ACTIVITIES TO DEVELOP SOCIAL COMMUNICATION SKILLS
5-11 years
This sheet outlines advice and ideas for targeting social communication skills according to
a hierarchy of skills. Children need to have a strong grounding in earlier skills in the
hierarchy in order to establish more advanced skills.
Self and other awareness
 Talk about physical characteristics – the child’s own and other peoples. Include eye
colour, hair, height, age, gender, skin colour, clothing. If the child finds this hard, give
them a choice of two, e.g. are your eyes blue or brown? Is your hair long or short?
Sorting pictures of friends/families according to their characteristics
‘Guess Who’ ask a child to describe someone in the group/class for the others to
guess.
Unique Game – everyone stands up, the teacher tells everyone with a particular
characteristic to sit down e.g. all children with brown hair. The winner is the child still
standing at their end.
What’s changed? – one child leaves the room and changes one aspect of their
physical appearance, returns to room and rest of group has to notice what is different
 Talk about personality features, such as kind, helpful, talkative, bossy etc. It is
important to reinforce new vocabulary with visual support or reference to specific
examples in the child’s experience and/or books and TV e.g. ‘thank you for tidying up,
that’s very helpfu
Read simple stories and talk about the personality of the characters. What are they
thinking or feeling; discuss their reactions to the situations mentioned in the story.
Hand – ask the child to draw around their hand. The child then asks 5 people to write
something they like about them on each finger. This can be particularly powerful if the
child’s family are asked to contribute.
 Talk about likes and dislikes – discuss how our likes and dislikes are individual to us.
Talk about favourite foods, colours, toys, TV programmes etc.
Collages – ask the children to make a collage with pictures of their favourite things
Shields – ask the children to design a shield decorated with their favourite things
Guess Who – play as described above but ask the children to describe someone by
their likes and dislikes.
 Talk about strengths and weaknesses – remind the children that no one is good at
everything but everyone is good at something. Use classroom rewards to celebrate
strengths.
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Use the activities from likes and dislikes but ask the children to include their strengths
and weaknesses.
Compliments game – each child compliments the child next to them
Non-verbal Skills
 Explore non verbal communication e.g. eye contact, body language, gesture.
Eye contact – children need to know that they should look at the person who is talking
to show they are listening. Discourage staring.

Magic box– A chair is set aside. When the child makes eye contact with the adult, the
child comes to sit in the chair and is shown something inside a secret magic box. The
child then takes on the role of the adult and has to encourage eye contact with a peer for
the game to move on so that eventually everyone will know what is in the magic box.

Where’s the sticker? – The children all close their eyes, a sticker is placed somewhere
on one of the children, the children all open their eyes and have to look for the sticker.
When they see it they must not shout out, they should just put up their hand. Try
confusing the children whilst placing the sticker by touching several of them even if you are
not putting the sticker on them. This prevents the one with the sticker being too aware that
they are the target child.

Role play conversations with another child or adult. Demonstrate good and bad eye
contact for the children to identify. Ask pairs of children to practise good eye contact whilst
having a conversation. They will find it easier if they can talk about a familiar topic whilst
practising this skill.
Facial expressions and Body Language – explore how our facial expressions and body
language convey different feelings.
 What is the feeling? – Use pictures/photographs of people showing different emotions
and discuss the feeling as well as the reason for the feeling.
 Miming games – children take turns doing an action showing a particular emotion e.g.
happy, angry, nervous
 Chinese Whispers - each child passes on a gesture or facial expression rather than
whispering as it encourages eye contact and awareness of others.
 Mirrors – pair the children and get one to mirror the actions of the other, using either
gesture or facial expression.
 Masks - Children can make masks with different emotions expressed and then carry out
role play activity using masks and applying appropriate emotional state.
Gesture – help the children to identify gestures you use in the classroom e.g. thumbs up,
quieten down. Try to communicate with them without talking – how much can they
understand? Children can take turns to communicate a message using gesture for the others
to guess.
Personal Space - encourage the children to be aware of close proximity of peers and position
chairs at a suitable distance from one another. When lining up, suggest an arm’s length
distance by directing the children to place an outstretched arm on the shoulder of the child in
front of them.
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Verbal Skills
Explore volume and rate of speech with the children



Use a traffic light system or volume meter in the classroom to show what level of
volume you expect from the children.
Identify and try out loud/soft volume and fast/slow rate of speech so that the child
experiences them, explore volume of speech in different environments e.g. take
them onto the playground and see how loud they can be and how far away they can
be heard.
Practice speaking/reading in assembly or in front of the class
Conversation skills
Key features of conversation skills include:
o
o
o
o
active listening (looking at the person talking, sitting still and not interrupting)
turn taking
sticking to a conversation topic
asking and answering questions
 Have visual reminders on the classroom to encourage good eye contact, listening, sitting
still and turn taking.
 Reinforce these skills whilst playing circle time games – there are lots of suggestions on
the Attention and Listening Activities advice sheet.
 Board games are a good way of encouraging turn taking. Talk about what would happen if
we didn’t take turns in a game. Can we have a good conversation if everyone is talking at
the same time or interrupting each other?
 Encourage any turn taking activities, games, etc. especially when children have “choosing
time”.
 Give a pair of children a topic to talk about. Can they stick to the topic for a specific length
of time?
 Practise starting a conversation during role play scenarios e.g. meeting a teacher in
supermarket, friend’s birthday party etc.
 Video the children having conversations and ask them to comment on how they did having
watched the film. Encourage the children to say what they did well as well something they
want to improve.
 Comment on children’s conversations e..g you joined in that conversation really well, that
was a good question to ask.
 What’s wrong - Encourage the child to be an active listener (i.e. to identify listening
problems and request further help/information). Give the child information which is too
long, too hard, too little or with some distraction. Discuss what was difficult about each
message, e.g.
 Too long: “Put the green felt tips on the shelf by the sink in the purple pot over by
the window”.
 Too hard: “The herbivores were walking in the pasture”.
 Too little: “Point to the small blue one” (if there are many small blue items).
 With distraction e.g. rustle paper whilst giving command.
 Hot seat – choose one child to sit in the hot seat. The other children ask them questions.
This can be varied by the child in the hot seat pretending to be someone else e.g. a
famous person, a character from a book or an historical figure.
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Playing together
Children who have poor social skills often find it difficult to join in with games in the playground.
Support staff or lunchtime supervisors can support them by playing with a small group ensuring
the children understand the rules and stick to them. Lots of play and interaction can involve
‘pretend play’ – encourage the child to think of different things they can do whilst pretending to be
something else e.g. what do mums and dads do? How does a robot walk?
SPECIFIC RESOURCES WHICH CAN BE PURCHASED INCLUDE:
TalkAbout for Children 1: Developing Self Awareness and Self-esteem and Talkabout for
Children 2: Developing Social Skills by Alex Kelly. Available from Speechmark, Unit C5,
Sunningdale House, 43 Caldecotte Lake Drive, Caldecotte Lake Business Park, Milton Keynes,
MK7 8LF. Tel: 01908 277177 www.speechmark.net
Socially Speaking by Alison Schroeder. Available through LDA, Duke Street, Wisbech, Cambs
PE13 2AE. www.ldalearning.com Item No. ABMT00416 Price (Nov 2012) £21.99
How to Support and Teach Children on the Autism Spectrum Available through LDA, Duke
Street, Wisbech, Cambs PE13 2AE. www.ldalearning.com Item No. ADMT01151 Age range 5
– 9 Price (Nov 2012) £9.99
Autism and PDD Social Skills Lessons A set of 5 books aimed at younger children with autism,
each covering different topic area: school; behaviour; community; home; getting along. .
Available through Winslow Press, Telford Road, Bicester, Oxon. OX6 0TS. www.winslowpress.co.uk Item Number 51138 Age range 3 – 8 Price (Nov 2012) £94.95
Time to Talk. This has been designed to teach and develop oral language and social interaction
skills. Available through LDA, Duke Street, Wisbech, Cambs PE13 2AE. www.ldalearning.com
Product code : ABMT00498 Age range 4 – 6 Price (Nov 2012) £21.99
Time to Talk Game (For 4 children) This is based on the Time to Talk book and aims at
developing communication skills and social interaction through role play and game. Available
through LDA, Duke Street, Wisbech, Cambs PE13 2AE. www.ldalearning.com Product code :
AGMT01173 Age range 4 – 8 Price (Nov 2012) £35.94
A Handbook for the Golden Rules Storybooks: Helping children develop social, emotional and
behavioural and skills. Available through Amazon. ISBN 1904866123 Price (Nov 2012) £19.95
Communicate Junior A game used to reinforce social communication goals. It combines social
skills with co-operative learning. Available through Winslow Press, Telford Road, Bicester, Oxon.
OX6 0TS. www.winslow-press.co.uk Item Number 51292 Age range 6 – 10 Price (Nov 12) £56.34
Golden Hours: games for groups. Available through Incentive Plus Unit C5, Sunningdale
House, 43 Caldecotte Lake Drive, Caldecotte Lake Business Park, Milton Keynes, MK7 8LF. Tel:
0845 180 0140 www.incentiveplus.co.uk £17.95 (Nov 2012)
Black Sheep Resources. These are available either as hard copies or in CD format. Available
through Black Sheep Press, 67 Middleton, Cowling, KEIGHLEY, BD22 0DQ, Tel: +44 (0)1535
631346 www.blacksheeppress.co.uk
“Visual Cue Cards” – Code: Prag4. Price (Nov 2012) £6.
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“Think About It”
– Code: Prag5. Price (Nov 2012) £15.
“Talking About School” – Code TA1. Price (Nov 2012) £12.
“Talking About Friends” – Code TA2. Price (Nov 2012) £15.
Playground Friends Hat The Quality Circle Time model recommends giving children the
responsibility of befriending other children who find it hard to join in and make friends at
playtimes. This strategy has been found to reduce bullying and bring out different sides to
disruptive and shy children. These embroidered hats will ensure your nominated Playground
Friends are easily identifiable at playtimes. Available through LDA, Duke Street, Wisbech, Cambs
PE13 2AE. www.ldalearning.com Product code : ADMT10175 range 4 – 11 Price (Nov 2012)
£14.99 (x 4 hats)
How to Support and Teach Children on the Autism Spectrum – Available through LDA, Duke
Street, Wisbech, Cambs PE13 2AE. www.ldalearning.com Product code : AAMT01151 Age
range 5 – 9 Price (Nov 2012) £9.99
Developing Baseline Communication Skills A practical resource aims at fostering personal
and social development. Available from Speechmark Publishing Limited, Telford Road, Bicester,
Oxon OX26 4LQ. www.speechmark.net Order Code 0024757 Age Range 4 – 5 Price (Nov 2012)
£38.99
Further information and resources can be found at www.talkingpoint.org.uk and
www.btplc.com/Responsiblebusiness/Supportingourcommunities/Learningandskills/
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