Any real success with social skills groups?
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Anonymous
| Our DD has had several years of social skills groups. She always tends to do well in these groups, my guess is because these are very structured, small, ideal settings. She even emerges as a leader and helps the other girls solve problems and comes up with great solutions and interacts really well. But after so many of these sessions, I find they don't translate well to the real world. When on the playground, in a busy noisy restaurant and other group settings she still seems to not engage very well, often going off by herself. She has a few friends but we def have to "cultivate" these friendships and it feels like a struggle sometimes. With cousins and family she is similar to the social skills groups, really engages and interacts almost like a completely different person. She is getting older and I find myself worrying more and more about her social skills and if she will have any real frends. She has an ADHD diagnosis and her ped and I suspect PDD possibly or some social component more than just ADHD. Her language and communication is superb but she lacks attention span and eye contact is labored. She tends to talk about the same topics although you can easily have a conversation with her about anythung. She interacts well with adults but has trouble with peers. She doesn't seem to care about what others are doing sometimes or want to be in the group but if you ask her about it she says feels sad and left out a lot. Other than social skills groups and small one-on-one play dates, what else has worked for you? Any suggestions? Appreciate any help/insight. |
Anonymous
Yes, we have had quite a bit of success with DC's social skills group. He progresses each year. He has not "caught up" with his peers. He probably won't until he is in his mid-20's. He has made break throughs in the past year (he started lying about minor things!  ), some of it is because he has made progress and some of it is becasue his peer group had matured too (he is 16). He is a bright STEM oriented HFA child. He started going when he was in 4th grade. At first it was the only place where kids looked forward to seeing him and he them. Then he was slowly able to add a friend here or there (but like NT children they come and go). Playing an instrument and being in Scouts has been excellent for him too. He has really bonded with our Congregations senior high youth group. One of the things our social skills facilitator has said is that the more interactions the better. Once a week social skill classes isn't enough. He still goes to his group. We thought it might be time for him to stop, but after missing them for ~2 months due to schedule conflicts, we found he needed some refresher sessions. He is much better one on one and in small working groups, as the group gets larger his AS tendencies(?) tend to become more apparent.
It is a slow slog and social skill groups are not a quick fix or a cure - they are part of a overall plan. OUr social skills place has a parent group once a month done by the same facilitator. At first, it was arming us with strategies and explaining the why; now it is problem solving specific issues. |
Anonymous
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OP,
I think it's great that your DD made good strides in interpersonal skills within a social group. (It's hard to find quality ones to begin with.) You hit the nail on the head though in that social skill groups can't address everything, .e.g., real world scenarios, like a "noisy restaurant and other group settings." My kid has similar issues. Sometimes there's really nothing you can do and sometimes it gets better with age. Have you thought about therapies that are not directly related? For example, with my speech delayed kid, ramping up OT and being more physically active has greatly improved his focus and expressiveness. (We're doing the OT for fine/gross motor issues.) DC shows signs of APD so we're also doing ILS (Integrated Listening Systems). So I'm not sure which is having the effect. Our last OT used the metaphor, "How is your engine running?" especially with many ADHD kids. High, low, just right. It helped kids learn to self-regulate, especially if they started bouncing off the walls or conversely wanted to separate from the group and go off in a corner. Maybe a similar metaphor could work with your DD. She could work out a strategy to stand with the group of kids instead of by herself or try to say hello to at least one kid on the playground. It's an uphill battle I know. |
Anonymous
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Talk to the moderator of the group about how to get your DD to generalize what she is learning in the group. A group helped my DS a lot (and your DD sounds a lot like him) but I had to push the moderators to give me suggestions for carrying what he learned over to other settings. I'm not big on pushing therapies at home but in this case it is very helpful to have "homework".
Also, you might sign her up for one activity with NT kids, something low key that she would enjoy. Ultimately thats what helped my DS. The social skills group brought him part of the way there, and he needed it, but then we had to focus on getting him interacting with NT kids. |
Anonymous
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IMO such groups are not at all harmful, but are in fact a way to separate insurance companies (or self payers) from their money in a sustained way. I feel like a lot of OT is the same:
It's pretty clear rolling in a towel or chatting around a round table will do no harm, and (here is the key) moms NEED to feel like they're Doing Something to "intervene" during "critical" brain plasticity. Enter social skills groups. Kids improve over the years, and moms will insist that it's due to all these soft interventions combined -- it wasnt any one therapy, but they're glad they did All They Could. What's never been clinically or empirically shown though is the contribution of a social skills group. Moms don't like to admit that Henry would've arrived in the exact same place 2 years later without such a group -- because his brain just matured. That would make all that cash and driving around amount to a waste. And that's unbearable. I think it takes real courage for a parent of a SN kid to say out loud, you know what? This particular thing is bullshit. So much appears to be at stake on a given action. |
Anonymous
Which group does your child attend? |
Anonymous
Improving Outcomes in Falls Church. |
Anonymous
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The table below (that I could only paste as a list) is from "Social Skills Development in Children with Autism Spectrum Disorders: A Review of the Intervention Research", published in 2006 in the Journal of Autism and Developmental Disorders. It will sound very familiar. I agree with 9:42 that over the long run these programs might no be worth the expense for the average-income family. What is CRITICAL for all special needs, however, is that the parent must initiate and be responsible for creating the right environment at home and other non-clinical settings for their child. It is such a daunting task for non-professionals, especially given the fact that we must be experts for all categories of need, and that most of us only see our kids in the morning and evening, that a lot of us find our only solution is to throw money at the problem and outsource. I'm struggling right now to decide whether to continue social skills group for DC1 this Fall, because of the exact problem OP mentioned - generalization and extrapolation to the larger world. I think one option is to have occasional "refresher" courses once a year, to obtain group speech/social therapy in school and to fill our child's schedule with activities where he will HAVE to work as a team. Regularly, we go over what he has learned in social skills group and try to discuss how to apply it to his camp or class situation. This summer, DC1 goes to drama camp, where he he sings, dances and rehearses with other children. He has not made friends, but he at least interacts with others during classes. He loves being on stage - it is the only time he can be in public with a supportive group. Why? because he only has to learn a script to be appreciated instead of wondering what to say every second!!! This year I am also enrolling him in a classical children's chorus - again the public performances as a group and voice training will help him build confidence and work as a team. In the future I have been thinking of Robotics camp - a friend told me some worked in teams to build robots then had competitions - this is exactly what would motivate my son and force him to interact. Any other ideas welcome... Here is the table: Goal Strategies Increase social motivation Foster self-awareness and self-esteem Develop nurturing, fun environment Intersperse new skills with previously mastered skills Start with simple, easily learned skills (errorless teaching) Increase social initiations Make social rules clear and concrete (e.g., stay one arm’s length from other person) Model age-appropriate initiation strategies Use natural reinforcers for social initiations (e.g., follow child’s conversation lead/interest) Teach simple social ‘scripts’ for common situations Improve appropriate social responding Teach social response scripts Reinforce response attempts Use modeling and role-play to teach skills Reduce interfering behaviors Make teaching structured & predictable Differentially reinforce positive behaviors Keep behavior charts (e.g., checkmarks or stars) for positive behavior Review socially appropriate and inappropriate behaviors of the participants as a group, via video or audiotape segments Promote skill generalization Orchestrate peer involvement (e.g., prompting & initiating social interactions, physical proximity) Use multiple trainers & individuals with which to practice skills Involve parents in training Provide opportunities to practice skills in safe, natural settings (e.g., field trips) Use time between session to practice skills (e.g., via ‘homework’) |
Anonymous
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Social skills classes and pragmatic language help has worked wonders for my child with Asperger's. He was diagnosed when he was four and in prek so all of our services have been through school with his peers. He is mainstreamed at a language immersion school.
In preK, he had 4x wk social skills classes during nap times and in K, 1x wk. The wonderful thing about it is that social skills was integrated within the classroom. His SLP regularly observes DS in class and meets with his teachers on how to help him socially per his IEP. At this point, he appears NT, has friends and interacts with his peers. His pragmatic language is appropriate for his age. We are very pleased with the supports and services provided by his school. |
Anonymous
| Social skills group work best as part of a larger plan. Parents have to do the work at home of reviewing and practicing (Raise Your Child's Social IQ by Cohen a good book for this). Parents also have to provide lots and varied social opportunities. Hopefully teachers in their preschools and schools are working towards the goals as well. NO groups are not the only answer and in isolation likely not so helpful but I think a valuable piece of a bigger effort. |
Anonymous
This actually isn't a bad idea. Maybe the moderator can play music in the background when the kids need to focus on a task or maybe try to meet up with the group at a casual restaurant. Push the boundaries so to speak. |
Anonymous
+1 |
Anonymous
| Taking a break will not hurt. Let her grow in a different way and the lessons she has learned will have time to soak in. Then maybe try again in a year or so. I love Michelle Garcia-Winner's Social Thinking approach and books, by the way, all on her website. We talk about social skills and use the Social thining terminology all the time while watching TV and movies, esp. comedy sit-coms. Tons to talk about with those. Find activities that celebrate your child's strengths as a break from a therapy focus. |
Anonymous
| OP here - thanks so much for all your ideas, insights and support. They are so helpful. 21:54 I think you are so right and that is exactly what we have been doing this year-focusing on her strengths, helping her feel good about herself and setting up small group settings for her to hone her social skills. Hopefully with time, she will develop better social skills in larger settings and learn to make and keep friendships and better connect with peers. She loves art and is very creative and in one of her classes met a sweet girl who is now a good friend. We will continue encouraging her in areas where she feels good and that she can excel. |
Anonymous
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DD is now 12. Looking back, ALL of the services we put so much time and money into were a complete waste.
Social skills groups did nothing for her. They never translated into the real world. What did help: old-fashioned, one on one playdates with other girls who shared her interests. The artificially contrived group with girls she had nothing in common with (except social awkwardness) actually made things worse. She told me later how much she hated being forced into a group with strange girls. OT did nothing for her dysgraphia. What did: art classes. Two years of speech therapy...complete waste. What actually helped: drama class and chorus. Etc., etc. DD now says how she wishes that she could have been left alone to figure things out for herself. She says now that all the services -- stuff we thought we needed to do to help her -- made her feel worse. My take from it is that while some kids really do need specialized intervention, many just need old-fashioned approaches plus the gift of time to develop at their own pace. The trouble is it's hard as a parent to know which approach is best, especially when the so-called professionals make you think your kid will be ruined if you don't put them in speech, OT, counseling.... I wish I could do it all over again -- I'd do it very differently. |