For children with learning disabilities, social skills instruction is a crucial educational component as learning disability can be permeated into all areas of a child’s life. Some examples of social skills are starting a conversation, working cooperatively, expressing your feelings and so forth. Due to the lack of social skills and effective instructional strategies for teaching social skills, the difficulties that children with learning disabilities are facing included negative effects on academic areas, problems with interpersonal relationships and emotional difficulties. Some of these problems might be tackled and avoided with the availability of a social skills curriculum in daily activities. Brown and Hedinger (1995) recognized the five problematic areas that are exhibited individuals with learning disabilities in the social context included auditory processing problems, memory, attention, visual, spatial or motor disabilities and expressive language.
Hence, multiple approaches are incorporated to improve social skills of an individual with learning disability. Effective social skills training included strategies like social skills support groups, mnemonics, behavioural training program and virtual reality.
Mnemonics : FAST strategy and SLAM strategy
The practice and implementation of these mnemonics let individuals with learning disabilities to react appropriately in a social situation.
– The F (freeze and think) A (alternatives) S (Solution) T (Try it) strategy helps to deal with interpersonal problems. Individuals can approach the problem in a rational way instead of impulsive manner through this strategy.
– The S (stop) L (look) A (ask) M (make) strategy helps individuals to receive verbal messages from peers. Individuals are taught to clarify the expression and then to respond appropriately.
Behavioural training program
Components like modeling, role playing , performance feedback and transfer training are incorporated in the program for behavioural training. Individuals with learning difficulties can become effective communicators with the ability to identify nonverbal social cues through a comprehensive approach.
Modelling – experience the specified behaviours
Role play – having an individual to play an active role and internalize the skill instruction
Performance feedback – giving reinforcement and suggestions on improving the skill
Transfer training – Assisting in generazing the social skill across many natural settings as possible
Therapeutic approach
Individuals can recognize and deal with stressful situations, while examining how their social abilities are affected by learning disability in a support group. A facilitator will be there to remediate and instruct students in skill development during the group session. The facilitator uses the real life experiences to help students examine and develop social skills as individuals share the difficult social circumstances they are facing. Support group validates feelings and let them to know that they are not alone.
Virtual reality
Components such as multisensory approach, three-dimensionality, encourages problem-solving, and effective modeling techniques allow the instructor to create interactive role playing scenarios that are targeted to a students specific social deficits.
Some tips to improve your child’s social skills :
- Teach your children to smile and make eye contact while talking to adults and children.
2. Present children with pictures of faces displaying various emotions such as happiness, sadness, anger, surprise and so forth. Let them to identify and label the emotions. Parents can ask the child to identify facial expressions of characters on TV programs as well. For the child to focus attention on facial expressions, the sound can be muted during this activity to eliminate auditory cues.
3. Discuss the meaning of various body gestures such as waving goodbye, shrugging a shoulder, tapping a foot or shaking a finger in impatience, crossed arms, outreached arms. Introduce each gesture separately.
4. Have the child to listen to a voice on a tape recorder and ask him to explain the mood of the person and the meaning of the communication. This is to allow a child to understand the implications in the human voice beyond the words themselves. Different tones of voice can be used for the same phrase and parents or teacher can explain the different meanings of tonal quality.
5. Have role play activities to emphasize the possible effects of verbal interaction and the emotions they may arouse in others.
6. Let the child to practice social skills involving both verbal and non-verbal behaviour. For instance, smiling when meeting a friend, making introductions and asking other children to play a game.
社交学习（社交技巧）
对于有学习障碍的儿童，社交技能教学是一个至关重要的教育内容，因为学习障碍可以渗透到儿童生活的各个方面。社交技巧的一些例子是开始对话，合作，表达自己的感受等等。由于缺乏社交技能和有效的教学社交技能教学策略，学习障碍儿童面临的困难包括对学术领域的负面影响，人际关系问题和情绪困难。通过在日常活动中提供社交技能课程，可以解决和避免其中一些问题。 Brown和Hedinger（1995）认识到在社会背景下展示有学习障碍的个人的五个问题领域包括听觉处理问题，记忆，注意力，视觉，空间或运动障碍和表达语言。
因此，结合了多种方法来提高有学习障碍的个人的社交技能。有效的社交技能培训包括社交技能支持小组，助记符号，行为培训计划和虚拟现实等策略。
助记符：FAST策略和SLAM策略
这些助记符的实践和实施使得有学习障碍的人能够在社交场合做出适当的反应。
– F（freeze and think，冻结和思考）A（alternatives，替代）S（solution，解决方案）T（try it，尝试）策略有助于处理人际问题。个人可以通过这种策略以理性的方式而不是冲动的方式来解决问题。
– S（stop，停止）L（look，外观）A（ask，问）M（make，制造）策略帮助个人接收来自同伴的口头信息。教导个人澄清表达，然后适当地做出回应。
行为训练计划
建模，角色扮演，绩效反馈和转移培训等组件都包含在行为培训计划中。有学习困难的人能通过综合方法识别非语言社交线索，成为有效的沟通者。
建模 – 体验指定的行为
角色扮演 – 让个人发挥积极作用并内化技能指导
绩效反馈 – 给予强化和提高技能的建议
转移训练 – 协助在尽可能多的自然环境中培养社交技能
治疗方法
个人可以识别和处理压力情况，同时检查他们的社交能力如何受到支持组中学习障碍的影响。在小组会议期间，协调员将在那里修复和指导学生的技能发展。辅导员利用现实生活经验帮助学生检查和发展社交技能，因为个人分享他们所面临的困难社会环境。支持小组验证感受并让他们知道他们并不孤单。
虚拟现实
诸如多感官方法，立体化等组件鼓励解决问题，并且有效的建模技术允许教师创建针对学生特定社会缺陷的交互式角色扮演场景。
一些提高孩子社交能力的技巧：
- 在与成人和儿童交谈时，教导您的孩子微笑并进行目光接触。
- 向孩子们展示面部图片，展示各种情绪，如快乐，悲伤，愤怒，惊喜等。让他们识别和标记情绪。家长也可以要求孩子在电视节目中识别人物的面部表情。为了让孩子将注意力集中在面部表情上，可以在进行此活动期间静音以消除听觉线索。
- 讨论各种身体姿势的含义，例如挥手告别、耸肩、叩脚或不耐烦地摇动手指、交叉双臂、伸出双臂等。家长可以分别介绍每个手势。
- 让孩子在录音机上听一个声音，让他解释一下这个人的心情和交流的意义。这是为了让孩子能够理解超出单词本身的人类声音的含义。不同的语调可以用于同一个短语，父母或老师可以解释音调质量的不同含义。
- 进行角色扮演活动，以强调言语互动的可能影响以及他们可能在其他人中引起的情绪。
- 让孩子练习涉及口头和非口头行为的社交技巧。例如，在与朋友见面时进行微笑，进行介绍并要求其他孩子玩游戏。