Entry Activity

1. Entry Activity • Discuss your task analysis with a partner. • Ask what their plans are to develop an instructional plan to teach that skill/routine.

2. Updates • Task analysis on academics due Today! • May 25th- Instructional Plan for Communication Skills • June 1st- Instructional Plan for Academic Skills • Ecological Assessment Report due June 6th • June 8th- Implementation Plan

3. [to Bobby] “You don't have what they call "the social skills." That's why you never have any friends, 'ceptfo' yo' mama.” • From Waterboy, 1998 starring Adam Sandler

4. How is communication related to the development of social skills? • Besides communication skills, what other factors affect a student’s development of social skills? • Based on what we have talked about in this class thus far, how would you go about assessing the social skills of a student with significant disabilities?

5. Think about students in the school you are working in… • What types of interactions do they engage in? (e.g., academic, social) • How do they establish relationships/friendships? • How do they gain membership & belonging? • What about romantic relationships? • What about relationships with adults?

6. Break into groups and discuss your articles • Group 1- Ready to present: • What are social skills vs social competence? • Traditional assessment of social skills • Contextual approach to social skills assessment • Brief results of the study • Groups 2 & 3- Ready to present: • What were the questions in the study? • Brief methods of the study. • What were the results of the study? • Group 4- Ready to present: • Literature review of paraprofessionals in the classroom • Paraprofessional’s role in social relationships. • Promotion of student-to-student interaction • How?

7. Esaul • 7th grade at Chavez Middle School • Spanish is his first/home language • Can be quite shy when meeting someone for the first time & it takes him a while to feel comfortable around new people. • Has autism & tends to repeat a few favorite phrases, avoids making eye contact, & holds fast to specific routines. • When topics of video games, movies, or comic books are brought up his entire demeanor changes

8. Discuss with a partner • What are Esaul’s strengths? • What are (or can) be barriers to Esaul developing positive social relationships? • What process would you use to assess these barriers? • What are some ideas you have for teaching/facilitating the development of social relationships for Esaul?

9. Alexis • 4th grader at North Elementary School. • Only knows a few of her classmates and often feels alone at school. • Has moderate intellectual disabilities, a mild hearing impairment, and a severe physical disability for which she uses an electric wheelchair. • Alexis discovered she has a knack for abstract painting that features vibrant colors and bold lines.

10. Discuss with a partner • What are Alexis’ strengths? • What are or can be barriers to Alexis developing positive social relationships? • What are some ideas you have for teaching/facilitating the development of social relationships for Alexis?

11. How would you assess a student’s social skills? • Rating scales- from those in environment • Teacher nomination & ranking- • List of students who demonstrate a specific behavioral characteristic to the greatest or least extent in comparison to classmates • Self-report- student’s subjective perceptions about own social competence • Direct behavioral observation-

12. Contextually & Age-appropriate • Contextual approach- • Assess the skills of students within the environment. • Identify skills that need to be taught • Ensures meaningful social development • Ensures the identification of skills that are relevant to the student’s culture.

13. What are social relationships? • Easy answers: • It’s obvious….we all have them and know what they are. • Defining social relationships is like defining the meaning of life…it’s not possible. • More useful understanding of social relationships, focused on interrelated aspects of our social lives: • Patterns of contact • Subjective satisfaction

14. Contact Patterns • Social relationships are based on contact patterns between two people • Example: 2 students might see each other in class on a regular basis, or that contact might be intermittent such as 2 students getting together for lunch once a week. • Contact does not need to be direct for a social relationship to exist (e.g., email) • Student’s social life can be understood as a collection of interactions with other people.

15. Environmental & Activity Variables: These occur within a context Different patterns of interaction among students Social Relationships based on: how often 2 students interact, how long, what days, etc. What occurs between students when they interact

16. Subjective Satisfaction • Variation among students regarding what constitutes a desirable social life. • Some individuals prefer to interact with a small number of people, but interact frequently • Large number of people, but interact less frequently • There is no metric for what constitutes a “good social life” • What would be the best way to define a “good social life” for a student?

17. Why are social relationships important? • Healthier • Happier • More active • When faced with a difficult challenge, a supportive social network can help them overcome many of the negative effects of such events. • Sarason & Duck, 2001

18. Importance • Social support- behaviors that are a part of social interactions • Emotional support, companionship, access to others, information, material aid, decision making • Goal should be to increase a student’s access to social support & improve student’s ability to provide social support to others • Membership/belonging- sense of “connectedness” with others • Stable and something shared by individuals involved • Circle of friends (Haring & Breen, 1992) • Part of their school/community • Personal happiness-be aware of student’s perception of the adequacy of his or her relationships (Strully & Strully, 1985)

19. Processes in Social Relationships? • What makes social relationships develop? • Still not specifically identified in research • General areas we will discuss relating to social relationship development & maintenance • How relationships develop? • Balancing independence and interdependence? • Types of social interactions? • Variables that influence the course of a relationship?

20. How social relationships develop? • Predictable pattern (Goldstein et al., 2001), 3 phases: • 1- Initial social encounters • Introduced to students • 55% of peers who are initially met go on to second stage • 2-Preferred interaction contexts • Try out different activities with one another • Make decisions of what form relationship will take • Majority of relationships do not extend beyond this • 3- Durable relationships • Described as friendships • Most satisfactory of relationships • Sustained social interaction • Routine develops

21. Balancing Independence & Interdependence • Social relationships influenced by social competence • Student’s ability to effectively interact and maintain social interactions • Independently engage in set of behaviors= social skills • More independent students are in initiating, taking turns, and providing reciprocal social support= more likely to self-determine a happy social life • Caution: No “readiness” prerequisite to developing relationships • Balance with interdependence: able to work collaboratively with others to accomplish a common goal (e.g., finding a role within a class activity/situation…determine what to search, controlling the mouse, etc. when searching the net)

22. Contexts & Types of Social Interaction • Where we interact & what we do are closely linked • Schools have 3 broad contexts: class, break/mealtimes, & brief interactions in other settings • Think about what types of social interactions are “appropriate” during these times.

23. Assessing Opportunities for Interaction • Identify the times & settings to be assessed. • Identify what aspects of a person’s social life you want to assess. Formal & informal information gathering Increasing number of people that student meets? Maintaining already established social relationships? • Summarize info & make recommendations

24. Social Life Assessment Questions & Suggestions • List the people with whom you interact • Is each person a friend or an acquaintance? • How many times per week do you interact with each person? • In what settings do you interact with each person? • Does this person know any of the other people you interact with? • What areas of your social life could be improved? • Would you like more interactions with a particular person? • Would you like to interact with this person in new settings? • Would you like to do different activities with this person? • Would you prefer individual or group activities? • Would you like to meet new people?

25. Top 5 Barriers to social relationships for students w disabilities

26. Skills for facilitating interactions • Pivotal skills for participating in activities • Teaching a student some of the skills necessary for participating in an activity gives them a central role in the social interaction that is valued by others (Breen & Haring, 1991) • E.g., playing a computer game w someone, teaching them to move the cursor • Reciprocity skills • Taking turns, initiating interactions, choosing activities, and complementing the other person are behaviors that may need to be taught.

27. Designing social skills instruction • Select appropriate skills • To enhance communication • To promote social inclusion • To promote social interaction • To display sills important to a specific setting • Identify task components • Type of skill deficit • Deliver instruction • Function-based • Antecedent/Consequence strategies • Teaching behaviors (Model, Lead, Test) • Promote generalization • Evaluate outcomes

28. Roles of team members in social skills instruction • Special educator- facilitate assessment, pull in related- services for communication, design schedules to provide opportunities, model interactions, sensitively answer questions of peers, teach peers to support their class members. • General educator- model acceptance, answer peers’ questions, plan activities to meaningfully include students, provide direct support to students as they learn, create new opportunities, encourage peers to support

29. Role of Peers? Administrators? • Peers- model, prompt, encourage, assist in planning social activities with peers • Administrators- arrange schedules so that opportunities exist for integration among students, work with teachers to integrate services in classroom, encourage collaboration between GE & SPED, promote teaching of social skills at in-service trainings, appoint a group of teacher, parents, & students to work with counselors to review curricula to teach social skills.

30. Steps to teaching social skills • Identify social skill strengths, difficulties & the type of learning problem (acquisition, fluency, interfering/competing behaviors). • Set social skills goals for the student. • Select training options that match the student’s specific social skill difficulty. • Develop a teaching plan & schedule • Implement, evaluate, and improve plan as needed.

31. Identify skill strengths/difficulties • Use Person-centered ecological approach (including direct observations) • Rating scales- mostly for younger/at-risk students • The Child Behavior Checklist (Achenbach, 1991) • Assessment, Evaluation, and Programming System for Infants and Children (AEPS; Bricker, 2002) • Early Screening Project (ESP; Walker, Severson, & Feil, 1995) • Social Skills Rating System (SSRS; Gresham & Elliott, 1990) • Systematic Screening for Behavior Disorders (SSBD; Walker & Severson, 1992) • Walker-McConnell Scale of Social Competence and School Adjustment (SSCSA; 1995)

32. Measures of relationships & friendships • Playmates & Friends Questionnaire for Teachers (Goldman, Buysse, & Carr, 1997) • School-based social network form (Kennedy, Shukla, et al., 1997) • Student Friendship Perception Survey (Hendrickson et al., 1996) • Assessment of Loneliness (Williams & Asher, 1992)

33. Critical Social Skills? • Skills needed for making friends and are essential “prerequisites” to additional, more complex skills • Entering a group of peers • Suggesting an activity • Sharing materials • Taking turns • Maintaining an interaction for at least 4 exchanges Janney & Snell, 2006

34. More critical skills • Exhibiting social reciprocity in conversation and other interactions (balanced mutual exchange of information and ideas) • Managing conflicts • Supporting others • E.g., by offering help and showing suitable affection • Replacement of problem behaviors that compete with appropriate social behavior • Function-based interventions, teaching alternative behaviors

35. Select teaching options that match the student’s specific social skill difficulty • Acquisition, performance, interfering behaviors • Behavioral strategies • Modeling, role playing, coaching, prompting, scripts for prompting interaction, and manipulation of consequences are effective for teaching acquisition skills (Scheider, 1992)

36. Cognitive & Affective Strategies • Concentrate on developing greater cognitive awareness of social situations and thoughtfully selecting adaptive strategies for responding to them. • Require students to make their thinking, planning, and behavior selection processes conscious (Walker et al., 2004) • Helpful in increasing students’ self-control and independence, as they do not rely on adults to provide external control or alter the situation

37. Cognitive Strategies are usually used together with behavioral strategies Various strategies teach student to: • 1. Identify a cue or trigger that is likely to create a social difficulty for them (e.g., being told no) • 2. Generate a range of alternatives/behaviors, consider the consequences of each, and then to decide which is the best response. • Involve combination of teaching methods, including modeling, role-playing, etc.

38. Teaching sequence using cognitive strategies • In a structured group or individual lesson, the teacher conducts a didactic lesson in which the strategy is defined and explained and the rationale for its use is provided. • Instructors model the strategy to “show” students how to think about the process; teacher thinks aloud, “Now I need to ask myself: ‘What would happen if I did that? Will that help me to reach my goal?’”

39. Continued Sequence • Students role-play the skill, first with coaching from the teacher, then with decreasing assistance. • Students are prompted, coached, and reinforced as they learn to use the process and the strategy in situations during which they interact with others.

40. Social Problem-Solving Strategies • Teach students to resolve problems by generating alternatives to the conflict, evaluating the pros/cons of each one, then acting out the best option. • In addition to the steps in problem-solving, students are taught: • Listening, taking turns, negotiating, the ability to assume the perspective of another, and the ability to maintain a positive attitude • Think-pair-share how you might use this strategy for teaching your target student

41. Self-Instructional Strategies • Use of covert or “self-talk” (i.e., thoughts) to direct one’s behavior. • Can be used to teach a number of cognitive & affective strategies, social problem-solving, anger control, etc. • (Luria, 1961; Meichenbaum & Goodman, 1971) • Think-pair-share…how would you use this strategy?

42. Anger-Control Strategies • Help individuals identify when they are angry; • Recognize the conditions that trigger their anger, and the negative outcomes related to aggressive expressions of anger; • Identify ways to cope with negative feelings, express anger in appropriate ways, and reduce aggression. • Strategies include: self-instructional training, thinking aloud, relaxation training, cognitive restructuring (Conduct Problems Prevention Research Group, 1999)

43. Self-Management Strategies • Involves teaching that is directed toward improving the student’s independent use of a social or behavioral skill (Cole & Bambara, 1992) • Various combinations of self-management strategies have been demonstrated to increase rates of on-task behavior and school-work participation and decrease disruptive behavior for students with significant disabilities (Barry & Messer, 2003; Brooks et al., 2003; Koegel et al., 1999)

44. Steps in teaching self-management • Define the target behavior, • Identify practical reinforcers to earn, • Design a self-monitoring system (e.g., checklist of steps to follow), • Teach the student to use the system, • Fade the student’s use of the system while maintaining self-management, • Encourage the use of the system across natural environments. • Includes: Self-cuing, self-monitoring, self-reinforcement

45. Self-Cuing Strategies • Involves the use of tools such as class schedules, checklists, lists of the steps of a task, and watches that beep to help remind students or cue them to perform a target skill or check on their behavior. . • May not need to be faded, as we all needs some cuing (e.g., alarm clocks, planners, etc.) • Think-pair-share

46. Self-Monitoring • Student learns to check his/her own behavior. • Student records each time he/she does a particular behavior (e.g., completing assignment, offer assistance to peer) • Well-researched method, highly effective in improving social interactions (Hughes et al., 2002; Koegel et al., 1992; Strain et al., 1994) • A lot of times simply increasing awareness of the target behavior can bring about behavior change.

47. Self-Reinforcement • Student learns to apply rules to give themselves positive consequences for performing a target behavior (e.g., talking to peers who approach them, keeping hands to self) • Requires direct instruction and may be used by adults, peers who have been taught to apply the methods with their classmates, or both adults and peers • Think-pair-share

48. Contexts & General Approaches to Teaching Social Skills • Opportunistic (or incidental) teaching- teach when students are in the presence of other students and are engaging in daily routines and activities (prompt, debrief). Most useful when working on developing fluency of acquired skills.

49. Structured Learning- • Direct instruction approach that also incorporates generalization training using opportunistic teaching (Skillstreaming, McGinnis & Goldstein, 1997). • Convene a social skills training group of students of similar ages. • Uses steps described earlier: intro skill, model, role-play, performance feedback. • Opportunistic teaching of practiced skills throughout the day is also used.

50. Peer-Mediated Intervention • Peers taught or guided to assist in modeling, cuing, and praising specific social skills. • Strong research base (McConnell, 2002) • As effective as one-to-one social skills training by an adult in improving a variety of social skills (Odom et al., 1999) • Strong effects on generalization of behavior across additional peers, places, & situations (Odom et al., 1992)