Social Skills
Social skills are those tricky unwritten skills in social situations that aren't necessarily obvious to everyone. Autistic people, people with ADHD and others who are neurodivergent can have specific difficulties with understanding social rules, applying them and knowing that they are not rules that are 'set in stone', but that change depending on who they are with, and where they are.
In the past, social skills therapy was based on trying to fit neurodivergent people into a neurotypical box- which is trying to force them to pretend/ learn to be someone they are not. This is not an authentic way to communicate, and has proven to cause mental health issues and increased stress and anxiety. As speech pathologists, our goals are to assist neurodivergent people to communicate as authentically as possible. No longer are we targeting eye contact, use of intonation, social scripting, reducing stimming and similar goals that used to be seen as 'wrong'. Now, we are focused on using neurodiversity- affirming practices, and goals around helping people with perspective-taking, self-advocacy, learning and understanding what tricky indirect language means (such as puns, sarcasm, figurative language), learning to listen to their body and link that with emotions, teaching about self regulation, flexible thinking and problem solving using interoception.
In the past, social skills therapy was based on trying to fit neurodivergent people into a neurotypical box- which is trying to force them to pretend/ learn to be someone they are not. This is not an authentic way to communicate, and has proven to cause mental health issues and increased stress and anxiety. As speech pathologists, our goals are to assist neurodivergent people to communicate as authentically as possible. No longer are we targeting eye contact, use of intonation, social scripting, reducing stimming and similar goals that used to be seen as 'wrong'. Now, we are focused on using neurodiversity- affirming practices, and goals around helping people with perspective-taking, self-advocacy, learning and understanding what tricky indirect language means (such as puns, sarcasm, figurative language), learning to listen to their body and link that with emotions, teaching about self regulation, flexible thinking and problem solving using interoception.