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Cognitive Social Skills Training
By: Sharon Fishman, MA
Social Skills Instructor
We all know the child who has difficulty getting along with friends, prefers to be alone, and is bullied or unsuccessful at joining in with others. Many of these children present with social cognitive deficits.
Social Cognitive Deficits
Social success is measured by how well one can initiate language, comprehend responses, understand abstract information and the ability to take the perspective of others. The child with social cognitive deficits may have excellent command of language, but significant problems integrating into the world around them.
Some children have difficulty monitoring pitch, inflection and tone of voice. They struggle to read facial expressions and misjudge personal space. Many children simply act out due to their inability to read non-verbal messages. A glaring imbalance between the child’s academic and social strengths and weaknesses can make it hard for him to find his place in the world.
It is these issues and more that are directly addressed through cognitive social skills training.
Social Skills are Learned Behaviors
Social interaction skills are learned behaviors whose goals are to elicit positive responses from others. Whether you are asking a friend to play at your house or approaching your boss at work, you are utilizing your own repertoire of social skills.
Many children acquire social skills naturally through experiences in life. However some need to have social skills broken down further and taught like any other subject. It is these early-learned skills that provide the foundation for social success in the future. It is important to pinpoint social skills deficits early and begin to practice them in the world around us.
This is a difficult task since our environments are constantly changing and we rarely can anticipate exact situations. Cognitive social skills training provides a set of rules, which can be applied to many situations. It is the generalization of these skills into real life that fosters social success.
Teaching Cognitive Social Skills – How Does it Work?
Social skills can be taught individually, however the best way is through group instruction. Interviews are conducted in order to choose participants whose cognitive, developmental and social needs match, in order to create the optimal teaching environment. Once the participants are selected, both individual and group objectives are established by the instructor. In this way, the instructional strategies can meet the individual skill deficits. These skills are taught and practiced in a safe, protective and supervised environment, so that the students feel safe to express emotions and comfortable to make mistakes. This will alleviate anxiety and thus lead to more successful instruction.
The use of role-play and simulation activities in the group allows the students not only to practice learned skills but to observe others as well.
For example, in order to teach the concept of “Joining Others in Play”
- Certain social rules need to be taught prior to success in this area.
 The students need to know how to listen with their body,
Use eye contact and
Keep the conversation reciprocal.
- Once these and other skills are taught, they can begin to apply them to a role-play activity. Two students act out a recess activity such as card playing, while a third comes to join in. The simulation activity takes place in front of the other group members encouraging the viewers to comment on what went right or wrong.
- It is important for the instructor to provide different scenarios suggesting appropriate ways to “Join in” the group. This can take place during conversation or playtime. Through incidental teaching, the instructor acts as a coach, prompting and rewarding behaviors as they occur.
- Finally, a homework assignment might be given to actively try this out during recess and report back to the group as to how it went.
Students find themselves proficient at both acting and scripting. They become better at detecting the emotions of themselves and others, which leads to improved self-monitoring. Since the acquisition of these skills did not come naturally, observation, planning and practice become key in order to function socially during unstructured recess time.
Moreover, aspects of social knowledge are taught by breaking them down and then presenting them through informal instruction. The cognitive processes that lead to social skills development include not only “What?” to do in a given situation but “Why?” we do it.
For example:
Why do we need appropriate eye contact?
What messages are we trying to convey with our eyes?
What information are we trying to elicit?
Once the specific concept is taught, assessment and reassessment of the students is imperative. This is done through a team approach consisting of the social skills instructor, classroom teacher and most importantly the caretakers in the home. It is this breaking down of skills that enable the student to process the social rules effectively and hopefully generalize them into their lives.
Social skills are utilized in a variety of different environments. These include home, school, Beit Knesset, camp, youth groups, chugim and more. Most youth leaders and educational professionals are not trained to either recognize or facilitate social thinking. Unfortunately, we sometimes find out too late after a crisis occurs. It is our job as caregivers to fill in these gaps and provide children with the tools they need for future social success!
For more information on the topic of social skills, check out: Working with Schools to Help Children with Social Skills Challenges.
If you think your child may benefit from cognitive social skills training, click here to request more information or to register your child. New groups will be starting soon.
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