Social skills training with children: proceed with caution

Area of Science:

• Psychology
• Special Education

Background:

• Learning disabilities often present with social skill deficits.
• Social skills training (SST) is a common intervention for these deficits.

Purpose of the Study:

• To evaluate the effectiveness of a group social skills training program for learning disabled children.
• To assess generalization of trained skills to untrained role-play scenarios and the natural school setting.

Main Methods:

• A group training procedure involving coaching, modeling, behavior rehearsal, and feedback was implemented.
• A multiple baseline design across target behaviors (eye contact, verbal responses) was used.
• Measures included trained/untrained role-play scenes, free play observations, and sociometric ratings.

Main Results:

• Children with learning disabilities showed improved performance on trained role-play scenes.
• Generalization to untrained role-play scenes and free play settings was not observed.
• Sociometric ratings did not significantly change post-treatment.

Conclusions:

• Social skills training can effectively teach specific social behaviors to children with learning disabilities in controlled settings.
• Interventions may need to be adapted to promote generalization to real-world social interactions and improve peer acceptance.