Social Skills Programs

The following social skills programs are options available to use with those on the autism spectrum. The Burkhart Center for Autism Education and Research does not endorse any one program over the other. If a program you are familiar with is not on this page it is not due to bias against any program, rather these programs are presented here as a sample of social skills programs available.

Cognitive behavior modification : This form of discipline “…involves teaching individuals to monitor their own behavior and performance and to deliver self-reinforcement and other contingencies at specified intervals. This instructional strategy involves shifting the locus of control for managing specified behavior from teachers and other external sources to the individual with Asperger’s” (Simpson et al., 1998, p. 150). This method provides self-control for the student, which assists in the student’s perspective of the situation.

Behavioral contract : In this method the student, his or her teachers, parents, and others involved in discipline sign a contract agreeing to the consequences of aggression. Be careful that you are not simply creating rules rather than addressing possible frustrations due to disability.

Social stories: This intervention is the most popular among educators and psychologists alike. In this intervention, the disciplinarian would reiterate the sequences that caused the student to act aggressively, and then describe the appropriate behavior for the situation. Yet, “individuals with AS typically demonstrate a strong rote memory, some may be able to provide appropriate answers to hypothetical social comprehension questions such as those found on individual intelligence tests. However, this does not mean that they can apply this information in actual social settings” (Barnhill, 2001, p. 2).

Scripting: This intervention uses the creation of scripts and practicing specific social roles in order to allow the student an opportunity to see and practice the correct response to achieve prevention of misbehavior (Attwood, 2001). However, this intervention does not allow the freedom to choose his or her own actions or words for the situation thus removing control of the situation from the student. Another limitation revolves around the concept that social norms change from place to place and over time.

Social autopsies: The student is called upon to assess his or her behavior piece by piece (Attwood, 2001). This method’s purpose is to find the cause of the presumed social mistake in order to ascertain the appropriate response. This is a team effort using both the teacher and the student, which leaves a few limitations. First, not every teacher has time to stop and go through a behavior with just one student. Second, this intervention is very much open to the interpretation of the teacher as to what is an appropriate response to a social norm and what is not, which once again removes the control of the behavior out of the hands of the student.

Traditional behavior consequences : the same interventions carried out with children who do not have disabilities is used with students who have disabilities. Generally, with this intervention, students have difficulties dealing with a perceived reduction of even more control within their lives. This form of intervention carries the possibility with it that even more inappropriate behaviors could take place.

Augmented communication: is used mostly to assist people who are nonverbal to communicate through a communication board or through a computer’s keyboard (Prater & Zylstra, 2002). Augmented communication is also referred to as computer mediated communication in some areas of study. If someone is assisting the person to communicate with a communication board or with the keyboard, the term then becomes facilitated communication (Prater & Zylstra, 2002).

Lovaas program: “sometimes referred to as DTT because of its use of positive reinforcement through a series of intensive discrete trial training sessions” (Prater & Zylstra, 2002, p. 5). Although the Lovaas program and others like it have been able to show short-term improvement, none have been capable of demonstrating long-term improvement (Prater & Zylstra, 2002). With a price tag of approximately $40,000 a year schools and parents tend to argue over who is responsible for paying the bill (Prater & Zylstra, 2002).

SODA strategy: This is easily replicated and uses behavioral adaptation to alter the inflexible thinking patterns of some students with disabilities (Bock, 2001). SODA stands for Stop, Observe, Deliberate, and Act. With this process this program argues that students with disabilities can improve their communicative interactions through learning to evaluate the communicative scene, while carrying a visual cueing card to remind the student of all the tenets of SODA. This program provides a wonderful structure for a communicative intervention.

SAA RED: Created by Rachele Jones (2004), SAA RED (pronounce saw red) is an interpersonal interaction model designed to assist people with Autism Spectrum Disorders. This model is based on the theoretical work of Kenneth Burke, primarily his Dramturgic pentadic ratios; Judee Burgoon’s Interaction Adaptation Theory; Bandura’s Social Cognitive Theory; and Communication Effectiveness research. It was necessary to design a social skills program that respected the personhood of the individual being taught therefore this model is used as a tool only when the person desires more effective interaction. SAA RED is NOT taught as a program to change the individual!

S = Scene (examine the environment to see how it is affecting the interaction)
A = Act (this is the actual act of speaking – this involves a great deal of information concerning nonverbal communication and communication effectiveness research in this area)
A = Agent (these are the actual people interacting)

Note: SAA all interact which I show with video clips. The interactions combine to create the Scene-Act ratio, the Scene-Agent ratio, and the Act-Agent ratio.

R = Required level (this level is where people are seeking food or safety issues – if someone is speaking at this level and the other is speaking at the next level, the person using “R” will always prevail (Burgoon, 1995))
E = Expected level (this level involves social norms and expectations [usually at this point in the demonstration I explain that there are positive and negative violations – one has not completely shot themselves in the foot by simply violating expectations but they do need to be able to evaluate if the violation was positive or negative in order to assess what to do next)
D = Desired level (this is the level that requires each person interacting to know what level they want the interaction to be on (i.e. acquaintance, friendship, …).)

2005 Burkhart Center for Autism Education & Research

Social Skills Programs

Behavioral contract : In this method the student, his or her teachers, parents, and others involved in discipline sign a contract agreeing to the consequences of aggression. Be careful that you are not simply creating rules rather than addressing possible frustrations due to disability.

S = Scene (examine the environment to see how it is affecting the interaction)

A = Act (this is the actual act of speaking – this involves a great deal of information concerning nonverbal communication and communication effectiveness research in this area)

A = Agent (these are the actual people interacting)

Note: SAA all interact which I show with video clips. The interactions combine to create the Scene-Act ratio, the Scene-Agent ratio, and the Act-Agent ratio.

R = Required level (this level is where people are seeking food or safety issues – if someone is speaking at this level and the other is speaking at the next level, the person using “R” will always prevail (Burgoon, 1995))

D = Desired level (this is the level that requires each person interacting to know what level they want the interaction to be on (i.e. acquaintance, friendship, …).)