Adapted from “Treasure of Social Tools” created by Kim Copolla, OCPS
“I am not asking for my child to be the
life of the party,
or a social butterfly.
I just want her to be happy
and have some friends of her own.
She is a wonderful kid,
and I hope some day
others can see that.”
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ALL students want to establish meaningful social
relationships
If we want children and adolescents to be successful
socially, we must teach them the skills to be
successful
Successful social behaviors are not always
appropriate social behaviors.
Social success is dependent upon our ability to adapt
to our environment
Social interaction skills are not the equivalent of
academic skills
Scott Bellini, 2006
Scott Bellini
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“Socially acceptable learned behaviors that enable
a person to interact with others in ways that elicit
positive responses and assist the person in avoiding
negative responses. (Elliott, Racine, & Busse, 1995)
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Social interaction skills are the building blocks of
successful social relationships. (Bellini, 2006)
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The purpose of social skills is to facilitate positive
interactions with peers.
Bellini (2006) pgs. 1-9
3 Integrated Components
THINKING
• Social Interaction depends
on all 3 components.
• Difficullties in any of the 3
components can lead to
impairment in social
functioning
• They work together to:
- promote or hinder
successful social
interactions
DOING
FEELING
Bellini (2008) pgs. 19-34
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Nonverbal Communication
Social Interaction
Reciprocity and Terminating Interaction
Social Cognition
Behavior Associated with Perspective
Taking and Self Awareness
Social Anxiety and Social Withdrawal
•Recognizes the facial
expressions of others
•Maintains eye contact
during conversations
•Has facial expressions that
are congruent with emotion
•Recognizes the meaning
behind the tone of another
person’s voice
•Recognizes the nonverbal
cues of body language of
others
•Uses gestures to
communicate needs
correctly interprets the
emotions of others
•Demonstrates a wide range
of facial expressions
•Modulates the tone of
his/her voice
•Join in activities with peers
•Asks questions to request
information about a person
•Invites peers to join into
activities
•Joins a conversation with
two or more people without
•Demonstrate proper timing interrupting
with social initiations
•Initiates greetings with
•Asks questions to request
others
information about a topic
•Introduces self to others
•Takes turns during a game
•Responds to greetings of
others
•Allows peers to join in
activities
•Ends conversations
appropriately
•Maintains the give and take
of a conversation
•Acknowledges compliments
directed at him/her by others
•Responds to the invitations
of peers to join in to
activities
•Reads cues to terminate
conversations
• Compromises during
disagreements with others
•Correctly analyzes social
situations
•Responds promptly in
conversations
•Understands the jokes or
humor of others
•Talks about topics that other
people find interesting
•Considers multiple viewpoints
•Avoid being manipulated by
peers
•Correctly interprets the
intentions of others
•Maintains personal hygiene
•Expresses sympathy for others
Maintains an appropriate
distance when interacting with
peers
•Talks about or acknowledges
the interests to others
Speaks wit an appropriate
volume in conversations
•Provides compliments to others Refrains from making
inappropriate comments
Offers assistance to others
•Interacts with peers during
unstructured activities
•Interacts with peers in large
group situations
•Interacts with peers during
structured activities
•Attempts to interact with
unfamiliar peers
•Engages in one on one social •Experiences positive peer
interactions with peers
interactions
•Engages in positive self-talk
Assess Social Functioning
Distinguish Between Skill Acquisition and
Performance Deficits
Select Intervention Strategies
1.
2.
3.
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4.
5.
Strategies That Promote Skill Acquisition
Strategies that Enhance Performance
Implement Intervention
Evaluate and Monitor Progress
 Commercial
 Teacher made
 Observations
 Interviews
 Rating Scales
Books with Assessment
Tools Built In:
Assessment Tools
for Social Skills:
http://www.linguisystems.com/
http://www.superduperinc.com
*** THESE ASSESSMENTS CAN BE DONE ONE ON ONE OR WHOLE GROUP ****
*** THESE ASSESSMENTS CAN BE DONE ONE ON ONE OR WHOLE GROUP ****
Skill Acquisition Difficulty:
The person does not possess the
skill and can not successfully
perform the skill
Performance Difficulty:
The person has the skill but does
not perform the skill.
Promote Skill Acquisition
Enhance Social Performance
Thoughts, feelings and Interest Activities
Reinforcement/Contingency Strategies
Reciprocal Intervention Strategies
Gaming Skills
Social Stories
Environmental Modifications
Role Playing
Peer Mediated Instruction
Video Modeling
Increased Social Opportunities/Live
Practice
Social Problem Solving and Social Rules
Disability Awareness
Self Monitoring
Self Monitoring
Relaxation Techniques and Emotional
Regulation
Relaxation Techniques and Emotional
Regulation
Prompting Strategies
Prompting Strategies
Interaction/Conversation Planning
Video Modeling/Social Stories
Check it
out!
Non-Verbal Teaching Activities
“WATCH AND IDENTIFY”
Using both live and video model
Emotion Charades- Basic Level
Your dog died.
How do you feel?
“REACT TO A SITUATION”
Students role-play a situation
Emotion Charades- Advanced Level
Use cartoons to
teach emotions
Capitalize on the
child’s “likes” and
“preferences”
Check
it out!
A Social Story presents social concepts and rules to
students in the form of a brief story.
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Written in response to the child’s personal need
Something the student wants to read on own
Match with student’s ability and comprehension
Use less directive terms such as “can” or
“could”, instead of “will or “must”.
Gray, 1995, 2000
Check
it out!
Video modeling intervention involves watching a
video demonstration and then imitating the
behavior of the model
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Incorporates visual learning
Increases attention
Decreases anxiety
Increases motivation
Increases self-awareness
Great examples
of nonverbal
body language
Examples of figurative
language and
nonverbal body
language
Examples of for all
deficit areas
Idea taken from Jill Kuzma
http://jillkuzma.wordpress.com
Examples:
Hidden Curriculum Calendar: Items for
Understanding Unstated Rules in Social
Situations by Brenda Smith Myles and
Megan Duncan
• Don’t argue with a policeman even if you are right.
• Don’t tell someone they are fat when they are
• Don’t point out other people’s mistakes
• Don’t insist that other people follow the rules
• Male bathroom rule
“The ball is in your court”
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We have them for all settings
Not the same for all settings
When we exhibit expected behaviors people
have “good thoughts” about us
When we exhibit unexpected behaviors
people have “weird thoughts” about us
These thoughts impact the way
Check
others treat us
it out!
Michelle Garcia Winner
Thinking and Saying Thoughts
Okay
Caution
No
Green thoughts are good thoughts. These are
thoughts that you can think in your head and say
without offending someone.
Yellow thoughts are caution thoughts. These are
thoughts that you can think in your head but use caution
when you say them. These are thoughts that are okay to
say to some people but not okay to say to other people.
Red thoughts are thoughts that you should not say out
loud. These are thoughts you can think in your head but
not say. Red thoughts usually offend people when you
say them out loud.
Check
it out!
It is a self regulation tool that can assist a
person in learning how to think about
and understand their emotional
responses to a situation.
1. Need to have concept that can be
broken into 5 parts.
2. Use a story/social story to teach the
5 parts of the concept.
- can be positive or negative
3. Create a scale
www.5pointscale.com
A volume scale
A miniature scale for the back of ID badge
Modified from Kari Dunn Baron’s book: ‘A 5 Could Make Me Lose Control’
Modified from Kari Dunn Baron’s book: ‘A 5 Could Make Me Lose Control’
Promote Skill Acquisition
Enhance Social Performance
Thoughts, feelings and Interest Activities
Reinforcement/Contingency Strategies
Reciprocal Intervention Strategies
Gaming Skills
Social Stories
Environmental Modifications
Role Playing
Peer Mediated Instruction
Video Modeling
Increased Social Opportunities/Live
Practice
Social Problem Solving and Social Rules
Disability Awareness
Self Monitoring
Self Monitoring
Relaxation Techniques and Emotional
Regulation
Relaxation Techniques and Emotional
Regulation
Prompting Strategies
Prompting Strategies
Interaction/Conversation Planning
Video Modeling/Social Stories
Consider……………
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Individual
Group
Classwide
Self-contained class
Natural environment
General education setting
Include peers without disabilities
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Progress monitoring
Observations
 Structured
 Natural setting
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Interviews
Rating scales
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Assess Social Functioning
Distinguish Between Skill Acquisition and
Performance Deficits
Select Intervention Strategies
 Strategies That Promote Skill Acquisition
 Strategies that Enhance Performance
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Implement Intervention
Evaluate and Monitor Progress
Check it out!