Social Skills: Promoting Positive Behavior, Academic Success, and School Safety

Good social skills are critical to successful functioning in life. These skills enable us to know what to say, how to make good choices, and how to behave in diverse situations. The extent to which children and adolescents possess good social skills can influence their academic performance, behavior, social and family relationships, and involvement in extracurricular activities. Social skills are also linked to the quality of the school environment and school safety.

While most children pick up positive skills through their everyday interactions with adults and peers, it is important that educators and parents reinforce this casual learning with direct and indirect instruction. We must also recognize when and where children pick up behaviors that might be detrimental to their development or safety. In the past, schools have relied exclusively on families to teach children important interpersonal and conflict resolution skills. However, increased negative societal influences and demands on family life make it imperative that schools partner with parents to facilitate this social learning process. This is particularly true today given the critical role that social skills play in maintaining a positive school environment and reducing school violence.

Consequences of Good Social Skills

With a full repertoire of social skills, students will have the ability to make social choices that will strengthen their interpersonal relationships and facilitate success in school. Some consequences of good social skills include:

Positive and safe school environment. Child resiliency in the face of future crises or other stressful life events. Students who seek appropriate and safe avenues for aggression and

frustration. Children who take personal responsibility for promoting school safety.

Consequences of Poor Social Skills

Students with poor social skills have been shown to:

Experience difficulties in interpersonal relationships with parents, teachers, and peers.

Evoke highly negative responses from others that lead to high levels of peer rejection. Peer rejection has been linked on several occasions with school violence.

Show signs of depression, aggression and anxiety. Demonstrate poor academic performance as an indirect consequence. Show a higher incidence of involvement in the criminal justice system as

adults.

Impact on School Safety

Given the demonstrated relationship between social skills and school safety, schools are increasingly seeking ways to help students develop positive social skills, both in school and in the community. Social skills related to school safety include:

Anger management Recognizing/understanding others' point of view Social problem solving Peer negotiation Conflict management Peer resistance skills Active listening Effective communication Increased acceptance and tolerance of diverse groups

In isolation, social skills are not sufficient to ensure school safety; interventions should not be limited to student instruction and training. Change in the school culture should be facilitated by infusing social skills training into a comprehensive system of school safety and discipline policies, emphasizing relationship-building between students and faculty (teachers and administrators) and between schools and families, and providing effective behavior management and academic instruction.

Defining Types of Social Skills

While there are hundreds of important social skills for students to learn, we can organize them into skill areas to make it easier to identify and determine appropriate interventions. For example, the "Stop and Think" program organizes skills into four areas:

1. Survival sk ills (e.g., listening, following directions, ignoring distractions, using nice or brave talk, rewarding yourself)

2. Interpersonal sk ills (e.g., sharing, asking for permission, joining an activity, waiting your turn)

3. Problem-solving sk ills (e.g., asking for help, apologizing, accepting consequences, deciding what to do)

4. Conflict resolution sk ills (e.g., dealing with teasing, losing, accusations, being left out, peer pressure)

Identifying Social Skills Deficits

Prior to determining the best means to help a student develop better social skills, it is important to understand specifically what a student can and can't do. It is crucial to assess and classify the nature of a child's social skill deficits in order to devise and implement the most appropriate intervention.

Children may experience difficulty performing a skill:

Due to lack of know ledge (acquisition deficits), e.g., the child does not know the skills or does not discriminate when a skill is appropriate. For example, a child grabs a pencil from a peer in class when she needs one because she does not know how to appropriately ask to borrow it.

Consistently despite know ledge (performance deficits), e.g., the child knows how to perform the skills but fails to do so consistently or at an acceptable level of competence. For example, although the child understand that he should raise his hand to speak in class, and does so much of the time, he will sometimes blurt out a comment without raising his hand.

To a sufficient degree or level of strength (fluency deficits), e.g., the child knows how to perform skill and is motivated to perform, but demonstrates inadequate performance due to lack of practice or adequate feedback. For example, a student has learned what to say and do when confronted with bullying behavior, but her responses are not yet strong enough to be successful.

Due to competing sk ill deficits or behaviors, e.g., internal or external factors interfere with the child demonstrating a learned skill appropriately. For example, depression, anxiety, hyperactivity, or negative motivation can interfere with demonstration of appropriate conflict resolution skills, even though the skills have been taught and learned.

Social Skills Interventions

Effective social skills programs are comprised of two essential elements: a teaching process that uses a behavioral/social learning approach and a universal language or set of steps that facilitates the learning of new behavior. Interventions can be implemented at a school-wide, specific setting, classroom, or individual level, but at all levels the emphasis is on teaching the desired skill, not punishing negative behaviors.

Facilitate learning through normal activit ies. Teachers and parents must take advantage of incidental learning, in which naturally occurring behaviors or events are used to teach and reinforce appropriate social behavior. Adults can reinforce demonstrated positive social skills by praising children when they behave correctly, or offer alternatives to poor decisions to teach the more appropriate behavior. It may be necessary when working with children who have particular difficulty to intentionally "catch" them doing the right thing or devise situations in which they can make a good choice.

Address environmental factors. The school or home environment can affect a child's ability to learn and perform good social skills. If a child is experiencing difficulty demonstrating a particular skill, it is best to first evaluate the environment to determine what might interfere with the child's appropriate acquisition of that skill. For instance, a student may be unruly at the beginning of the day because the teacher needs to establish more specific routines for coming into class, hanging up

coats, checking in, etc. Addressing environmental obstacles like this also will benefit all children in that environment.

Address individual factors . Some children need more intensive, personalized training because of individual factors, such as a disability. These interventions might be aimed at children experiencing a specific difficulty or those who have previously been identified as at risk for behavior problems. For example, studies have shown that children with mild disabilities tend to exhibit deficient social skills and excess problem behaviors more than students without such disabilities. Interventions aimed at at-risk students are based on individual assessment of the particular child's skills and deficits. Selected interventions aim to prevent existing behavior problems from developing into more serious ones.

Social sk ills training should:

Focus on facilitating the desirable behavior as well as eliminating the undesirable behavior.

Emphasize the learning, performance, generalization, and maintenance of appropriate behaviors through modeling, coaching, and role-playing. It is also crucial to provide students with immediate performance feedback.

Employ primarily positive strategies and add punitive strategies only if the positive approach is unsuccessful and the behavior is of a serious and/or dangerous nature.

Provide training and practice opportunities in a wide range of settings with different groups and individuals in order to encourage students to generalize new skills to multiple, real life situations.

Draw on assessment strategies, including functional assessments of behavior, to identify those children in need of more intensive interventions as well as target skills for instruction.

Look to enhance social skills by increasing the frequency of an appropriate behavior in a particular situation. This should take place in "normal" environments to address the naturally occurring causes and consequences.

When planning social sk ills training programs, schools should:

Include parents and other caregivers, both to help develop and select interventions and as significant participants in interventions. (Parents and caregivers can help reinforce the skills taught at school to further promote generalization across settings.)

Focus on all age groups, including children below the age of 9 who are often bypassed due to the erroneous belief that they will "grow out of it."

Avoid a "one size fits all" approach and adapt the intervention to meet the individual or particular group needs. Students who speak English as a Second Language might need intensive social skill instruction to promote acculturation and peer acceptance. Children with disabilities might need adaptive curriculum and learning strategies. Most children will need a combination of different strategies that are matched to their particular deficits and backgrounds.

Examples of evidence-based social skills programs

Often school administrators or mental health professionals opt to introduce one of the many empirically supported, commercially published programs into their schools. Effective existing social skills training programs include:

"Stop and Think" Social Sk ills P rogram (Knoff): Part of Project ACHIEVE (Knoff and Batsche). Has demonstrated success in reducing student discipline referrals to the principal's office, school suspensions, and expulsions; fostering positive school climates and prosocial interactions; increasing students' on-task behavior; and improving academic performance. http://www.projectachieve.info

Primary Mental Health Project (Cowen et al.) Targets children K-3 and addresses social and emotional problems that interfere with effective learning. It has been shown to improve learning and social skills, reduce acting, shyness and anxious behaviors, and increase frustration tolerances. http://www.sharingsuccess.org/code/eptw/profiles/48.html

The EQUIP Program (Gibbs, Potter, & Goldstein) Offers a three-part intervention method for working with antisocial or behavior disordered adolescents. The approach includes training in moral judgment, anger management/correction of thinking errors, and prosocial skills. http://www.researchpress.com/scripts/product.asp?item=4848#5134

The PREPARE Curriculum (Goldstein) Presents a series of 10 course-length interventions grouped into three areas: reducing aggression, reducing stress, and reducing prejudice. It is designed for use with middle school and high school students but can be adapted for use with younger students. http://www.researchpress.com/scripts/product.asp?item=5063

The ACCEPTS Program (Walker et al) Offers a complete curriculum for teaching effective social skills to students at middle and high school levels. The program teaches peer-to-peer skills, skills for relating to adults, and self-management skills. http://www.proedinc.com/customer/productView.aspx?ID=625&SearchWord=ACCEPTS%20PROGRAM

For further resources go to ww w.nasponline.org.

2002, National Association of School Psychologists, 4340 East West Highway, Suite 402, Bethesda, MD, 20814, (301) 657-0270, fax (301) 657-0275, TTY (301) 657-4155.

Social skills Social skills are the skills we have to get along with other people. Often we take our social skills for granted, without realising all the complicated skills we use when we interact with others. Some of these skills are very basic and simple, like saying hello

and good-bye, or smiling and making eye contact when we see someone we know. Others are more complex, like the skills we use to negotiate in a situation of conflict with somebody. Some people learn social skills easily and quickly, whereas others find social interactions more challenging, and may need to work on developing their social skills consciously.

Social skills are important for resiliency for a number of reasons. People with good social skills are naturally more popular than their less socially adept peers, which means they have better supports to call on when experiencing difficulties in their lives. Also, well-liked people get more social reinforcement (messages from other people that they are worthwhile and okay), so they tend to have better self-esteem, which can also help them through tough times.

Developing social skills

Social skills are like any other kind of skill - they can be learned. How do you know if you need to improve your social skills? Ask yourself if you:

Consider yourself a shy person. Wish that you had more friends but don't know how to go about making

them. Often feel uncomfortable with other people. Find it hard to know what to say sometimes. Think of yourself as a 'loner'. Sometimes feel like there's nobody to turn to when you need support.

If any of these things are true, then you may benefit from working on your social skills.

Basic social skills

The following is a list of basic social skills. Can you identify any areas where you might be able to improve?

Basic interaction skills

These are the simple skills involved in conversing and interacting with others on an everyday basis. They include:

Making frequent eye contact Smiling when greeting people and talking Showing "confident" body language: an open, direct stance, not fidgeting or

twisting. Basic politeness: saying please and thank-you, saying hello and good-bye,

etc. Showing interest in others, e.g., asking how their day was, how they thought

they went on an exam, etc.

Making conversation

These are the skills you use when talking to other people. They include:

Taking turns when talking Listening and showing interest in what the other person has to say "Small talk": being able to chat about unimportant things Nodding and smiling to indicate that you are following along Using humour Knowing when to disclose personal information and when not to

Building and maintaining friendships

There are many skills involved in making and sustaining friendships. For example:

Approach skills: being able to go up and start talking to someone who you don't know or don't know well.

Sharing decision making, i.e., not always insisting on having one's way but negotiating about what to do, where to go, etc.

Showing appropriate affection and appreciation. Maintaining contact, i.e., not expecting the other person to "do all the work"

of keeping up the friendship. Being supportive, i.e., showing concern when your friend is having a hard

time. Allowing distance and closeness. People need time apart as well as together. Thoughtfulness: "thinking ahead" about what might be a nice ting to do for

your friend.

Empathy

Empathy means being able to put yourself into someone else's shoes and recognising their feelings. It is not the same as sympathy or "feeling sorry for someone". Empathy is responding in an understanding and caring way to what others are feeling. Empathic skills include:

Noticing other people's feelings. Expressing concern at others' distress. Being able to recognise what someone else might be feeling in a given

situation. Showing sensitivity to others' feelings when communicating. For example,

being tactful when making critical comments (when criticism is necessary and/or appropriate).

Dealing with conflict

Social interactions do not always run smoothly. Conflict resolution skills include:

Assertiveness, or being able to say what you are feeling without being aggressive or getting personal.

Negotiation skills: being able to discuss a conflict calmly and rationally and come to an agreement about a solution.

The Three Different Levels of Listening

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Listening skills is one of the key essential ingredients in effective communication. There exist many different levels of listening, from listening on and off, to active listening. When we are engaged in a conversation, it is extremely easy to pay little to no attention to what the other person is actually saying. We can easily become distracted by other thoughts and things which are happening around us. We might even be thinking about what we are going to say next.

Let us consider the breakdown of the various common elements involved in communication.

40% - Listening 35% - Talking 16% - Reading 9% - Writing Thus we can clearly observe that listening is indeed an important communication

skill which has to be learnt. Listening gives our loved ones the feeling of being appreciated and respected. Ordinary conversations emerge on a deeper level, as do our relationships. When we listen, we foster the skill in others by acting as a model for positive and effective communication.

Many people believe themselves to be good listeners, but in reality, there is always room for substantial improvement. Tests have shown that, on average, normal adult human beings only really hear ONE THIRD of the words spoken to them. All of us listen in different ways at different times. We listen better in some situations than in others. For example, some people listen effectively in the job, but stop listening when they get home. Each level of listening requires a certain level of concentration and sensitivity. These levels are general categories into which people fall.

Depending on the situation or the person, these different levels of listening may mix together. In this article, i have categorized the levels of listening into three different levels. As we move from level one to level three, our potential for understanding, retention and effective communication increases. We began to develop our listening style very early in life. As we grow older, we continue to strengthen our listening habits and patterns. How many of us give any thought to our own personal listening style? The following may help you to evaluate your listening approach in most situations.

Level One This basic level includes - Listening on and off - Tuning in and tuning out - Being aware of the presence of others, but mainly paying attention to yourself. - Half listening. Following the discussion only long enough to get a chance to talk. - Quiet, passive listening - Listening, but not responding. Little effort is made to listen; actually, hearing is going on but very little real listening is going on. Often, a person at this level is making believe that he is paying more attention while really, he or she is thinking of other things. They are generally more interested in talking, rather than listening.

Level Two At the second level, the individual hears sounds and words, but does not really listen deeply. At this level, people stay at the surface of communication and do not listen to the deeper meaning of what is being said. They are trying to hear what the speaker is saying, but they are not making the effort to understand what the speaker means. They tend to be more concerned with content rather than feelings. They do not really participate in the conversation.

This level of listening can be dangerous because misunderstandings may occur since the listener is only slightly concentrating on what is said. At level three, it is obvious that the person is not listening by the way the person acts; however, at level two, this is harder to tell and the speaker may have the false sense that the other person is really listening, when he is not.

Level Three This level includes active listening. At this level, people try to put themselves in the speakers place - they try to see things from the other person's point of view. Some characteristics of this level include: taking in only the main ideas, acknowledging and answering, not letting yourself be distracted, paying attention to the speaker's total communication - including body language.

Active listening requires that you listen not only for the content of what is being spoken but, more importantly, for what the meaning and feelings of the speaker are. You do this by showing that you are really listening both verbally and nonverbally. It is ironic that the passive skill of listening is a core component of good communication. Listen skills is an important step to developing your communication skills. Posts like "Establishing Effective Communication Skills" highlights the importance of listening skills in communication. Interpersonal skills are indeed important in our everyday life. With time and practice, you will definitely before a more effective and successful communicator.

Social skills From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

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Good customer service requires high professional and social skills

Social skill is any skill facilitating interaction and communication with others. Social rules and relations are created, communicated, and changed in verbal and nonverbal ways. The process of learning such skills is called socialization.

Interpersonal skills are sometimes also referred to as people skills or communication skills.[1] Interpersonal skills are the skills a person uses to communicate and interact with others. They include persuasion, active listening,[2] delegation, and leadership.

The term "interpersonal skills" is used often in business contexts to refer to the measure of a person's ability to operate within business organizations through social communication and interactions. Interpersonal skills are how people relate to one another.

Contents

1 Advantages 2 Causes of deficits

o 2.1 Alcohol o 2.2 ADHD o 2.3 Autism

3 In behavior therapy 4 Controversies 5 See also 6 References 7 External links

Advantages

Following these kinds of heuristics to achieve better professional results generally results in a professional being ranked as one with 'good interpersonal skills.' Often these evaluations occur in formal and informal settings.

Having positive interpersonal skills increases the productivity in the organization since the number of conflicts is reduced. In informal situations, it allows communication to be easy and comfortable. People with good interpersonal skills can generally control the feelings that emerge in difficult situations and respond appropriately, instead of being overwhelmed by emotion. Confidence of the behavior also plays an important role in decision to take the risk. Interpersonal skills are highly important in the roles where human interaction is more. For professions into Human Resources, Public relations etc., these are one of the means to measure the performance.

Causes of deficits

Alcohol

Social skills are significantly impaired in people suffering from alcoholism due to the neurotoxic effects of alcohol on the brain, especially the prefrontal cortex area of the brain. The social skills that are impaired by alcohol abuse include impairments in perceiving facial emotions, prosody perception problems and theory of mind deficits; the ability to understand humour is also impaired in alcohol abusers.[3] Impairments in social skills also occur in individuals who suffer from fetal alcohol spectrum disorders; these deficits persist throughout affected people's lives and may worsen over time due to the effects of ageing on the brain.[4]

ADHD

Approximately half of ADHD children will experience peer rejection compared to 10-15 percent of non-ADHD children. Adolescents with ADHD are less likely to develop close friendships, although it might be easier by the time adolescents age into adulthood and enter the workplace. Difficulties in sustaining romantic relationships may also occur in high school and college aged individuals with ADHD. Training in social skills, behavioural modification and medication may have some limited beneficial effects; the most important factor in reducing emergence of later psychopathology is the ADHD individual forming friendships with people who are not involved in devient/delinquent activities and do not have other disabilities or symptoms similar to ADHD. Poor peer relationships can contribute to major depression, criminality, school failure, and substance use disorders.[5] Adolescents with ADHD are more likely to find it difficult in making and keeping friends due to their attentional deficits causing impairments in processing verbal and nonverbal language which is important for social skills and adolescent interaction; this may result in such adolescents being regarded by their peers as immature or as losers.[6] Romantic relationships are usually difficult in the adolescent and college age because of the lack of attention of non verbal cues such as flirting gestures, tone of voice, which may include misinterpretation if whether the person is romantically attracted to that person, along with the impulsiveness of "jumping into" relationships.[citation needed]

Autism

People with autistic spectrum disorders such as Asperger's Syndrome generally have difficulty with social skills. This is most likely the result of the lack of theory of mind, which enables the person to understand other people's emotions. Many people in the spectrum have many social idiosyncracies such as obsessive interests and routines, lack of eye contact, one sided conversations, abnormal body language and non-verbal communication.[citation needed]

In behavior therapy

To behaviorists, social skills are learned behavior that allow people to achieve social reinforcement. According to Schneider & Byrne (1985), who conducted a meta-analysis of social skills training procedures (51 studies), operant conditioning procedures for training social skills had the largest effect size, followed by modeling, coaching, and social cognitive techniques.[7] Behavior analysts prefer to use the term behavioral skills to social skills.[8] Behavioral skills training to build social and other skills is used with a variety of populations including in packages to treat addictions as in the community reinforcement and family training approach.[9] Training of behavioral skills is also used for people who suffer from borderline personality disorder,[10] depression,[11] and developmental disabilities.[8][12] Typically behaviorists try to develop what are considered cusp skills,[13] which are critical skills to open access to a variety of environments. The rationale for this type of an approach to treatment is that people meet a variety of social problems and can reduce the stress and punishment from the encounter as well as increase their reinforcement by having the correct skills.[14]

"Social skills can be measured on about how you treat other people and how you react to them. It's a matter of dealing with the people around you. Different tests will help you to provide and tell what kind of personality you have towards others. If you are in doubt of your behavior, then you may be in touched with this kind of test. This would not help you totally, but this would serve as your guide in handling your personality towards the people whom you're reacting with." (Ledesma, 2009)[specify]

Controversies

The concept of social skills has been questioned.[15] The question is whether one response is needed or whether any response tailored in a context will meet the requirements. Romanczyk laid out a model of social acquisition for children with autism.[clarification needed]

Social Skills: Promoting Positive Behavior, Academic Success, and School SafetyConsequences of Good Social SkillsConsequences of Poor Social SkillsImpact on School SafetyDefining Types of Social SkillsIdentifying Social Skills DeficitsSocial Skills InterventionsExamples of evidence-based social skills programs

Social skillsDeveloping social skillsBasic social skillsBasic interaction skillsMaking conversationBuilding and maintaining friendshipsEmpathyDealing with conflict

The Three Different Levels of Listening

Social skillsAdvantagesCauses of deficitsAlcoholADHDAutism

In behavior therapyControversies