Aleyshia Gilchrist

SPED 561/ Fall 2016

Social Skills
Social skills instruction is a critical educational component for many students
with learning disabilities. To completely understand learning disabilities requires
consideration of the social areas of the childs life (LDAH, 2011). Teaching social
skills to LD children must include components that will assist them in the regular
classroom. One such component can be teaching the children to look like theyre
paying attention. Children who do this are viewed more positively by regular
classroom teachers. I believe that the focus of foundation skills, interaction skills,
affective skills, and cognitive skills.
Foundation skills are the ability to maintain eye contact, maintain appropriate
personal space, understand gestures and facial expressions (WETA, 2015). In order to
help students be successful, it is important to teach your children to smile and make
eye contact while talking to adults and children. This is especially important when
they talk with adults(LDAH, 2011). Early intervention is important because students
have a chance to gradually grow into these behaviors. I had a student with autism in
my third grade class who still had issues with making eye contact with others which
was something that we worked on daily. Its also something that should be done not
only at school but at home as well.
Interaction skills are resolving conflicts, taking turns, learning how to begin and
end conversations, determining appropriate topics for conversation, interacting with
authority figures (WETA, 2015). The LD child should be given opportunities to
practice social skills involving both verbal and non-verbal behaviors. Examples of
these activities include smiling when meeting a friend or acquaintance, making
introductions, paying attention to the person who is speaking, asking other children to

play a game, and making positive statements for others efforts. According to Brooks
et al. (2016), greater participation in unstructured extracurricular activities predicted
greater social competence.
Affective skills are identifying one's feelings, recognizing the feelings of others,
demonstrating empathy, decoding body language and facial expressions, determining
whether someone is trustworthy(WETA, 2015). Role playing activities may be used to
effectively emphasize the possible effects of verbal interaction and the emotions they
may arouse in others. Situations showing a variety of emotions such as grief, joy, fear,
excitement, may be dramatized and discussed. Video tapes with stop action technique
may be used so that possible consequences and outcomes can be directed.
Cognitive skills are Social perception, making choices, selfmonitoring,
understanding community norms, determining appropriate behavior for different
social situations (WETA, 2015). To help L.D. children improve conversational skills,
teachers and parents should provide feedback. Call attention to negative statements
and require the L.D. child to consider the consequences of those remarks in terms of
the effect on the recipient. The L.D. child may have difficulty in differentiating
positive and negative statements without some assistance and training. If the child
cannot make such discrimination, the teacher and/or parent can model the desired
verbal behavior. Ask the child to repeat the statement and praise him for appropriate
verbalization. Discrimination of verbal behaviors can be enhanced by providing the
use of appropriate reinforces.

Artifacts
Brooks, B. A., Floyd, F., Robins, D. L., & Chan, W. Y. (2016). Extracurricular
activities and the development of social skills in children with intellectual and
specific learning disabilities. Journal of Intellectual Disability Research, 59(7),
678687.
LDAH. (2011, October 18). Social skills instruction for students with learning
disabilities - learning disabilities association of Halton. Retrieved November 07,
2016, from Learning Disabilities Association of Halton,
http://ldahalton.ca/publications-research/social-skills-instruction-for-studentswith-learning-disabilities/
WETA. (2015). Center for implementing technology in education (cITEd). Retrieved
November 07, 2016, from LD Online, http://www.ldonline.org/article/21025/?
theme=print