Special Needs
 

Cooking with Friends

By Barbara Didona

Something is cooking at the Minuteman ARC in Concord. Today it happens to be pancakes. With your choice of strawberries, bananas, or chocolate chips.

The Cooking with Friends class meets weekly after school, and is designed to create opportunities for children with autism to make friends and practice social skills. Darcie Heller, Family Services Coordinator at the ARC, explains that the food preparation is a fun activity for the children, who are 10-12 years old, but the real learning lies in the social interaction embedded in the cooking process.

Each week, class begins with an art project related to that week’s recipe. This week they cut out pictures of ingredients. But embedded in that quick art activity are situations designed to prompt communication between the students. 

There are four students at the table, but only two pair of scissors. A young girl says, “I need scissors” to no one in particular. The teachers lead her to ask another student directly for scissors. By saying her friend’s name and looking at him, she is able to get the scissors she needs. 

The 1-½ hour class is rife with opportunities like these, and the children practice taking turns, eye contact, listening to and answering each other, as they crack eggs and pour milk. 

Besides communication, social skills are often the biggest challenge for children diagnosed with ASD (autism spectrum disorder). Practicing social skills in as natural a setting as possible, while having fun and connecting with other kids, makes the learning more meaningful. There is the added benefit that as the kids become friendly with each other, the parents may also connect, and the friendship may continue outside of cooking class.

The children have different jobs to do to prepare the pancakes. Two young men, as young men sometimes do, are comparing the relative hardships of their tasks, each convinced that their own is clearly the harder. 

“My job is messier”

“But mine is tougher”

“How can bananas be tougher than strawberries?”

“Because of the peeling”

“Oh…mine is still tougher”.

Taking pride in hard work and boasting a little is apparently a skill the children have already mastered.

And those chocolate chip pancakes were might tasty.

The class is held at the Minuteman ARC in Concord, which offers many programs for people of all ages with developmental disabilities. For information about this or other ARC programs, contact Darcie Hellerdheller@minutemanarc.org, or visit www.minutemanarc.org

Barbara Didona has three young daughters and works as a training consultant for Moore Center Services, based in Manchester, NH, that works to empower and support individuals with developmental disabilities and acquired brain disorders.