the child practice this skill in real life.  I highly suggest you give a copy of the social story to the classroom teachers and have them go over it with him.  This will help give the teacher ideas as to how to facilitate the interactions as well.  You can also create a small visual that reminds the child what to do when he wants to initiate. 

Either you or a teacher can facilitate this interaction in natural classroom situations.  Train teachers on how to redirect the child to the expected behavior if she sees him resorting to old behaviors, such as being rough with the other kids.  Or, if the child is not initiating at a time when he should, have the teacher go over and give him a few simple choices of how he wants to initiate with someone and then encourage him to go try.   This could be saying “would you rather ask Betsy or Johnny to play?” or “would you rather ask to join his play or ask him to join you with something else?”.

Keep working on the skill in this way until the child is able to initiate appropriately without prompting.