Once a child has a solid foundation of requesting and basic communication, goals often expand into the more complex territory of social communication — turn-taking, conversation, and genuine back-and-forth interaction. Here's how this typically develops.
Why Social Communication Is a Different, More Complex Skill
Basic requesting is relatively straightforward — a child asks for something specific, and there's an immediate, clear reinforcer waiting. Social communication is more complex and abstract: it requires reading another person's cues, taking turns without a rigid script, staying on a shared topic, and adjusting based on responses that aren't always predictable. This complexity is exactly why it's often a later-stage goal rather than a starting point.
Turn-Taking as a Foundational Skill
Turn-taking often starts outside of conversation entirely — with structured games and activities that build the underlying concept of "my turn, your turn" before applying it to more abstract verbal exchange. This might start with simple physical games (rolling a ball back and forth) and gradually build toward conversational turn-taking (asking a question, waiting for a response, responding to what was said).
Building Toward Conversation
Conversational skills are typically broken into teachable components: initiating interaction (starting a conversation or greeting), responding appropriately to what another person says, staying on topic for a reasonable exchange, asking follow-up questions to show interest, and appropriately ending an interaction. Each of these can be taught and reinforced individually before being combined into more natural, flexible conversation.
Using Special Interests as a Bridge
Many autistic children have areas of intense interest, and these can be genuinely valuable tools for building social communication — practicing conversational turn-taking about a topic your child is already motivated to talk about tends to be more successful than starting with a neutral or unmotivating topic.
Scripts and Structured Support, Then Flexibility
It's common to start social communication teaching with more scripted or structured support (specific phrases, predictable exchange patterns) and gradually fade that structure as your child gains confidence and skill, moving toward more natural, flexible interaction over time. This mirrors, in some ways, the pattern we describe in Echolalia Explained, where scripted language can serve as a real stepping stone toward more flexible communication.
Practicing at Home
Parents can reinforce these skills through everyday interactions: playing turn-based games together, modeling conversational turn-taking during family time, and gently expanding on your child's comments rather than only asking direct questions, which can feel more like a test than a genuine exchange.
When Peer Practice Matters
Some social communication skills — particularly navigating peer dynamics specifically — benefit from practice with same-age peers, not just adults. This is one area where a clinic-based group setting or structured peer activities (through school, camps, or community programs) can meaningfully complement in-home, one-on-one ABA sessions.
For Kentwood-Area Families
Our BCBA, Kimberly Blazer, builds social communication goals into your Kentwood-area child's treatment plan when appropriate for their current stage of development. Our Individual ABA Therapy service is designed around exactly this kind of goal. our in-home ABA therapy in Kentwood page has more information, or Get Started Today to get started.
This article is part of our complete guide, Nonverbal Autism: Communication Strategies That Work. Clinically reviewed by Kimberly Blazer, BCBA.