Two primary goals for practitioners to build into any type of social skills
training for their adult learners:
- Help them recognize their social disability.
- Provide instruction and self-monitoring techniques for the
social skill challenge areas.
"If you break a non-verbal rule of language, it has a negative emotional
impact on the receiving person. Persons with non-verbal learning disabilities
do not know when they have a social processing deficit and therefore cannot
stop the inappropriate behavior." 8
When teaching social skills, it is critical to address any social processing
challenges first. Practitioners need to help learners increase their recognition
and awareness of their non-verbal behaviour as well as other people's non-verbal
behaviour and the impact it has on how information is communicated,
received and interpreted. Because non-verbal behaviour takes place without
awareness and is continuous, learners need to gain knowledge of and
recognize its presence and impact in order to reduce and, if possible, stop any
inappropriate behaviour.
Regardless of the specific social skill that is taught, practitioners need to
demonstrate, model and provide strategies for learners to learn how to:
- Interpret social situations
- Select appropriate social skills
- Apply skills
- Modify social skills as situations change
- Integrate a variety of social skills to meet the demands of a variety of
life situations9
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