Having worked with children with exceptionalities, I’ve found that something that other children often take for granted and learn naturally that others don’t is social skills. Social skills are all those little things that we do in social settings that we often don’t think twice about. We use manners, introduce ourselves, shake hands, make eye contact and pause to listen to others.
A child that has missed parts of their normal social development due to illness, cognitive delays or abuse, may need to go back and learn some of these skills over again. It really depends on where the child is at with their social skills as to where you’d begin with your teaching. Below are some suggestions as to what they may need to work on and how you can teach it.
Eye Contact – At times, children may not make eye contact or see the importance in it, they may need reminders to make eye contact during a conversation. Please note that not all cultures see eye contact as an important part of social awareness.
Minimal Encouragers – These are things like nodding your head or saying “Uh huh” during a conversation that let others know that you are paying attention. You can teach a child to do this by using flash cards that tell them when it is an appropriate time during a conversation to nod their head.
Greetings – Learning to say “Hello” or “Good Morning” is an important step for a child as it is the way that people know that we are friendly and happy people who they will want to get to know better. A good way to teach your child is to model greetings yourself, get them to practice greetings with their family at home and through role playing with siblings or even stuffed animals.
How to ask a friend to play – Having a friend to play with at recess is so important to children; if your child is struggling to make friends, get the school on board. Perhaps they can pair your child up with another student who can help them ask others to play. Role playing at home with a family friend or sibling is again, a great way your child can practice asking someone to play without the fear of rejection.
Taking Turns – Teaching a child to take turns can be done by playing simple board games where you must take turns. Another way to teach this is by trading toys with your child “It’s my turn with the truck but you can have the car”.
Saying Good Bye – Children that lack social skills don’t always think about saying good-bye, see you later or have a good night, when someone is about to leave. Just like teaching Greetings, you can model farewells and have them practice them at home. Sometimes your child will just need a reminder and you can come up with a signal that will help them to remember what they are to say.
Manners – saying please and thank-you is not always obvious to young children or those with delays. It is important to model good manners, prompt your child and practice whenever you can.
Having a Conversation – Carrying on a conversation is a much bigger social skill than we tend think it is, since most of us do it all the time. During a conversation, we do many things that let the other person know that we are listening, are interested in what they are saying and have something interesting to say back to them. When teaching a child about having a conversation, we first need to teach them to talk about an appropriate topic. If we can find a topic that interests our child, that is a good place to start. Often a popular television show is something they can use to start a conversation with a peer. Practice a conversation at home with them. Use flash cards or hand signals to teach your child when they should pause and allow the other person to talk, when to nod their head, use eye contact, etc. Watch television shows together and pause them to show your child examples of how people pause, etc.
No comments:
Post a Comment