Social Skills:From Paralell Play to Social Thinking

Laura Alison Peroutka, M.Ed, BCBAFirst Leap LLC

Laura@first-leap.com

1

Social Skills deficits

Social skill deficits are one of the three major deficit area, including language and behaviors.

As educators, it is our responsibilities to consider someone’s social education in addition to their academic education.

2

Autism social deficits*

(A) Qualitative impairment in social interaction, as manifested by at least two of the following:

(1) Marked impairment in the use of multiple nonverbal behaviors such as eye-to-eye gaze, facial expression, body posture, and gestures to regulate social interaction

(2) Failure to develop peer relationships appropriate to developmental level

(3) A lack of spontaneous seeking to share enjoyment, interests, or achievements with other people (e.g. by a lack of showing, bringing, or pointing out objects to other people)

(4) Lack of social or emotional reciprocity (note: in the description, it gives the following as examples: not actively participating in simple social play or games, preferring solitary activities, or involving others in activities only as tools or “mechanical” aids)

http://www.autreat.com/dsm4-autism.html

3

Asperger’s Social deficits*

(A) Qualitative impairment in social interaction, as manifested by at least two of the following:

(1) Marked impairment in the use of multiple nonverbal behaviors such as eye-to-eye gaze, facial expression, body posture, and gestures to regulate social interaction

(2) Failure to develop peer relationships appropriate to developmental level

(3) A lack of spontaneous seeking to share enjoyment, interests, or achievements with other people (e.g. by a lack of showing, bringing, or pointing out objects to other people)

(4) Lack of social or emotional reciprocity

http://www.autreat.com/dsm4-aspergers.html

4

DSM-V: Autism Spectrum Disorders

For a person to be diagnosed, they must meet criteria A, B, C, and D.A. Persistent deficits in social communication and social interaction across contexts, not accounted for by general developmental delays, and manifest by all 3 of the following:

1. Deficits in social-emotional reciprocity; ranging from abnormal social approachand failure of normal back and forth conversation through reduced sharing of interests, emotions, and affect and response to total lack of initiation of social interaction,

2. Deficits in nonverbal communicative behaviors used for social interaction; ranging from poorly integrated-verbal and nonverbal communication, through abnormalities in eye contact and body-language, or deficits in understanding and use of nonverbal communication, to total lack of facial expression or gestures.

3. Deficits in developing and maintaining relationships, appropriate to developmental level (beyond those with caregivers); ranging from difficulties adjusting behavior to suit different social contexts through difficulties in sharing imaginative play and in making friends to an apparent absence of interest in people

5

DSM-V: Autism Spectrum Disorders, cont.

B. Restricted, repetitive patterns of behavior, interests, or activities as manifested by at least two of the following:1. Stereotyped or repetitive speech, motor movements, or use of objects (such as simple motor stereotypies, echolalia, repetitive use of objects, or idiosyncratic phrases);2. Excessive adherence to routines, ritualized patterns of verbal or nonverbal behavior, or excessive resistance to change; (such as motoric rituals, insistence on same route or food, repetitive questioning or extreme distress at small changes);3. Highly restricted, fixated interests that are abnormal in intensity or focus (such as strong attachment to or preoccupation with unusual objects, excessively circumscribed or perseverative interests);4. Hyper-or hypo-reactivity to sensory input or unusual interest in sensory aspects of environment(such as apparent indifference to pain/heat/cold, adverse response to specific sounds or textures, excessive smelling or touching of objects, fascination with lights or spinning objects);

C. Symptoms must be present in early childhood(but may not become fully manifest until social demands exceed limited capacities)

D. Symptoms together limit and impair everyday functioning.

6

Not just Autism Spectrum Disorders

Social deficits are seen in other eligibilities

Emotional Disturbance: may not be able to handle certain situations, immaturity

Speech Impairment: may not have sufficient language, may be embarrassed due to lack of language

OHI: Other conditions such as ADHD can have effects on a student’s social skills

7

Social skills supports/cirriculums

Do Watch Listen Say

Social Stories : Carol Grey

Think Social! : Michelle Garica Winner

Circle of Friends

8

Features of Effective social skills programs

Must involve a 4 step process

Lecture/Teach the Skills: provide visual examples, model, etc

Recognize the Skills: the student must be able to recognize others performing the skill

Practice the Skills: the student can demonstrate the skills in a strutured setting

Reinforcement of Skills: the student should then begin using the skills in their natural environment and reinforcement should be provided

9

Do Watch Listen Say

• This book breaks down the beginning aspects of social skills and provides activity ideas

• Imitation

• Constructive Play

• Group Play

• Solitary Play and more

• Comes with a parent/teacher survey

10

Carol Grey & Social Stories

Your Social Toolbox

The set of skills you have that help you succeed in social situations

We need to increase the amount of tools in our students’ toolboxes

Comic Strip Conversations

A graphic represenation of a conversation between two or more people

Social Stories

Designed to provide relevant social information in a calm and formatted way

11

Social stories: Rules

1) The story meaningfully shares social information with an overall patient and reassuring quality

2) The story has an introduction that clearly identifies the topic, a body that adds details, and a conclusion that reinforcers and summarizes the information.

3) The story provides answers to “WH” questions, describing the setting or context, time-releated information, relevant people, important cues, basic activities, behavior, or statements and the reasons or rationale behind them.

4) The story is written from the first person perspective, as though the child is describing the events, or for older and more advanced students it is written like a newspaper article.

5) The story uses positive language, omitting descriptions or references to challenging behaviors in favor of identifying positive responses.

12

social stories: rules (cont)

6) The story is comprised of descriptive sentences with an option of any one or or more of the following sentence types: perspective sentences, cooperative sentences, directive sentences, affirmative sentences, and/or control sentences.

7) The story follows the Social Story Formula: Describe (descriptive + perspective + cooperative + affirmative) / Direct (directive + control) = >2

8) The story matches the ability and interests of the audience and is literally accuracy.

9) If appropriate, the story uses carefully selected illustrations that are meaningful to the child and enhance the meaning of the story

10) The title of the story meets all applicable criteria

13

Example stories

It is circle time. When it’s time for circle, I go sit in my blue chair. I sit with my feet on the floor and my hands to myself. It doesn’t matter who I sit next to. I will shake their hand and say good morning. I help Mrs. G at circle by listening... waiting my turn... and sitting like a big kid in my chair. I stay calm when I don’t get a turn because I will get a turn another day. When circle is over, I wait until Mrs. Go tells me where to go. I did great at circle today!

My teacher talks a lot. Sometimes she talks to me. She gives me directions and helps me with my work. Sometimes she talks to other people. She might talk to other children about their word. She might talk to another adult. It’s okay when she talks to other people. When my teacher talks to other people, I can keep working or playing. This will make my teacher happy. I will try to keep working or playing when my teacher talks to other people.

14

Pros and cons of social stories

Pros

Provides a good visual schedule for an upcoming event

Customized to fit the student/event

Focuses on the positive; tells what is expected instead of focusing on undesired behaviors

Cons

Does not “fix” behavior

Appropriate behaviors in story must still be taught

15

social story resources

http://www.polyxo.com/socialstories/

http://www.freewebs.com/kidscandream/page13.htm

http://kidscandream.webs.com/page12.htm

16

Michelle garcia winner: Think Socail!

Most activities based on THEORY OF MIND

The ability to understand another’s perspective in comparison to your own

17

3 Levels of social thinkers

Severely Impaired Perspective Takers: severe language delays (often non-verbal), may have cognitive delays, may be aware of others around them but do not consider them in the social sense

Emerging Perspective Takers: can communicate in a variety of ways, can understand basic points of view, but need extra time to process and more explicit instruction, can answer who, what, where, when questions but struggle with why and how, poor organization, “quirky”, other students are aware of their differences

Impaired Interactive Perspective Takers: may appear slightly quirky, but only apperas so within more complex social interactions, may blend initially, when pace of interactions picks up may not consider speaking partners as much, may blurt out, tell on students, overly concerned with “fairness”

18

Major themes

People who pay attention to others make others feel good. When you make other people feel good they want to be with you.

Student have think about what others are thinking.

Students have to learn to observe other people’s behaviors and form judgements about them.

Students have to realize that others are thinking about them.

Students have to learn that social thinking is done in all environments and the lessons need to walk with them out the door.

19

Quick Peek: Teaching Perspective Taking

Find pictures in books and magazines and come up with captions

Look at something and ask the student if they can figure out what you are talking (both concrete and abstract)

Play “I spy” with social situations

“I spy two people laughing over there. What do you think they are laughing about?”

20

Quick Peek: 4 Steps of Perspective Taking

I think about you

I wonder why you are near me

I think about what you are thinking about me

I monitor and modify my own behavior to try and keep you thinking about me the way I want you to think about me!

21

Think social! Cirriculum

1) Being part of a Group and Recognizing Expectations

2) Our Whole Body and Mind Help Us Be Part of the Group

3) Self-Awareness and Self-Monitoring Our Behavior in a Group

4) Starting the Detective Agency: Learning More about Observing Others

5) The Super Detective Agency: Figuring Out What People Mean by What They Say

22

SuperFlex!

• A comic book based program, SuperFlex is a super flexible thinker who must defeat the Unthinkables!

• The Unthinkables are little characters who get in your brain and make you act a certain way.

•

23

SuperFlex in Action!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mXa5l3wS7Jg

24

Friend files

Each student should start keeping a page on interests and facts about their friends

Talk about how we want to find things out about our friends that both you are your friend are interested in

You can have a student practice this skill by having them make up a friend file for a character in a book, adding too it as they read more of the story

25

Break file

When teaching irrelevant comments vs. relevant, you can talk to students about having a break file in their head where they can put all irrelevant thoughts to talk about at a later time

May need to start with a physical file

26

Conversation basics

Maintaining a general topic

Social Curiosity/Asking questions

Using “follow-up” questions

“Supportive comments”

Add-a-thought

Rude interruptions vs. acceptable interruptions

Initiating topics

Leaving a conversation

27

Circle of friends

Circle of Friends is similar to a Lunch Bunch idea

A group of teacher selected peers are invited to be part of a group for one student

Some weeks the target students attends and games and activities are played

Other weeks is education and the target student does not attend

28

Games!

Whoonu

Charades

Taboo

Pictionary

Reverse Pictionary

29

Questions?

THANKS!!!

30