Cardinal Rules for Conducting Social Skills Training

(Tips for Teachers Handling Children with Behavior Disorders and Emotional Disturbance)

1. Social validation of social skills by target consumer groups is a critical step in both the selection and training skills.

2. Social skills should be taught in academic subject matter using instructional procedure similar to those for teaching basic subjects.

3. Whenever possible, social skills should be taught directly along with possible variations in their appropriate application.

4.   The social context and situation factor both mediate the use of social skills and must be taken into account systematically in facilitating students' use of them.

5. The instructional acquisition of social skills does not guarantee either their application or topographic proficiency within natural settings.

6. There is considerable inertia operating against the behavioral integration of newly taught social skills into students' ongoing behavioral repertoire, as is the case with any newly acquired skills.

7. To be effective, social skills training must be accompanied by the provision of response opportunities, feedback, and insentive systems within natural setting to provide for their actual demonstration and mastery.

8. The critical test of the efficiency of social skills training is the integration of newly taught skills into a students' behavioral repertoire and their use in natural settings.

9. Social skills training procedures are not an effective intervention for complex behavior disorders or problems. They represent only a partial solution and should not be used by themselves to meditate highly aggressive or disruptive behavior patterns.

10. Social skills training can be an important complement to the use of behavior reduction techniques in that it teaches adaptive alternatives to maladaptive or problematic behavior.

11. There are two types of deficits in social behavior adjustments: skill deficit (can't do) and performance deficits (won't do). These deficits should be assessed and treated differently, as they require different forms of intervention for effective remediation.

Source: From "Social skills in school-age and youth: Issues and best practices in assessment and intervention" by H.M. Walker, I. E. Schwarz, M.A. Nippold, L.K. Irvin, & J.W. Noell, 1994,  Topics in Language Disorders, 14. p 79. as cited from Children with Behavior and Emotional Disturbance p. 345 (n.d.)