Children on the autism spectrum often experience difficulty generalizing social skills across environments and contexts, which can make developing friendships challenging in early childhood. This means that, in addition to initial social skills instruction, children with autism may need specialized supports to promote the generalization of newly…

Social skills instruction (SSI) provides a promising avenue for teaching and promoting positive social interactions to students with high-incidence disabilities. Within SSI, a distinction can be made between social skills and social competence. Social skills are specific behaviors one must perform correctly within a specific social context or…

Sometimes educators are puzzled by how students can demonstrate a social skill perfectly during a practice session in a social skills curriculum but fail to use the same skill in real-life situations. Students with a lack of social skills are more likely to experience teacher and peer rejection, and are more at risk for negative life outcomes,…

Incidental teaching procedures were used to train a 16-year-old mildly handicapped student to use social amenities in a resource classroom. Generalization to another resource room and an art classroom was assessed. Results indicated increased use of social amenities in the training setting and generalization settings. (Author/PB)

Many pupils with mild handicaps are failing to succeed in mainstream placements because of their poor social skills. Social skills training is increasingly part of the special education curriculum for these pupils. This article examines issues and strategies regarding the generalization and maintenance of social skills in mainstream settings. (JDD)

A conceptual framework of social competence is presented to formulate actions that will enhance the social competence of learners with mental disabilities. This chapter discusses the individual's culturally determined inputs; the processes of social affects, social skills, and social thinking; and the desired social outcomes. The history of social…

A school-based short-term intervention used successfully with impulsive, aggressive, shy, oversensitive, attention-disordered, and language- and learning-disabled elementary school students features exercises and activities such as generating ideas, rehearsing behaviors, and adapting behaviors to help students learn to "enter" play groups and join…

Adaptations to the Candy Land board game to allow play by children with moderate or severe disabilities are suggested, such as attaching a small photograph of the student to the marker and using large heavily weighted markers. Ways to generalize new skills and gradually remove the adaptations are discussed. (DB)

Speaking out without raising a hand, interrupting conversations, refusing to complete work or to follow directions, becoming aggressive toward peers or teachers with the slightest provocation, and generally having poor peer relations are only some of the myriad of problematic behaviors presented in classrooms at any given time. The historical…

A step-by-step guide is presented for developing and implementing a social interaction intervention based on a study of an inclusive preschool program. Steps include developing a data collection system, selecting observation time, collecting baseline data, identifying target children, developing social interaction skills intervention, monitoring…

Research on communication instruction for students with severe intellectual disabilities is reviewed, focusing on the pragmatic elements involved in accomplishing a successful communicative exchange. A federally funded project, called the "Conversation and Social Competence Research Project," is then described. The project sought to…

This set of materials for training elementary school children in social skills includes a book which explains the Skillstreaming program, a student manual, a collection of program forms, and a box of skill cards for use with students. After an introductory chapter, chapter 2 examines Skillstreaming's history and development. chapter 3 presents…

This set of materials on the Skillstreaming methodology for training adolescents in social skills, especially students who are chronically aggressive, includes a book which explains the entire program, a student manual, a collection of program forms, and a box of skill cards for use with students. Chapter 1 of the book examines the nature and…

This monograph contains 13 selected conference papers on teaching children with behavior disorders. The first section focuses on emotional/behavioral disorders eligibility and placement issues, and contains the following five papers: "Defining Behavior Disorder and Determining Eligibility for Special Education Services: Interrelated but Separate…