The Importance of Social Skills and Free Evidence Based Techniques to Address Them
Poster: Darcie-Anne Bailey, Juliana Stifelmann
Session B | 9:45 – 10:00 | Location: Main Corridor, 2nd Floor, Outside Room 209
Abstract:
The presence of social skills has been shown to be of great importance for establishing healthy peer and teacher relationships, academic success, and overall success in life (NASP, 2002). While much of the literature provides evidence for the importance of social skill training in schools, most schools do not have specific curriculum to develop these skills. This is problematic given not all students come to school with the set of social skills needed in order to be successful in school (Cartledge & Milburn, 1978; Gresham, 2004; Walker, Ramsey, & Gresham, 2004).
Due to the discrepancy between the need for social skills instruction, and the lack of resources provided to teachers, one way to remediate this gap is to provide free resources for school psychologists or teachers, who can then disseminate the information.
The purpose of this presentation is to provide professionals with information about free evidence based social skills interventions. While there are many resources available, many of them are costly and not available to schools which don’t allocate funds for such resources. The resources highlighted in this session are evidence-based and provided in the context a three tier Response to Intervention model, with interventions at each tier reviewed in the presentation. They are provided free of charge making teaching social skills in the classroom more feasible.
A review of the literature was conducted and included exploring resources that provide information about evidence based interventions, a number of related texts, and PsycInfo. In order for an intervention to be selected, the following criteria needed to be met: (1) programs needed to have research which supported their use in a classroom wide setting, small group setting, or individually, (2) programs needed evidence supporting their efficacy and effectiveness, (3) programs needed to target factors that were critical for success in the classroom.