Children need to learn certain social skills earlier in life in order to lay the ground-work for more complex concepts as they grow older.  Our method of teaching social skills involves an assessment of current skills in the social arena and writing subsequent goals to match the child’s needs at their own developmental level.   Classes are therefore sorted by age and ability.

Some of the areas we touch upon in these classes are: 

Independent Play Skills: In order for a student to know how to engage with other people, he first needs to be able to engage on his own in an appropriate manner.  For younger children, this includes assembly toys (such as Legos or Mr. Potato Head), playing with items in an imaginative way, engaging in arts and crafts type activities.

For older students it means having leisure skills that keep them occupied in age appropriate activities.

Social Play Skills: Adults who have “good social skills” grow out of children who play spontaneously, imitate peers, request and respond to requests from peers, and have joint attention with others.

Emotions: Identification and understanding of emotions can help kids understand the actions and expectations of others in social situations.

Making Inferences: People typically use inferences in their daily lives to understand the needs and actions of others.  Guessing, implying, hinting, and reasoning are examples of inference skills.

Problem Solving: Problem solving is an important part of living in our social world.  It can include saying nice words, trying when it’s hard, interrupting politely, asking someone to play, and dealing with angry feelings.

Group Skills: In order to be successful in our classes, students need to have good basic classroom skills. This means we focus on skills such as: attending to task, turn taking, and following whole group instructions.

These skills often carry over to better behavior in their school classes.