Promoting Generalization of Social Skills to Inclusive Play Settings for Children With Autism and Their Peers

Children on the autism spectrum often experience difficulty generalizing social skills across environments and contexts, which can make developing friendships challenging in early childhood. This means that, in addition to initial social skills instruction, children with autism may need specialized supports to promote the generalization of newly learned skills to natural inclusive play routines such as unstructured social centers and playdates. In this paper, we describe strategies teachers can employ to promote the generalization of newly learned social skills. Specifically, we describe how social narratives, visual supports, and environmental arrangement, prompting, and praise can be used during social centers and playdates to facilitate setting generalization. When teachers systematically support generalized social skills and behaviors, children will have more opportunities to develop meaningful friendships.

Effects of Computerized Social Skills Instruction for At-Risk Adolescents

This study reports the effects of an interactive multimedia computer program for teaching social skills to youths with social-adjustment problems. Twelve youths (aged 11–17) were referred by the county diversion program or school guidance counselors. Seven were formally classified as having disabilities and had active Individualized Education Programs. A multiple-probe across-behaviors design was used, with each of the baselines demonstrating a youth’s role-playing performance of one of three social skills. Three other measures were also collected: (a) time spent; (b) skill-knowledge scores; and (d) satisfaction ratings. Role-play results indicated that the students with and without disabilities successfully learned and performed the steps of the skills, and they generalized their use of the social skills to novel situations. Written test results indicated the students’ knowledge of the social skills was significantly higher after the instruction than during pretesting. Importantly, the students endorsed the program, with most ratings at the “extremely satisfied” level.

Exploring the Use of Virtual Characters (Avatars), Live Animation, and Augmented Reality to Teach Social Skills to Individuals with Autism

Individuals with autism and other developmental disabilities struggle to acquire and appropriately use social skills to improve the quality of their lives. These critical skills can be difficult to teach because they are context dependent and many students are not motivated to engage in instruction to learn them. The use of multi-modal technologies shows promise in the teaching a variety of skills to individuals with disabilities. iAnimate Live is a project that makes virtual environments, virtual characters (avatars), augmented reality, and animation more accessible for teachers and clinicians. These emerging technologies have the potential to provide more efficient, portable, accessible, and engaging instructional materials to teach a variety of social skills. After reviewing the relevant research on using virtual environments virtual characters (avatars) and animation for social skills instruction, this article describes current experimental applications exploring their use via the iAnimate Live project.

Social Skills Instruction, Online Modules, and Telecoaching to Develop Planning Skills of Young Adults With Autism

This study examined the efficacy of an intervention package consisting of small group instruction, online instructional modules, and telecoaching to increase planning skills of eight young adults (ages 17–26) with autism spectrum disorder (ASD) and other related neurological disorders. Telecoaching sessions used existing video conference platforms (e.g., FaceTime, Google Hangouts, Skype, Zoom) with young adults as the direct recipients of the coaching. The primary dependent variable was number of planning steps described on fictional vignettes, and a supplementary dependent variable was self-reported participation in weekly social activities. A multiple baseline across participants design with participants assigned to three cohorts was utilized. Results indicated all participants increased knowledge of steps required to plan activities. However, implementation of the planned activities varied with minimal gains demonstrated by five of the eight participants. Implications for practice and research related to technology-based interventions to increase social engagement of young adults with ASD is discussed.

A Parent-Implemented Playdate Intervention for Young Children With Autism and Their Peers

Children with autism spectrum disorder (ASD) present with social skills difficulties, which can create barriers for them to develop friendships with their peers. Playdates are a common way that young children practice play and friendship skills in home and community environments. Few studies have trained parents to embed social skills instruction into playdates for children with ASD, and such studies have been comprised of children with mild to moderate needs. In the current study, we employed a concurrent single-case multiple probe across three parent–child–peer triads design to evaluate the effects of training and coaching in a parent-implemented playdate intervention on parental strategy use and cascading effects on child–peer social interactions during playdates. Parents also rated the social validity of the intervention. Results indicated that two of the three parents reached criterion on the strategies quickly, and the third triad required a procedural modification. Challenging behavior appeared to be a barrier to implementation. Implications and future directions are discussed.

Selected Social-Emotional Learning Interventions

Social skills, or social-emotional skills, are interchangeable terms used to describe an individual’s ability to perform social behaviors, as well as regulate and express emotions appropriately. Substantial correlational and longitudinal research evidence indicates that children and youth’s social-emotional competencies are related to positive adjustment outcomes and inversely related to a number of problem behaviors. Although social skills training is frequently implemented as a preventive measure at Tier I and a targeted intervention at Tier II, some students may require more targeted and individualized social skills instruction in order to improve target skills. The chapter describes evidence-based practices for addressing small group social skill needs, as well as the adaptation of various evidence-based social skills curricula.

Social Skills of Students with Disabilities at Elementary Level in Inclusive School Setting

Social skills evidently played an important role for students to develop their lives as individuals and members of society, citizens and members of mankind. The objectives of this research were to find out the level of social skill among students with disabilities at the elementary level in inclusive school and to discover the dispersion of social skills level of students by their disability categories. Data were collected from teachers to rate the social skills students with disabilities using a 4-point Likert questionnaire. The research findings indicated that students with disabilities' mean score were 44.45 from minimum 30 and maximum 63, which is closest to the minimum. The levels of social skills' student with disabilities tend to the fair to very poor level (82.5%). Effective social skills instruction, such as intensive social skills training is required to enhance the level of social skills of students with disabilities in inclusive school.

Case Study Analysis of a Social Skills Service Delivery Model With Intellectually Disabled Students

This chapter focuses on students with intellectual disabilities (IDs). Social skills instruction is needed for any disability category, but more so with students that are diagnosed with intellectual disabilities. Thus, use of the social skills service delivery model with ID students is examined through two case studies, one in a middle school setting and another in a high school setting. This chapter concludes with a discussion about the causes and characteristics, the educational placement and instructional strategies, and the eligibility criteria for students with an intellectual disability. The chapter concludes with a discussion about future trends for intellectually disabled students and service providers.