Beyond Greetings and Making Friends: Social Skills from a Broader Perspective

Children living in adverse conditions of poverty and/or abuse or in institutional or foster care, suffer physiological changes in their developing brains which negatively affect their social skills and therefore their ability to socialize and form meaningful connections with others. Impeded social skills development also interferes with children’s ability to demonstrate self-control, to learn and to demonstrate appropriate behaviour. Their physical and emotional health and wellbeing also suffer. Without greater understanding, intervention and support from schools, the future for these children continues to look extremely bleak. The emotional and social costs are high. This paper looks at the effects of trauma due to poverty, parent-child separation (attachment disruption) and disconnection on social skills development in children and the reasons why some children who have experienced adversity early in their lives, come to school with “baggage”. It takes a cursory look at the effects of emotional trauma on the developing brain and examines why affected children often demonstrate anti-social behaviour and struggle with forming meaningful relationships and learning in school. Also considered are the problems encountered by some children at the upper end of the socioeconomic spectrum, most particularly their difficulties making friends.

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withdrawn, aggressive-antisocial, impulsive conduct, anxious-depressed, autism). Difficulty in making friends and getting along with peers was confirmed to be a very large problem for most of these children. One respondent noted that it was unclear whether difficulties with peers were a primary caus e or simply an effect of the other problems. Others stated that, along with other difficulties, their children lack social skills. Some component of the child's treatment plan, therefore, included the objectiv e of helping to enhance social skills toward more positive peer relating, while the child would be involved in therapy (individual or family) at the same time. In consultant work with children in schools, the author has ofte n found that a child who was in outside psychological therapy still needed direct help in the school setting to establish or maintain positiv e peer group relationships. Amon g the procedures utilized within the professional settings sampled, coaching and similar social skills instruction methods wer e well represented as were social problem solving (e.g.. Spivack & Shurc. 1974). The social problem solving procedure basically in-cludes instruction and practice in identifyin g a problem focus, generating alternative strategies, and considering the consequences of strategies. Both types of approaches often were combined with social or concrete reinforcers and a general supportive atmosphere t o enhance children's feelings of acceptance as the children were ac-quiring skills. A more typical approach, however, was to combine all oí the above methods to tailor a program considering the variety of difficulties in these children's social learning. This approach of diverse methods also included a focus on social skills that appeared to present particularly strong difficulties for children in these set-tings. The social skills goals included learning to assert oneself in orde r to be included, listened to and cooperated with; learning to cooperate and communicate more effectively, particularly in group situations: gaining control of impulsive lack of attention and of an-tisocial aggression: responding positively to peers: and participating more in activities. Direct instruction of these skills appeared to be more similar to the Oden and Asher or Ladd models, or Bornstein. Bellack. and Hersen (1977). especially with older children. Many programs also included direct cognitive training of the problem solving process, whereas perspective taking and consideration of consequences were originally more indirectly included in the coaching procedures. Role playing and use of cooperative activities (e.g.. Johnson. 1980) were also employed to enhance concrete

Social Skills Training for Children and Youth ◽

10.4324/9781315059167-10 ◽

2014 ◽

pp. 93-98

Keyword(s):

Social Skills ◽

Problem Solving ◽

Social Problem ◽

Treatment Plan ◽

Social Problem Solving ◽

Social Skills Instruction ◽

The Social ◽

Making Friends ◽

Group Relationships ◽

Problem Solving Process

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Abc's of Making Friends: Teaching Social Skills to Adolescents With Autism Spectrum Disorders in the Classroom

PsycEXTRA Dataset ◽

10.1037/e685042011-001 ◽

2011 ◽

Author(s):

Elizabeth A. Laugeson ◽

Ruth Ellingsen ◽

Shannon Bates ◽

Alea Baron ◽

Chloe Koeffler ◽

...

Keyword(s):

Autism Spectrum Disorders ◽

Social Skills ◽

Autism Spectrum ◽

Adolescents With Autism ◽

Spectrum Disorders ◽

Making Friends

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Does being friendly help in making friends? The relation between the social position and social skills of pupils with special needs in mainstream education

European Journal of Special Needs Education ◽

10.1080/08856250601082224 ◽

2007 ◽

Vol 22 (1) ◽

pp. 15-30 ◽

Cited By ~ 100

Author(s):

Per Frostad ◽

Sip Jan Pijl

Keyword(s):

Social Skills ◽

Special Needs ◽

Social Position ◽

The Social ◽

Mainstream Education ◽

Making Friends

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Quranic Recitation Using Technology as Complimentary Therapy to Ameliorate Social Skills for Children with Autism Spectrum Disorder (ASD)

International Journal of Human and Health Sciences (IJHHS) ◽

10.31344/ijhhs.v0i0.156 ◽

2019 ◽

pp. 38

Author(s):

Amir MAL ◽

Wan Fara AWAK ◽

Mohd Zaid D ◽

Mohd Amzari T ◽

Kartini I

Keyword(s):

Autism Spectrum Disorder ◽

Social Skills ◽

Children With Autism ◽

Autism Spectrum ◽

Spectrum Disorder ◽

Control Group ◽

Social Responsiveness ◽

The Social ◽

Making Friends ◽

The Impact

Introduction: The number of children diagnosed with Autism Spectrum Disorder (ASD) is on the rise. ASD is a neurodevelopmental disability that affects social communication and social interaction that manifests with a restricted, repetitive pattern of behaviour, interest or activit ies (RRB) at an early developmental age. Consequently, ASD children are facing difficulties in social skills aspect such as eye contact, expression, and making friends. There are limited studies that show the recitation of the Quran may improve some symptoms, but there is no specific study that demonstrates the impact of the renditions on social skills.Objectives: To investigate the effect selected Quranic verses recitation on the social skills of the children with Autism Spectrum Disorder (ASD)Method: This study uses Quranic verses which are selected using two categories of the Quranic inimitability doctrine (I'jaz Al-Quran) (Al-Atrasy, 2007). Firstly, the influencing inimitabi lit y (I'jaz Ta'thiri) and secondly the language inimitability (I'jaz Lughawi). The recitation is kept consistent exposing to the children with ASD for a specified amount of time using an audio player with a Bluetooth speaker. The sound decibels will also be recorded. They will then be exposed to standard occupational therapy techniques. The evaluation of performance will use Quasi-Experimental research design questionnaires. Fourteen ASD Muslim children aged between 4-6 years old has been recruited for this research. The ASD children will be divided into an experimental and control group. The Social Responsiveness Scale- Second Edition (SRS-2) will be used to assess the response. The scale consists of a set of questionnaires, with Likert-scale evaluation.Results: The expected result for this study is the ASD children in the experimental group will have lower Total-scores of SRS-2 compared to control group.Conclusion: Quranic recitation provides effective complementary therapy to improve social skills among Muslim ASD childrenInternational Journal of Human and Health Sciences Supplementary Issue: 2019 Page: 38

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