Your child can have difficulties using his/her language to interact or have conversations with others. Children with social communication difficulties struggle with pragmatics - the unspoken, subtle rules of spoken language that allow people to connect. They don’t always understand the give-and-take of a conversation. Some of them monopolize conversations or interrupt a lot. Others hesitate to talk at all. This can make it harder to make and keep friends and do well in school.

 

Signs of social communication difficulties:

• Delay in reaching language milestones

• Little interest in social interactions

• Going off-topic or monopolizing conversations

• Not adapting language to different listeners (talks the same way to an adult as to a friend)

• Not adapting language to different situations (speaks the same way in the classroom as on the playground)

• Difficulty making inferences and understanding things that are implied, but not stated explicitly

• Not giving background information when speaking to an unfamiliar person

• Not understanding how to properly greet people, request information or gain attention

• Tendency to be overly literal and not understand riddles and sarcasm

• Trouble understanding nonverbal communication, such as facial expressions