4/28/2016 6 KEY POINTS Social Skills in Work and 1. We often underestimate just how much social behavior can affect persons' success in community Community Settings and work environments. 2. Need to shift our focus from the problems Keith Storey, Ph.D., BCBA-D individuals display to the skills they need to learn. Touro University Keith.storey@tu.edu 3. In most instances, when AWD display problems in the social interactions, it is because they lack the key skills they need to perform competently, or because they cannot effectively use the skills they do have. I. WHY ARE SOCIAL SKILLS IMPORTANT? 4. Though some individuals learn social skills on their own, others must be taught appropriate 1. As persons with disabilities increasingly utilize inclusive work and community settings it social skills. becomes important to analyze what skills are 5. Generalization of social skill has been a needed to function successfully at each site. major problem. 2. In integrated settings, individuals with 6. Social skills are often situationally specific. disabilities must interact appropriately with non‐ disabled persons in addition to performing specific behaviors in a task. (EX: attending a movie, purchasing grocery items). 1
4/28/2016 3. In work and community settings the social 4. Clear body of research documenting that skills of the person may be the critical the mere placement of persons with disabilities component in displaying competent behavior. in proximity to non‐disabled persons does not (EX: in employment settings the worker may be necessarily lead to social integration. able to perform the work task to criterion but 5. Social skills training is a key factor in having have difficulties on the job because of problems persons with and without disabilities interact, in interaction with others. Research has shown develop social skills, and develop positive lack of appropriate social skills to be one of the relationships with each other. main reasons for job termination for PWD). II. WHAT ARE SOCIAL SKILLS? 6. A person's ability to get along with others and to engage in prosocial behaviors determines 1. The ability to interact with others in a given popularity among community members, peers, social context in specific ways that are socially co‐workers, and with supervisors. acceptable or valued and at the same time personally beneficial, mutually beneficial, or beneficial primarily to others. [Combs, M. L. & Slaby, D. A. (1977). Social skills training with children. In B. B. Lahey & A. E. Kazdin (Eds.), Advances in clinical child psychology (Vol. 1) (pp. 161‐201). New York: Plenum Press. 2
4/28/2016 2. [Social competence consists of] those 3. The individual has goals or targets which he seeks in order to obtain rewards. Goal attainment is dependent responses which, within a given situation, prove on skilled behavior which involves a continuous cycle of effective, or, in other words, maximize the monitoring and modifying performance in light of probability of maintaining or enhancing positive feedback. Failure in skill is defined as a breakdown or effects for the interactor. impairment at some point in the cycle...leading to negative outcomes. [Foster, S. L., & Ritchey, W. L. (1979). Issues in [Trower, P. M. (1979). Fundamentals of interpersonal the assessment of social competence in behavior: A social‐psychological perspective. In A. S. children. Journal of Applied Behavior Analysis, Bellack & M. Hersen (Eds.), Research and practice in 12, 625‐638. social skills training . New York: Plenum Press. D: Qualitative outcome of behavior within the 4. "I know em when I see em." given situation. Qualitative outcome by definition 5. Parameters or dimensions of analysis that implies a value judgment, that is, that an individual appear across definitions: or group of individuals defines a response to be A: Interpersonal behavior emitted by "good," "skillful," or "acceptable" according to the interactor. some criterion. B: The situational and interpersonal E: Importance of reciprocity. "Norm of reciprocity" antecedents of these interpersonal behaviors. whereby prosocial responses induce a cyclical C: Characteristics of the interactors. pattern of positive responding among peers. 3
4/28/2016 6. Social competence versus social skill: III. ASSESSMENT OF SOCIAL SKILLS Social competence is how good the person is at 1. How to decide what to teach? interacting with others and social skill refers to A. Table from Robertson et al. (1984). skills ( specific behaviors ) in specific situations. ‐Many target behaviors to choose from. ‐How to choose? 2. How to assess. A: CLINICAL INTERVIEW: ‐asking the person. B: SELF‐MONITORING: Person records their own behavior. ‐an overlooked method but helps to tie assessment with self‐monitoring for teaching purposes. 4
4/28/2016 C: DIRECT OBSERVATION: 5. Direct observation has been favored 1. A specific behavior is assessed as it actually occurs in a given setting. because: 2. Can be time‐consuming but if done correctly provides accurate data. 3. In addition to use in naturalistic settings, direct observation can also ‐clearly defined codes. be done in analogue settings. A. Analogue setting is often used to help insure that the ‐less biased. behavior of interest will occur at a suitable time. B. Not always clear whether or not the observed behavior in ‐more objective. the analogue settings correlates well with actual behavior in natural settings. ‐more sensitive to treatment effects. 4. Three major limitations concerning direct observation: A. Usually only addressed a small number of specific behaviors. B. Approach requires a lot of training to execute properly. C. Time‐intensive approach to assessment. Agran et al (2016) D: RATINGS BY SIGNIFICANT OTHERS: ‐peers. ‐family. ‐co‐workers. ‐employers. ‐community members. 5
4/28/2016 Agran et al (2016) E: NORMATIVE BEHAVIOR: ‐What is "typical" behavior of individuals in that environment. ‐Important to emphasize that there is not one level of appropriate behavior, but a band or range of appropriate behavior. F: TESTING G: SELF‐REPORT: 1. Depend upon either a verbal or a written response. 1. Person is interviewed about their 2. Role‐Taking Test (RTT) developed by Feffer and behavior and the problems being Gourevitch (1960). experienced. ‐The more adept you are at taking the perspective 2. How useful interview data will be of others, the better your social skills tend to be. 3. Tests can be useful in getting a measure of overall social depends upon: development or for comparing social development in two A. Skill of the interviewer. or more persons. B. Appropriateness of the questions. 4. The major problem with tests of this type is that they do not assess individual skills. In short, they are not specific C. Accuracy of the responses given. enough for planning instruction. 6
4/28/2016 H: SELF‐RATING: I: INFORMANT REPORTS: 1. Person is asked to use a numeric rating to 1. Informant interviews with someone estimate how often they exhibit the behavior. who is knowledgeable about the person. 2. Alternative is to supply descriptions of various 2. Can use rating scale completed by a social situations. Person selects from a set of choices knowledgeable person. provided under each item. A. Advantage is that a large number of 3. Can only be used with persons who have specific behaviors of interest can be sufficient reading skill to complete the scale independently. 4. Self‐rating scales often correlate poorly with peer and assessed in a short time. teacher ratings. 3. Better if specific items of behavior (e.g., 5. Self‐ratings are often biased by social desirability and hitting) are used instead of global labels (e.g., to yield the lowest estimate of deviance. hostility). IV. TEACHING SOCIAL SKILLS B: Modeling or demonstration: 1. Teaching procedures. Two types of modeling: A: Instruction: Use of regular 1. MASTERY MODEL: instructional procedures, e.g., A. Model who has mastered the modeling, reinforcement, feedback, skill to be taught and provides a correction, roleplaying, etc. flawless demonstration of it (without any mistakes or errors). 7
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