Do they teach that in school there? They do here, more so at my son's special education school than where my daughter went, but they did some. It didn't always have the desired results, which is why we ended up switching DS to special education because he was being bullied so badly in the regular school. The idea with the training was really good...they used baseball caps in different colors. White is the ideal....that's the color you want to be. Red is like...class clown, getting people to laugh; yellow is emotional; black is taking control, being a leader, dominant. None of the colors are bad in and of themselves, and everyone has a bit of each of the colors, but you want to be wearing the white hat and just have a bit of each of those colors represented. The problem is when one of the colors takes over....red becomes making fun at other people's expense and getting others to co along with you. Yellow becomes whining/crying because you don't get your way. Black becomes being bossy and demanding.
So the idea was that, if someone was acting inappropriately, another kid could just ask them " What color hat are you wearing?" Then the person was supposed to think about their behavior and they could talk things out, etc. And they learned to talk to each other, practice what they could say if someone was insulting them, or said something rude. You tell them to stop, I don't like it when you say bla bla bla. And then there was a whole protocol for if someone was picking on you. You were supposed to tell them 3 times to stop, and if they didn't, you were supposed to find a friend to stand up with you....strength in numbers, and then you walk away if that doesn't work, and if the person follows you THEN you go to the teacher. The teacher talks to the student, they are supposed to have a conversation with you. You tell them what you didn't like and why, and the kid says "Oh, I'm sorry....I was just joking. I didn't realize that hurt your feelings. I won't do that again." Problem solved.
Good in theory, but DS's issue with Autism is that he can't control his emotions. When something is confusing, he doesn't think to ask for help, he just bursts into tears. So the teacher says "get out your math books and turn to page 26" and he's freaking out because he's still stuck on finding his math book in his desk and has forgotten which page he was supposed to turn to once he finds it. So instead of looking at the page of the kid sitting next to him, or raising his hand to ask "Which page?" he is panicking because he doesn't have the math book out. So he just starts crying. The other kids liked to take advantage of that and do things to make him cry...like.....it's time to go home....he needs his coat....let's form a line and dance in front of the coat rack so he can't get to his coat. Or after PE, snap him with towels, taunting him to cry like a baby. Hide his gym bag. And because he's "wearing the yellow hat", it's HIS fault, because if he wouldn't react, those other kids wouldn't have any reason to do this to him. His crying overshadowed what the other kids were doing, the teachers didn't know what to do beyond telling DS to stop crying. It just gave the other kids an excuse to torture him, because he was wearing the yellow hat, and the whole program is supposed to be about kids solving problems amonst themselves and correcting each other's behavior. But instead of wearing the "white hat" and asking DS "What can I do to help you so that you can stop crying?" they tormented him to make it worse.
Now, at his special education school, they use smaller groups and they have different themes. One week they talked about their favorite animal and what characteristics that animal has. Then they had to describe their own characteristics and find an animal that has those same characteristics, and make a clay figure of that animal. Last week, their theme was "saying goodbye" and they had to think of different situations where you say goodbye, which are positive, which are negative, and they played pictionary with it. So like...saying goodbye because you were released from the hospital is a good thing...but your pet rabbit dying is a bad thing.
Anyway, his school does this all the way up through high school, but DD is in her first year of high school in a regular school and I don't think they really do much with social skills anymore...maybe an assembly or something, but not a weekly class like DS gets.
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www.verywellfamily.com
Out of sight, out of mind. (I think some of us have also "been there" at some point. 
) Quite a few symptoms people have, don't always get resolved. Physicians tend to rule out all the worst stuff first, and then work backwards down the line -- sometimes ending up with an inconclusive diagnosis, or none at all. (P.S.: You do still get billed for services, diagnosis or not. 
)
