Social Skills Training for Adolescents With General Moderate Learning Difficulties

131 Pages·2003·1.77 MB·English

by  Ursula Cornish

Social Skills Training for Adolescents with General Moderate
Learning Difficulties
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Social Skills Training for
Adolescents with General
Moderate Learning Difficulties
Ursula Cornish and Fiona Ross
Jessica Kingsley Publishers
London and New York
All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced in any material form
(including photocopying or storing it in any medium by electronic means and whether
or not transiently or incidentally to some other use of this publication) without the
written permission of the copyright owner except in accordance with the provisions of
the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988 or under the terms of a licence issued by
the Copyright Licensing Agency Ltd, 90 Tottenham Court Road, London, England
W1P 9HE. Applications for the copyright owner’s written permission to reproduce any
part of this publication should be addressed to the publisher.
Warning: The doing of an unauthorised act in relation to a copyright work may result
in both a civil claim for damages and criminal prosecution.
The right of Ursula Cornish and Fiona Ross to be identified as authors of this work has
been asserted by them in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988.
All pages marked (cid:1)may be photocopied for training pages, but may not be reproduced
in other forms without the permission of the publisher.
First published in the United Kingdom in 2004
by Jessica Kingsley Publishers Ltd
116 Pentonville Road
London N1 9JB, England
and
29 West 35th Street, 10th fl.
New York, NY 10001-2299, USA
www.jkp.com
Copyright © Ursula Cornish and Fiona Ross 2004
Illustrations Copyright © Tiana Alexis 2004
Library of Congress Cataloging in Publication Data
A CIP catalog record for this book is available from the Library of Congress
British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data
A CIP catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library
ISBN 1 84310 179 3
Printed and Bound in Great Britain by
Athenaeum Press, Gateshead, Tyne and Wear
Contents
Preface 7
Introduction 9
Choice of Social Skills Training programmes 10
Strategies for using Social Skills Training programmes 11
Behavioural approaches 11
Cognitive approaches 12
Distinguishing between public and private 13
Developing language skills 13
Coping with real life 13
Need for practice 14
Aims of the programme set out in this book 14
National Curriculum Link 15
Part 1:How to start 17
Needs analysis 19
Social Skills Checklist 19
Interviews 21
Observations 28
Sociograms 33
Part 2:The Training Programme 39
Introduction:Planning the sessions 41
Session format 42
Physical organization 43
Communication with parents,carers and teachers 43
Timing of each session 43
Session 1:Listening and paying attention 45
Session plan 46
Homework Sheet 1.1:Good Listening Prompt Sheet 52
Model letter to parents/carers at the end of Session 1 53
Session 2:Listening and turn-taking 54
Session plan 55
Pictures for colouring activity 57
Model letter to parents/carers at the end of Session 2 60
Session 3:Monitoring own body language and reading
body language in others 61
Session plan 62
Facial expressions cards 65
Object cards 66
Homework Sheet 3.1:How do They Feel? 68
Homework Sheet 3.2:Pictures of Feelings 69
Model letter to parents/carers at the end of Session 3 70
Session 4:Recognizing own and others’ strengths 71
Session plan 72
Homework Sheet 4.1:Skills and Strengths 76
Model letter to parents/carers at the end of Session 4 77
Session 5:Learning to say no to unreasonable demands
and to cope with peer pressure 78
Session plan 79
Homework Sheet 5.1:Do I Have to do What They Say? 84
Model letter to parents/carers at the end of Session 5 85
Session 6:Recognizing and describing feelings 86
Session plan 87
Sample homework sheet 91
Homework Sheet 6.1:Feelings 92
Model letter to parents/carers at the end of Session 6 93
Session 7:Learning to control own feelings 94
Public signs 95
Public places 96
Private places 97
Session plan 98
Private Thought (What I Think) and Public Thought (What I Say) 100
Homework Sheet 7.1:Diary of Public Places 102
Model letter to parents/carers at the end of Session 7 103
Session 8:Being confident to explain own views and to ask
for support when needed 104
Session plan 105
Homework Sheet 8.1:When Other People Needed or Asked for Help 109
Model letter to parents/carers at the end of Session 8 110
Session 9:Recognizing and learning to resolve conflict 111
Session plan 112
Homework Sheet 9.1:Dealing with Conflict 116
Model letter to parents/carers at the end of Session 9 117
Session 10:Showing care and concern for others 118
Session plan 119
Homework Sheet 10.1:Friendship Circle 124
Model letter to parents/carers at the end of Session 10 125
Index 127
Preface
We have been working for several years with youngsters with general moderate
learning difficulties. Difficulties in being included in mainstream schools in peer
relations often isolated these youngsters from the rest of the group and acted as a
barrier.Wefocusedondevelopingvariousactivities,togetherwiththeclassteacher,
to address the complex issues of relationships and their development.
Ursula worked with adolescents at a special school in London from 1986
onwards to explore ways of helping youngsters learn how to understand others,
howtomakefriendsandhowtobehaveinagroupofpeopleinvarioussettings.
Fiona, starting in 1995, continued running groups in the same school. The
school requested these regular group sessions, and parents and students could see
their benefit. Later Fiona worked with Dagmar Fabri, a clinical psychologist,
adapting the group sessions to social skills training for young people with
Asperger’s Syndrome. At the end of the programme, some students were able to
managesocialsituationsbetterandwereintegratedintomainstreamschools,while
others felt more comfortable with their peers, and some dared to go shopping by
themselves. All had fun and enjoyed coming to the group sessions.
The early work by Ursula was videoed and shared with the students as
feedback and reinforcement. The sessions were based on a multi-sensory
cognitive-behavioural approach that worked well in terms of improvement in
students’ behaviour in and out of class.
Thesuccessofthesetrainingprogrammeshasbeenrecognizedbyschoolsand
participants but remains anecdotal. A more scientific evaluation of our work with
studentswithgeneralmoderatelearningdifficultiesiscurrentlybeyondthescope
of our interventions.
Thetrainingdescribedinthisbookisbasedonthissuccess.Itofferspre-and
post-interventionevaluationschedules,interviewandobservationtoolsandspeci-
ficationof materialsuchastapes,inadditiontotendetailedsessionplansthatcan
be used and adapted by teachers to suit the special needs of their students.
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