Social Skills
Social skills and pragmatic language skills are the way a child navigates their way through various social situations. It is the art of knowing “what to say and when to say it.” It is also the ability to interpret non-verbal language, sarcasm and reading clues and nuances in conversations and the environment. Proficient social skills require the ability to constantly monitor and modify ones responses and behaviors. For example, an integral component of peer interaction is the ability to interpret social cues in order to establish and maintain friendships. Adept social skills increase confidence and decrease shyness or unassertiveness. They also decrease vulnerability for being bullied and create flexible and creative problem solvers.
What is Social Thinking ®?
Social Thinking® is a curriculum developed by Michelle Garcia Winner to address social deficits. Her definition is: “Social thinking is what we do when we interact with people: we think about them. How we think about people affects how we behave which in turn effects how others respond to us, which in turn effects our own emotions.”
Our practice specializes in the use of the Social Thinking ® curriculum. Chari and Haviva are mentors in Social Thinking. They have been trained directly by Michelle Garcia Winner and her Social Thinking Team. We use social cognitive techniques to help children and adolescents acquire the necessary skills to be successful participants, and communicators, in a variety of social situations. Often, social skills groups consist of the therapist identifying targeted behaviors and role-playing situations on how to modify them. Social cognition differs, in that it increases a child’s awareness, and gives them the tools to independently modify their behaviors and repair conversational breakdowns. Additional fundamental skills include inferencing, problem solving, perspective taking, self-monitoring, analyzing situations for optimal choice making and recognizing consequences.
As part of our program, we offer free monthly parent training workshops to parents of students enrolled in our social skills program. We believe that parents and caregivers are integral team members. We can help train parents to help their children generalize learned techniques into their home and natural environment.
