Last Stop: Social Skills

I wish I had more time to spend on this topic but I wanted to make sure I covered the main three subjects thoroughly. While many students struggle with one of the three: Reading, Writing or Math, it’s important to note that students with disabilities often struggle with social skills as well. At my school we believe in educating the “whole child” to the point where it’s even part of our mission statement. So to me that means that even if we can get a child to read, write, and perform math skills on grade level and send them off happily to high school and hopefully college then we haven’t fully done our jobs if they are still unable to function socially. In general, I think it’s helpful for our students to simply be around each other. Some people may fear that our students pick up the worst habits of their peers but really, the opposite is true. They often pick up the best skills their peers have to offer. I think this is in part due to the fact that they see each other as being alike. It’s tough to try to emulate someone who seems so unlike you but when you see someone struggle the same way you do but also find success, it makes you want to try harder yourself.
To some extent I believe most children struggle at one time or another with social skills, especially in the awkward preteen and teenage years. But that’s not really the type of social skills disability I’m talking about here. Students in the autism spectrum or those with non-verbal learning disabilities often have a tough time making friends and in particular, reading social cues. The device discussed in this blog http://specialedlaw.blogs.com/home/2006/04/httpwwwnewscien.html offers a unique approach to the problem. It doesn’t take away the need for regular training and therapy however it does provide students with more instantaneous feedback. The device is a small camera that can attach to a pair of glasses. It is attached to a small computer and when the user is interacting with others, the camera reads the expressions, voice tones and body language of the listener and vibrates to let the user know the person with whom they are speaking is showing signs of boredom or irritation. This helps the user know it is time to change the conversation. Without such feedback, students with social skill deficiencies often are clueless about the problems. They are unable to read the cues. I’ve seen firsthand how children will internalize this, reaching damaging, unhealthy conclusions like, “she didn’t want to talk to me because I’m ugly” or “he won’t be my friend because he thinks I’m stupid” when really the problem is that the student doesn’t know how to have a proper conversation or when to stop one that is headed in the wrong direction. Just the fact that I was able to find a tool to help kids with social skills problems is promising. I know in the long run a person doesn’t have to be popular or a social butterfly to get by in life but having friends can work wonders for a child who struggles in so many other ways as well. Hopefully, we can utilize technology in the future to further assist children (and adults) in need of help with social skills.
Well there you have it. Six weeks of blog postings. I hope you learned as much as I did! Thanks for reading!