Socials Skills Class - What is it and what are the benefits?

Navigating and learning how to be successful in social situations can be a difficult process. Everyone has probably experienced at least one social situation where they either handled it poorly or were not sure what path they should take. For children, the same situation can occur, and for some it occurs often. For those who regularly experience difficulty in social situations, social skills groups can help.

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Social skills groups are different than a traditional play-date or playtime in an indoor playground – they are a supervised therapeutic event where the goal is to help children and adolescents gain skills in social interaction. These groups help children learn joint attention, problem solving, and how to handle the challenges of social situations while having positive and fun social experiences with peers. 

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“Any child can benefit from a social skills group," explains Jill Fodstad, Ph.D., HSPP, BCBA-D, clinical psychology at Riley Hospital for Children at Indiana University Health in the USA.  “Social skills are essential life skills that foster success, happiness, and health. The skills taught vary by age and developmental level of the children in the group, but some examples include using and understanding appropriate body language, understanding other people’s body language, understanding and expressing emotions, initiating and responding to interactions with peers, taking turns, gaining self-control, anger management, accepting consequences, and coping with teasing and bullying.”

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Research indicates that regardless of a child’s diagnosis, social skills can be extremely effective in increasing a child’s ability to be successful in peer situations. These groups help reduce a child’s experience of school failure or peer rejection, and also reduce aggressiveness or isolation that often develops because of problems relating to others.

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Children who benefit the most from a structured social skills group are those who are not developing social skills as quickly as their peers, which may include children with attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD), Autism Spectrum Disorder (ASD), learning difficulties, cognitive delays, or communication difficulties or delays. 

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“Outcomes are going to vary depending upon the child, but without helping your child practice the skills outside of the actual group, it will be harder for the child to be successful in using the skills and having positive peer experiences,” explains Dr. Fodstad. “As a general rule of thumb, if a child is consistently attending a weekly social skills group, the parent is highly involved in learning what is being taught, and the child practices using the skills, then it would not be unreasonable to say that the parent might start to see some positive change in their child in as little as two to three weeks.”

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Our Socials Skills Classes are split into age appropriate groups as deemed by the Occupational or Speech Therapist who is hosting the class.  The groups will be small, between 3 to 8 kids.  Children in the group would be of similar age and developmental level.  The program is designed to suit the needs of each child in the group so all of them benefits.

 

The reason why this class is also open to children without special needs is because they can also have difficulties with their socialization skills.  In this class, diversity and acceptance of others is learned. 

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Sourced and Adapted from: Ridley Children's Health - Indiana University Health