Developing Social Skills

Social skills are competencies that facilitate communication and interaction with others in any environment. Social skills can be essential when interacting with peers, preparing for an interview and managing a team project. Improving social skills can be beneficial in every area of life. Social skills are important because they can help with communicating more effectively and efficiently. As a result, this allows room to build, maintain and grow more meaningful relationships with peers, coworkers and new associates.

Many of our young adults need help in learning how to act in different types of social situations. They often have the desire to interact with others, but may not know how to engage friends or may be overwhelmed by the idea of new experiences. Our team helps our clients by assisting them with building up their social skills with practice, this can look like encouraging enhanced participation in the community and promoting positive outcomes like happiness and friendships. Our team has used social skills tips and information from experts, research, and resources, along with useful tools to help enhance opportunities to be part of the community.

Implementing Improving Social Skills

For people with autism it can be harder to learn and build up these skills, here are a few ways we implement improving social skills:

1. Direct or explicit instruction and "teachable moments" with practice in realistic settings

2. Focus on timing and attention

3. Support for enhancing communication

4. Learning behaviors that predict positive social outcomes

5. Building up cognitive and language skills

Social skills groups offer an opportunity for our clients to practice their social skills with each other and even with peers on a regular basis. Our Brightstone Community Center hosts an Adulting group every week where they discuss many different topics. A common topic that they focus on is improving social skills. Staff helps with providing structure and predictability. They also help the clients break down abstract social concepts into concrete actions. Staff also use interactive learning techniques such as encouraging working in pairs or groups with cooperation and partnership. Along with the adulting group, staff makes sure our clients are provided with multiple and varied real life learning opportunities. We feel this will allow our clients to foster a sense of self-awareness and self-esteem.