MIND YOUR PS AND QS

TEACHING SOCIAL SKILLS TO REDUCE CHALLENGING BEHAVIOR

SCHEDULE

Housekeeping Research History

Teaching Social Skills Wrap-up/ Q & A

WHAT ARE SOCIAL SKILLS? Social and emotional learning is the process through which children and adults acquire and effectively apply the knowledge, attitudes and skills necessary to understand and manage emotions, set and achieve positive goals, feel and show empathy for others, establish and maintain positive relationships, and make responsible decisions Collaborative for Social, Emotional and Academic Learning (CASEL), 2015

RESEARCH

71% of students in 6th through 12th grade thought their school did not provide

them with a caring, encouraging environment (CASEL, 2003)

60% of children enter school with the cognitive skills needed to be successful

40% have the social-emotional skills needed to succeed in kindergarten (Raiver, 2002)

GOOD SOCIAL SKILLS PREDICT:

Peer Approval (Bierman & Montminy, 1993)

School Adjustment, Attention Skills, Coping Skills

(Eisenberg, et al., 1996)

Mental Health Later in Life (Denham & Holt, 1993; Parker & Asher, 1987)

School Placement & Job Opportunities

(Rey & Putnam, 2002)

Better Overall Quality of Life (Howlin & Goode, 2000)

ADOPTING EXPLICIT EVIDENCE-BASED SOCIAL EMOTIONAL LEARNING STRATEGIES:

• better academic performance: achievement scores an average of 11 percentile points higher than students who did not receive SEL instruction

•  improved attitudes and behaviors: greater motivation to learn, deeper commitment to

school, increased time devoted to schoolwork, and better classroom behavior •  fewer negative behaviors: decreased disruptive class behavior, noncompliance,

aggression, delinquent acts, and disciplinary referrals; and •  reduced emotional distress: fewer reports of student depression, anxiety, stress, and

social withdrawal.

(Durlak, J., Weissberg, R., Dymnicki, A., & Schellinger, K., 2011)

HISTORY

ANCIENT

a holistic curriculum that requires a balance of training

in physical education, the arts, math, science, character,

and moral judgment (Plato)

THROUGH THE 19TH CENTURY

moral teachings of dominant religious

groups in local communities. Biblical

stories and moral lessons

SINCE THE MID-1950S the identification of moral

education goals and objectives was greatly

reduced in curriculum guides and materials produced by

state departments of education and many local

schools (US News and World Report, 1996)

HISTORY

School Development Program @ Yale (Comer) Collaborative for Academic, Social and Emotional Learning

Emotional Intelligence – Goleman

1960

1994

1995

POSITIVE BEHAVIOR SUPPORT

“The broad enterprise of helping people develop and engage in adaptive, socially desirable

behaviors and overcome patterns of destructive and stigmatizing responding”

(Koegel, Keogel, and Dunlap)

1996

TEACHING SOCIAL SKILLS Why do some of our students not exhibit appropriate social skills?

National Association of School Psychologists

•  Lack of knowledge

•  Inconsistent despite knowledge

•  Insufficient degree or level of strength

•  Competing skill deficits or behaviors

TEACHING SOCIAL SKILLS

1. Focus on facilitating the desirable behavior as well as eliminating the undesirable behavior.

Talking to friends Swearing

Talk to friends Extra computer time

TEACHING SOCIAL SKILLS 2. Emphasize the learning, performance, generalization, and maintenance of appropriate behaviors through modeling, coaching, and role-playing. It is also crucial to provide students with immediate performance feedback.

TEACHING SOCIAL SKILLS 3. Employ primarily positive strategies and add punitive strategies only if the positive approach is unsuccessful and the behavior is of a serious and/or dangerous nature.

TEACHING SOCIAL SKILLS 4. Provide training and practice opportunities in a wide range of settings with different groups and individuals in order to encourage students to generalize new skills to multiple, real life situations.

TEACHING SOCIAL SKILLS 5. Draw on assessment strategies, including functional assessments of behavior, to identify those children in need of more intensive interventions as well as target skills for instruction.

TEACHING SOCIAL SKILLS 6. Look to enhance social skills by increasing the frequency of an appropriate behavior in a particular situation. This should take place in "normal" environments to address the naturally occurring causes and consequences.

Social Skills

GROUP DIRECT INSTRUCTION

INDIVIDUAL DIRECT INSTRUCTION

SCHOOL-WIDE SOCIAL SKILLS PROGRAM

TEACHING SOCIAL SKILLS •  Primary: school-wide

instruction •  Secondary: specific social

skills instruction groups •  Tertiary: individualized plan

Teaching: •  Replacement Skills •  Adaptive Skills

TEACHING SOCIAL SKILLS

POSITIVE REINFORCEMENT

Truly one of the most effective change

agents we have in teaching

POSITIVE REINFORCEMENT

•  Find the good and praise it •  Unfailingly respond to positive

behavior •  How much reinforcement do you

provide compared to instructive/corrective feedback?

PARENT ENGAGEMENT

•  School Wide (Adams, Womack, Shatzer & Caldarella, 2010)

•  Youth with ASD -

PEERS (Karst, et al 2014, Mandelberg et al, 2014 – and many more)

FINAL THOUGHTS

Social Skills can be

TAUGHT

Social Skills can be LEARNED

This is just the

BEGINNING

RESOURCES Collaborative for Academic, Social and Emotional Learning

•  http://www.casel.org/ Center on the Social and Emotional Foundations for Early Learning

•  http://csefel.vanderbilt.edu/ National Association of School Psychologists

•  http://www.nasponline.org/resources/factsheets/socialskills_fs.aspx Positive Behavioral Interventions and Supports

•  https://www.pbis.org/

MIND YOUR PS AND QS

TEACHING SOCIAL SKILLS TO REDUCE CHALLENGING BEHAVIOR