Social skills instruction is a critical educational component for many students with learning disabilities. To completely understand learning disabilities requires consideration of the social areas of the child’s life (Learner, 1997). A student’s learning disability is not confined by the classroom walls; it permeates into all areas of the students’ life. For some students with learning disabilities the social domain presents problems because of deficits in auditory processing, memory, attention, visual, spatial, motor, and expressive language (Brown and Hedinger, 1995). This brochure will consider the difficulties that students with learning disabilities encounter because of the lack of social skills and present effective instructional strategies for teaching social skills.
Some of the long term effects caused by lack of social skills can be: classroom management problems, negative effects on academic areas, delinquency, peer rejection, emotional difficulties, lack of peer acceptance, problems with interpersonal relationships, and low social status and esteem. Some of these problems might be avoided when a social skills curriculum is embedded in the daily activities of all students. At the same time, students with learning disabilities can be targeted for systematic social skill instruction. Brown and Hedinger (1995) recognized five problematic areas exhibited by the students with learning disabilities in the social context:
- Auditory processing problems, which make it difficult to process verbal messages. These students are easily distracted, have problems discriminating between the message being expressed and background noise, problems with the pace of conversation and tracking the conversation.
- Memory, long and short term. that effect the short and long term memory effect students in several ways: difficulty remembering the sequence of instructions or events, following conversations, recalling personal information of classmates, and recalling past conversations.
- Attention. These individuals attend to almost everything presented in their environment. They are perceived as not paying attention, will jump from topic to topic, have poor conversation tracking skills and can become overwhelmed by auditory and visual stimuli.
- Visual, spatial, or motor disabilities. Students with these disabilities may have problems counting money, using writing utensils, reading a menu or community signs, observing personal space and recognizing nonverbal cues in basic conversation.
- Expressive language, affects the students written and verbal abilities. These students have difficulty relaying thoughts verbally and in writing, speaking in complete sentences and expressing understanding of the thought s of peers. The areas recognized by Brown and Hedinger are an example of how learning disabilities and social skills are reflected together.
Now that the need for social skills instruction has been established, some of the best practices in social skills instruction will be presented. Using multiple approaches to teach social skills is the most effective method. Effective social skills training and instruction methods include strategies of self-verbalization and self monitoring, prosocial skills, social skills support groups and virtual reality. These methods will be explored as effective approaches to teach social skills and help students respond to social situations.
Social skills can be taught through various techniques. Two of the social skill strategies presented in the Janet Learner text use mnemonics, the FAST strategy and the SLAM strategy. The F (freeze and think) A (alternatives) S (Solution) T (Try it) strategy helps students deal with interpersonal problems. Students have a chance to stop and approach the problem in a rational instead of impulsive manner. The S (stop) L (look) A (ask) M (make) strategy helps students receive verbal messages from peers. Students are taught to ask for clarification of the expression and then to respond appropriately. The practice and implementation of these mnemonics afford the student a chance to react appropriately in a social situation and relieving themselves from possible embarrassment.
Commercial programs have been developed for teachers to instruct students in the acquisition, maintenance and generalization of prosocial skills. One program named Skillstreaming, that has been used extensively in schools, was developed by Ellen McGinnis and Arnold Goldstein. This behavioural training program has four components: 1) modeling, 2) role playing, 3) performance feedback, and 4) transfer training, that will effectively teach prosocial skills. It is important that students understand the behaviour of concentration. The use of modeling gives the student a chance to see, hear, and experience the specified behaviours. After the behaviour has been modeled, the students will be guided to role play the specified behaviour. The use of role playing is a technique to help students play an active role and internalize the skill instruction. The use of performance feedback gives students specific reinforcement and suggestions on improving the skill. Finally, transfer training is instituted to help students generalize the social skill across settings. To help the students transfer the skill it should be taught in as many natural settings as possible. The Skillstreaming plan has incorporated tools to evaluate and record the students progress on social skills. A comprehensive approach can help students become effective communicators with the ability to recognize nonverbal social cues.
A therapeutic approach is also effective in teaching social skills. Research from Gresham and Elliot (1989) tells us that students with learning disabilities experience social and emotional difficulties as a result of their disabilities (Brown and Hedinger, 1994). Using a support group approach can help students recognize and deal with stressful situations, while examining how their learning disability influences their social abilities. A facilitator is needed to remediate and instruct students in skill development during the group. The group needs to be at a pace that allows students time to process the information presented. As students convey specific difficult social circumstances, the facilitator uses the real life experiences to help students examine and develop social skills. This type of group also lets students know that they are not alone and validates their feelings.
As the capabilities of interactive computers grows by leaps and bounds, school districts should recognize the advantages of this technology. Muscott and Gifford (1994) site several advantages of using virtual reality in the teaching of social skills, such as: multisensory approach, three-dimensionality, encourages problem-solving, and effective modeling techniques. Virtual reality allows the instructor to create interactive role playing scenarios that are targeted to a students specific social deficits. This technology can also be used to help students maintain and generalize social skills.
This brochure has explored several effective strategies for teaching social skills. The effective teaching of social skills will have a great impact on inappropriate classroom behaviours and school management. It is important to recognize the development of the whole child with learning disabilities. Social skills instruction can assist in distinguishing the negative impacts associated with social skills deficits and learning disabilities. Therefore, social skills training should be a critical part of the school curriculum for students with disabilities.
“Ten Tips”
A considerable amount of research is being reported in the literature concerning poor social skills in learning disabled children and youth. It is a concern to all of us in this field because, while we’ve all known that academics have received first priority, we haven’t known exactly how to approach social skills improvement. There are ten suggestions that have worked for others.
- Teach your children to smile and make eye contact while talking to adults and children. This is especially important when they talk with adults.
- Collect pictures of faces displaying various emotions such as happiness, sadness, anger, joy, love, surprise, and so forth. Begin by presenting two pictures to the child: happiness and sadness. When the child can correctly label the emotion, add another picture. Continue until the child can correctly identify all the pictures. Parents can help by asking the child to identify facial expressions of characters on TV programs. The sound should be turned off during this activity to eliminate auditory cues and to focus attention on facial expressions.
- Discuss the meaning of various body gestures such as waving goodbye, shrugging a shoulder, tapping a foot or shaking a finger in impatience, crossed arms, outreached arms. Introduce each gesture separately. Add new gestures as the child masters earlier gestures. Always review all learned gestures by asking the child to explain the meaning of gestures made by family members and those made by characters on TV.
- Implications in the human voice beyond the words themselves need to be explained to the LD child. Allow the child to listen to a voice on a tape recorder and ask him to explain the mood of the person and the meaning of the communication. The teacher can also say the same phrase using different tones of voice, explaining the different meanings of tonal quality.
- To help L.D. children improve conversational skills, teachers and parents should provide feedback. Call attention to negative statements and require the L.D. child to consider the consequences of those remarks in terms of the effect on the recipient. The L.D. child may have difficulty in differentiating positive and negative statements without some assistance and training. If the child cannot make such discriminations, the teacher and/or parent can model the desired verbal behaviour. Ask the child to repeat the statement and praise him for appropriate verbalization. Discrimination of verbal behaviours can be enhanced by providing the use of appropriate reinforcers.
- Role playing activities may be used to effectively emphasize the possible effects of verbal interaction and the emotions they may arouse in others. Situations showing a variety of emotions such as grief, joy, fear, excitement, may be dramatized and discussed. Video tapes with stop action technique may be used so that possible consequences and outcomes can be directed.
- Direct instruction on appropriate responses in social situations is also necessary. Incomplete stories involving social judgement can be read to the child. Ask the child to anticipate the ending or complete the story. Provide opportunities for the child to discuss consequences of certain behaviour such as interruptions while someone is speaking, hitting a child while playing a game, or making a face when asked to do something. Cartoon-like figures depicting social situations can be provided for the child to arrange in sequence and explain. This gives the child practice in considering cause-effect relationships in social interactions.
- The LD child should be given opportunities to practice social skills involving both verbal and non-verbal behaviours. Examples of these activities include smiling when meeting a friend or acquaintance, making introductions, paying attention to the person who is speaking, asking other children to play a game, and making positive statements for other’s efforts.
- Teaching social skills to LD children must include components that will assist them in the regular classroom. One such component can be teaching the children to “look like” they’re paying attention. Children who do this are viewed more positively by regular classroom teachers.
- Teachers of both regular and special classes like to use academic games to provide drill and relieve boredom. The LD teacher can instruct the LD students in a variety of games within the special education class setting. When they have mastered the games, the LD students can then take them to the regular class to teach their classmates. The LD students are thus viewed more favourably.