Social Skills

So... I teach kids Social Skills...

Well, it can be really simple or really complicated depending on how you look at it...

I explained it to 4th graders like this: Coming to Social Skills groups in my class will help you learn to be a better citizen and you will get the chance to help others learn too. Since some of us are great at reading and math, and some of us are great at making friends and making other people laugh, we can all help each other in the areas that we are not so good at. We will do fun activities and crafts and some science experiments and learning too. We will also get to learn more about being a good citizen in our community.

And... I explained it a 1st grade student with Autism who is also a Gifted student, like this: You are Really good at math, right? And you are Really good at reading too? You are really good at math and reading and science and social studies so you don't need extra help with those things like your friends do. But, sometimes you need a little extra help remembering to look at my eyes when we are saying hi, and with playing games with your friends. We are going to work on some of those things. But the cool part is, your friends get to come with you! (He loved that part!)

So... what I want all of my readers to take away from this is... Social Skills isn't a scary topic to talk about with kids. It is something that lots of our kiddos with Autism need tremendous help with, but no one ever takes the time to work on with them. So, I'm going to give a few tips on how to approach/help kiddos that seem to be lacking in the area of Social Skills...

To Parents: Require your child to look at you in the eyes when answering your questions about school that day. Don't yell at them or get upset, but just let them know that you want to try answering again with looking eyes OR if that's too elementary for them, tell them you would like them to look at you when they answer. This may take a few tries, but we willing to actually stop what you are doing and FOLLOW THROUGH. Make a habit to do this every day for at least one activity- maybe every day after school, or every day after breakfast...

To Teachers: Take the few extra seconds each day to facilitate conversations and prompt your students lacking in social skills to answer their friends when someone is talking to them. So many times, our students aren't involved in any conversations because no one reminds them/requires them to respond to their peers. If you hear a student talking to the kiddo with special needs and our kiddo just keeps playing by themselves and not responding, call their name and tell them that their friend is talking to them, then- ask the friend to be your helper and ask the question again. The more you practice, the friends will start wanting to be leaders and help more any time our kiddos need assistance. Other students will be more likely to interact with our kiddos with limited social skills the more we help show them ways to get involved and especially when we help our students interact/respond back to their friends.

To everyone: Social Skills is about being SOCIAL! You can't practice Social Skills without friends around! I teach social skills discretely with my students during some direct instruction sessions and then I give them lots of opportunities to practice their social skills with their friends. Our kiddos need to be around their typical peers. One way I do this is by working in the general education classroom to build relationships between our kiddos and their classmates, and then by inviting those classmates down to our room for fun social skills groups. Social Skills is a huge, sometimes overwhelming topic and I think sometimes it gets avoided or lost in the mix of academics. I think Social Skills are SOOOOO important to help our kiddos with Autism and other disabilities to be able to interact with their peers/members of society.

This was just a brief intro to social skills... I'm sure I'll get more into the Social Skills topic again soon! Socials Skills was on my mind this week since I started a new 4th grade Social Skills Group this week and the first group was a great success! The girls who participated want to come back, and lots of the students in the classroom said they want to come next time! Oh, quick clarification- Social Skills Groups usually have 1-2 of our students with limited social skills and then anywhere from 2-5ish typical peers (role models) from their general education classrooms. I teach social skills with just the student I am targeting/teaching the skills to, but the groups include that student and their peers.

Please leave your comments, questions, concerns with Socials Skills below! I'd love to hear your thoughts/opinions!!

~LaKrystal~