24 Mar, 2007
Social Skills
Posted by teacherjulie @ 4:24 pm
Shelved under ADHD, Autism, behavior modification, Language Development, Learning Disabilities, mental retardation, special education, Teaching Techniques

Social skills with typically developing children are not really directly being taught. Most of them observe how these are done or just being told the how, why, when and where and they are able to acquire these (good and the bad) social skills. There are also times when social skills are taught directly depending upon the situation. Like saying “I’m sorry” when one accidentally hurts someone else or discussing why and how we show respect to our elders.

These social skills should be directly taught to children with special needs, especially to those with autism, language disorders and ADHD. Why? Because they have social language dysfuntion which somehow affects their social language development. These social skills need to be explained, role-played, embedded in activities as well as practiced until these are perfected or aptly applied.

What do they need to learn? A lot. Examples are the following specific situations:

  1. asking for directions
  2. not waiting your turn
  3. walking on a recently mopped floor
  4. spilling on someone
  5. needing someone’s help
  6. staying with the group during a field trip
  7. cleaning up your room
  8. not getting what you wanted to buy
  9. finishing work first
  10. being nice in the water

This entry was posted on Saturday, March 24th, 2007 at 4:24 pm and is filed under ADHD, Autism, behavior modification, Language Development, Learning Disabilities, mental retardation, special education, Teaching Techniques. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.

Permalink | 6 Comments
24 Mar, 2007 @ 11:49 pm
KK said:

Hi Teacher Julie,

My daughter has good social skills and it surprised me and my husband because we are both introverts. She couldn’t have learned it from us, I guess some people are also just born extroverts.

I still have to work on her cleaning up her room though.

Happy Weekend!

25 Mar, 2007 @ 12:48 pm
julie said:

I know what you mean. My tween is not really big on her social skills but she can speak her mind when the situation calls for it. It takes a long time for my 5yo boy to warm up to people, like when we went swimming with friends yesterday (mar24), he only went to the pool after an hour of staying in our cottage simply because there were lots of other children. In the party we went to today (mar25), my 4yo girl gamely joined the games while the little boy just sat by his lonesome self because he was shy. Guess it all boils down how we really encourage them and expose them to different situations so that they are able to adapt well.

Good luck on the cleaning bit! ;)

20 Sep, 2007 @ 6:42 pm
teacherjulie.com » ADHD and Parenting said:

[...] Established rules should be simple, clear and appropriate. These rules should apply at home, in school or even in places away from both. The application as well as remembering of rules can be done visually, because this is what works best for these children. Writing down a list of rules and responsibilities and posting these in appropriate places where the child can see often would help in establishing the proper behavioral guidance. [...]

3 Jul, 2008 @ 2:08 pm
teacherjulie.com » Parenting a Child with Autism said:

[...] is a blessing because with all the communication, social skills and behavioral issues (here is an example) that they have to go through, they learn about making [...]

27 Feb, 2009 @ 3:23 pm
teacherjulie.com » Hyperactivity in Children said:

[...] not being able to cultivate friendships [...]

6 Dec, 2011 @ 9:37 pm
teacherjulie.com » A is for Autism said:

[...] Social skills like waiting, sitting still and observing basic social skills for social interactions are also taught. [...]

Leave a Reply