Preferred and Promising Practices for Social Skills Instruction

Teaching children and youth to be socially competent is a central theme within schools. As Odom, McConnell, and McEvoy (1992) stated, "Humans enter a social world at birth and make their way through the world by successfully negotiating decades of social exchange" (p. 7). An estimated 10% of school-age children, however, have social skill difficulties significant enough to lead to peer rejection (Asher, 1990). For children with disabilities, the problem is even worse. Early education teachers have indicated that up to 75% of children with disabilities need remediation in social skills (Odom et al., 1992). Teaching social skills directly is one strategy to provide children with the social behaviors they need to successfully interact socially with peers with and without disabilities (Hops, Finch, & McConnell, 1985). Most published social skills curricula fail to meet the specific needs of students with disabilities and lack information about assessment, teaching, and generalization strategies (Maag, 1989). The need for effective social skills curricula is highlighted by teacher surveys that overwhelmingly indicate that special and regular educators alike believe social skills training should be an integral part of the curriculum (Bain & Farris, 1991; Fuller, Lewis, & Sugai, 1995; Meadows, Neel, Parker, & Timo, 1991). The focus of this article is on the strategies and structures necessary for fostering social competence in all children, and, in particular, children who are at risk of academic or social failure. These include strategies for assessing and understanding social skills problems, strategies for teaching social skills, and preferred practices for achieving generalized responding. Guidelines for developing, examining, and selecting a social skills curriculum are provided.