Social skills training has been used since the 1980s to teach essential social skills to students with emotional or behavioral problems (EBD students) that are lacking these skills. These students need more than just placement in a regular classroom; they require explicit instruction in social skills like interacting positively with teachers and peers. Deficits in social skills in early years can lead to long-term negative consequences including more severe problems in adolescence and adulthood. Social skills training involves introducing, modeling, and practicing skills through role-playing with feedback to help students learn and strengthen appropriate interpersonal behaviors.

1. From the Psychoeducation for Teachers
Series

2.  Social skills training has been used in school settings for
students with emotional and/or behavioral problems, or EBD
students, since the 1980’s (Zionts, 1996). The rationale behind
teaching social skills to modify the chronically disruptive
behaviors of EBD students is that, to profit from mainstream
curriculum, these children need more than just being placed
in regular classroom settings with regular classroom peers.
Because these students show severe deficits in the social
skills they need to be able to interact in a positive and
constructive way with teachers and peers, school staff needs
to teach explicitly the social skills these children are lacking.
Zionts cites research that supports the hypothesis that
students who exhibit social skills deficits in the earlier years
face both short-and long-term negative consequences that
appear to be the precursors of more severe problems in
adolescence and adulthood.

3.  Generally speaking, social skills are those skills that children need
to get along with others in social situations. Most specifically, social
skills describe the classroom behavior that students need to show in
order to become productive classroom members. Regardless of how
we define social skills, the consensus is that social skills are
behaviors that produce positive consequences for the user (Forman,
1993). Gresham and Elliot (in Forman, 1993) define social skills as
behaviors that help a child attain important social outcomes such as
peer group acceptance, positive judgments by significant others,
academic competence, positive self-concept, and good
psychological adjustment (p. 49). Other authors focus on both parties
involved in an interpersonal relationship, defining social skills as “the
ability to interact with others in a given social context in specific ways
that are socially acceptable or valued and at the same time
personally beneficial, mutually beneficial, or beneficial primarily to
others” (Combs and Slaby in Forman, 1993, p. 49).

4.  Among the ideas generally agreed by the different
authors in the field of social skills are:
A. Social skills are interactive skills
B. Social skills deficits are performance deficits that
we can measure and target for intervention
C. Social skills training aims at remediating deficits
in interpersonal functioning, that is, aims at
helping children learn new behaviors, or
strengthen weak behaviors
D. Social skills are primarily acquired through
learning (i.e. observation, modeling, rehearsal,
and feedback)

5.  Strayhorn, Strain, and Walker (as seen on Zionts, 1996) put
together the following list of social skills, or skills that “promote
harmonious relationships” (pp. 155-156):
 Noticing positive examples of behavior in another person
 Giving immediate enthusiastic approval or thanks for positive
behaviors in another person
 Providing real-life and fictional models of kind acts
 Taking pleasure in trying to make the other person feel good
 Noticing the verbal and nonverbal indicators of another
person’s feelings
 Listening empathically to the other person
 Having conversations that are fun for both people
 Playing well with another person
 Modeling enthusiasm when participating in joint activities

6.  Withholding unnecessary commands and directives
 Giving clear directives when they are necessary
 Making correct decisions about how much to expect and ask
of another person
 Giving fluent explanations of how to do tasks
 Enforcing directives in a kind yet firm way
 Ignoring trivial negative behaviors
 Remaining calm and rational when the other does undesirable
things
 Deciding which negative behaviors to punish or reprimand
 Using only humane punishment or reprimands
 Not accepting invitations for a hostile argument with the other
person
 Listing options and choosing among them rationally when joint
decisions are to be made

7.  As we can see, some of the social skills listed by Strayhorn et al.
look more appealing to teachers than to students with behavior
deficits. For example, when we ask the students, ignoring negative
behaviors from others and avoiding arguments are placed generally
at the bottom of wanted social skills. Social skills’ training is
conducted primarily in a group setting, following a similar procedure.
First, the trainer introduces the skill. During this phase, the trainer
defines, teaches and/or models the skill. Next, the students role-play
the appropriate behavior, and the trainer gives feedback and
reinforcement. Homework and generalization of skill to real-life
situations follow. An individualized behavior contract between the
teacher and each student participating may be developed to make
sure that the child continues the new behavior after the training, and
transfers the new behavior to other settings (Zionts, 1996). By
experience, I can tell that generalization of skill is the most difficult
aspect to accomplish, particularly because mainstream school
settings are not well equipped to facilitate the transfer of skills to
regular classrooms.

8.  Forman (1993) defines assertive behavior as the midpoint of a
continuum of behavioral styles ranging from passive behavior to
aggressive behavior. The passive behavior style avoids confrontation
and arguments at the expense of own well-being and happiness, that
is, conceding defeat and giving victory to the other child. These
children fail to express their feelings, thoughts, or needs to others, or
they do it in such a timid way that they are easily disregarded by
others. As Forman states, a passive child “violates his own rights.”
(p. 64) At the other extreme of the behavioral continuum is the
aggressive style. These children almost invariably overreact to stress
and troublesome events, attacking others, verbally and/or physically.
In the school setting, we know these students as EBD children, and
we can describe them as students that violate the rights of others.
Placed in the middle of the continuum is the assertive behavioral
style, which is a style of approaching social interactions respecting
both own rights and the rights of others.

9.  Bedell and Lennox (1997) describe an assertive request as the ability to
state our feelings (how the other person’s behavior makes us feel) in a
reasonable way, without being hostile to the other person, and without using
coercion to settle the conflict. In an assertive request, the focus is always on
our own needs, feelings, and rights. An assertive request gives an objective
description (without judgment or name-calling) of the offending behavior
together with a personal reaction to the behavior. For example, to make an
assertive request, the child can say, “That is mine and I want it back (what I
want or need). It makes me mad (my feelings) when you take it without
asking me (my rights).” In other words, the child that is making an assertive
request lets other children know when their behavior is bothersome without
hurting their feelings, arguing, or provoking a fight. On some occasions, the
assertive request will also include a request for a new behavior. To teach
children make assertive requests, we can use the sentence stem, “When
you _____ (specific behavior), I feel _____ (specific feeling), and I want
_____ (specific goal)” (Bedell and Lennox, 1997).

10.  Teaching assertiveness skills to students with
chronic behavior problems is a popular coping
skills intervention in special schools settings.
Therapeutic teachers and personnel intervene
almost exclusively with acting-out and/or
aggressive students. Although passive students
rarely disrupt the classroom setting, these children
benefit too from assertiveness training, this time,
by a school’s counselor. Both passive and
aggressive students may show these behaviors
coupled with low self-esteem and/or low self-
confidence.

11. 1. Bedell, J. R. and Lennox, S. S. (1997).
Handbook for communication and problem-
solving skills training: A cognitive-behavioral
approach. New York: John Wiley.
2. Forman, S. G. (1993). Coping skills
interventions for children and adolescents.
San Francisco, CA: Jossey-Bass.
3. Zionts, P. (1996). Teaching disturbed and
disturbing students: An integrative approach
(Second Edition). Austin, Texas: Pro-Ed.

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