The Montefiore-Einstein Center for Autism and Communication Disorders offers training and supervision to schools implementing the SOS (Social Skills in Our Schools) program. SOS is a standardized social skills curriculum that empowers staff through monthly training to address the needs of children with ASD. The goal is to develop appropriate social skills in verbal children with ASD and foster understanding and inclusion of individuals with differences in typical students. The SOS program includes social skills group sessions, lessons to teach typical peers support for students with ASD, peer mentoring, and parental involvement to reinforce skills.

1. The Montefiore-Einstein Center for Autism and Communication
Disorders offers training and supervision to schools in
implementing
SOS: Social Skills in Our Schools, (Michelle A. Dunn, PhD)
SOS is a standardized, developmentally ordered social skills
curriculum that empowers school staff, through monthly training
and supervision to address the needs of children and adolescents
with ASD. The school environment is the ideal setting in which to
implement this intervention because that is where kids have most
contact with their peers.
The overarching goal of the SOS program is to develop
appropriate social skills in high-functioning, verbal children with
ASD. A secondary goal is to foster, in typically developing children,
an understanding of individual differences, a broader tolerance, a
stronger sense of fairness and increased social initiations toward
children with differences in regular school settings.
The SOS program is comprised of four coordinated components:
1. Social skills group sessions. School staff are trained to deliver
social skills instruction to students with ASD, that focuses on:
a) emotional and behavioral modulation; b) social rules; c)
understanding of topic in conversation, play, and social
situations; d) cognitive flexibility (reduction of preoccupations
and perseverative behaviors & improved transitioning); e)
development of insight.

2. 2. Social skills lessons in the mainstream classroom. Teachers
are trained in the delivery of character education lessons that
teach typically developing peers to support the integration of
students with ASD into larger social settings. This reinforces
performance and fluency of social skills.
3. Peer mentoring. Teachers learn to train same-age mentors to
support conversation and play in unstructured school
environments, such as during lunch and recess.
4. Parental involvement. Parents are taught to reinforce the new
skills or “rules” with homework outlined in the curriculum
manual.