Helping Children Develop Social Skills

Social skills interventions are designed to improve social skills, or change selected behaviors, so that others will respond favorably to children with autism. Children with autism need to be taught specific verbal as well as nonverbal behaviors involved in social interactions. This ranges from making good eye contact, to asking questions during a conversation.

This therapy also helps children understand the subtle cues contained in social interactions, such as how to tell when someone wants to end a conversation or switch topics in a conversation.

In 2007 the Indiana Resource Center for Autism found that pulling kids out of the classroom to practice social skills with one another and an adult are unlikely to produce much in the way of "typical" social behavior. However, including social skills training in the classroom showed very favorable results. “Students in classroom-based programs were more likely to engage the targeted skills during the program, and showed a greater tendency to maintain changes in behaviors and to utilize these skills in other settings. This finding has important implications for school-based social skill interventions. Teachers and other school personnel should place a premium on selecting social skill interventions that can be reasonably implemented within naturalistic settings."

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