6 KEY POINTS Social Skills in Work and 1. We often underestimate - - PDF document

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Social Skills in Work and Community Settings

Keith Storey, Ph.D., BCBA-D Touro University Keith.storey@tu.edu

6 KEY POINTS

1. We often underestimate just how much social behavior can affect persons' success in community and work environments. 2. Need to shift our focus from the problems individuals display to the skills they need to learn. 3. In most instances, when AWD display problems in the social interactions, it is because they lack the key skills they need to perform competently, or because they cannot effectively use the skills they do have.

4. Though some individuals learn social skills

• n their own, others must be taught appropriate

social skills. 5. Generalization of social skill has been a major problem. 6. Social skills are often situationally specific.

I. WHY ARE SOCIAL SKILLS IMPORTANT?

• 1. As persons with disabilities increasingly utilize

inclusive work and community settings it becomes important to analyze what skills are needed to function successfully at each site. 2. In integrated settings, individuals with disabilities must interact appropriately with non‐ disabled persons in addition to performing specific behaviors in a task. (EX: attending a movie, purchasing grocery items).

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3. In work and community settings the social skills of the person may be the critical component in displaying competent behavior. (EX: in employment settings the worker may be able to perform the work task to criterion but have difficulties on the job because of problems in interaction with others. Research has shown lack of appropriate social skills to be one of the main reasons for job termination for PWD). 4. Clear body of research documenting that the mere placement of persons with disabilities in proximity to non‐disabled persons does not necessarily lead to social integration. 5. Social skills training is a key factor in having persons with and without disabilities interact, develop social skills, and develop positive relationships with each other. 6. A person's ability to get along with others and to engage in prosocial behaviors determines popularity among community members, peers, co‐workers, and with supervisors.

II. WHAT ARE SOCIAL SKILLS? 1. The ability to interact with others in a given social context in specific ways that are socially acceptable or valued and at the same time personally beneficial, mutually beneficial, or beneficial primarily to others. [Combs, M. L. & Slaby, D. A. (1977). Social skills training with children. In B. B. Lahey & A. E. Kazdin (Eds.), Advances in clinical child psychology (Vol. 1) (pp. 161‐201). New York: Plenum Press.

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2. [Social competence consists of] those responses which, within a given situation, prove effective, or, in other words, maximize the probability of maintaining or enhancing positive effects for the interactor. [Foster, S. L., & Ritchey, W. L. (1979). Issues in the assessment of social competence in

• children. Journal of Applied Behavior Analysis,

12, 625‐638.

3. The individual has goals or targets which he seeks in order to obtain rewards. Goal attainment is dependent

• n skilled behavior which involves a continuous cycle of

monitoring and modifying performance in light of

• feedback. Failure in skill is defined as a breakdown or

impairment at some point in the cycle...leading to negative outcomes. [Trower, P. M. (1979). Fundamentals of interpersonal behavior: A social‐psychological perspective. In A. S. Bellack & M. Hersen (Eds.), Research and practice in social skills training. New York: Plenum Press.

4. "I know em when I see em." 5. Parameters or dimensions of analysis that appear across definitions: A: Interpersonal behavior emitted by the interactor. B: The situational and interpersonal antecedents of these interpersonal behaviors. C: Characteristics of the interactors.

D: Qualitative outcome of behavior within the given situation. Qualitative outcome by definition implies a value judgment, that is, that an individual

• r group of individuals defines a response to be

"good," "skillful," or "acceptable" according to some criterion. E: Importance of reciprocity. "Norm of reciprocity" whereby prosocial responses induce a cyclical pattern of positive responding among peers.

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6. Social competence versus social skill: Social competence is how good the person is at interacting with others and social skill refers to skills (specific behaviors) in specific situations. III. ASSESSMENT OF SOCIAL SKILLS 1. How to decide what to teach? A. Table from Robertson et al. (1984). ‐Many target behaviors to choose from. ‐How to choose?

2. How to assess. A: CLINICAL INTERVIEW: ‐asking the person. B: SELF‐MONITORING: Person records their own behavior. ‐an overlooked method but helps to tie assessment with self‐monitoring for teaching purposes.

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C: DIRECT OBSERVATION: 1. A specific behavior is assessed as it actually occurs in a given setting. 2. Can be time‐consuming but if done correctly provides accurate data. 3. In addition to use in naturalistic settings, direct observation can also

be done in analogue settings.

A. Analogue setting is often used to help insure that the behavior of interest will occur at a suitable time. B. Not always clear whether or not the observed behavior in the analogue settings correlates well with actual behavior in natural settings. 4. Three major limitations concerning direct observation: A. Usually only addressed a small number of specific behaviors. B. Approach requires a lot of training to execute properly. C. Time‐intensive approach to assessment.

5. Direct observation has been favored because: ‐clearly defined codes. ‐less biased. ‐more objective. ‐more sensitive to treatment effects. D: RATINGS BY SIGNIFICANT OTHERS: ‐peers. ‐family. ‐co‐workers. ‐employers. ‐community members.

Agran et al (2016)

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Agran et al (2016)

E: NORMATIVE BEHAVIOR: ‐What is "typical" behavior of individuals in that environment. ‐Important to emphasize that there is not

• ne level of appropriate behavior, but a

band or range of appropriate behavior.

F: TESTING 1. Depend upon either a verbal or a written response. 2. Role‐Taking Test (RTT) developed by Feffer and Gourevitch (1960). ‐The more adept you are at taking the perspective

• f others, the better your social skills tend to be.

3. Tests can be useful in getting a measure of overall social development or for comparing social development in two

• r more persons.

4. The major problem with tests of this type is that they do not assess individual skills. In short, they are not specific enough for planning instruction.

G: SELF‐REPORT: 1. Person is interviewed about their behavior and the problems being experienced. 2. How useful interview data will be depends upon: A. Skill of the interviewer. B. Appropriateness of the questions. C. Accuracy of the responses given.

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H: SELF‐RATING: 1. Person is asked to use a numeric rating to estimate how often they exhibit the behavior. 2. Alternative is to supply descriptions of various social situations. Person selects from a set of choices provided under each item. 3. Can only be used with persons who have sufficient reading skill to complete the scale independently. 4. Self‐rating scales often correlate poorly with peer and teacher ratings. 5. Self‐ratings are often biased by social desirability and to yield the lowest estimate of deviance.

I: INFORMANT REPORTS: 1. Informant interviews with someone who is knowledgeable about the person. 2. Can use rating scale completed by a knowledgeable person. A. Advantage is that a large number of specific behaviors of interest can be assessed in a short time. 3. Better if specific items of behavior (e.g., hitting) are used instead of global labels (e.g., hostility).

IV. TEACHING SOCIAL SKILLS 1. Teaching procedures. A: Instruction: Use of regular instructional procedures, e.g., modeling, reinforcement, feedback, correction, roleplaying, etc. B: Modeling or demonstration: Two types of modeling: 1. MASTERY MODEL: A. Model who has mastered the skill to be taught and provides a flawless demonstration of it (without any mistakes or errors).

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• 2. COPING MODEL:

A. Do not want the model to provide an error‐free demonstration. B. Observe that certain common mistakes

• ccur when learner tried to imitate the

mastery model. C. Purpose is to incorporate additional instruction into the initial modeling performance. D. Stop after mistakes are made and correct the error.

E. ‐Point out what the error was ‐why it was made ‐provide instruction on how to avoid the error ‐demonstrate the strategy used to avoid the mistake. F. Advantages to coping model: ‐Alerts learner to difficult components and focuses attention on those components. ‐Reduces errors by providing instruction on how to deal with the difficult components. ‐Saves time, in the long run, because it reduces the amount of time reteaching a skill.

G. Only want to use coping model for teaching skills that you have good reason to believe will give the learner problems.

‐Important Model Characteristics: 1. The age of the model. Similarity in age. 2. Gender of the model. Same gender models are more effective than opposite models. 3. Likability of the model. Models that are personable are more effective. 4. Similarity of the model. Models the observer can identify with are more effective. 5. Status of the model. Competent models with social status are more effective. 6. The observed consequences to a model affect learning in

• bservers.

7. The competency of the role model.

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Videomodeling

• 1. Video peer modeling (VPM) involves the

learner observing a friend or other individual on video performing the skill to learn.

• 2. Video self‐modeling (VSM) involves the

learner observing her or himself on video performing a skill to be learned.

Video modeling eliminates staff prompting allowing the AWD to completely focus on the model being presented. Another advantage is that it is easy to see the antecedent‐behavior‐consequences relationship in a video (as opposed to hearing a story about someone performing a behavior correctly). These situations can be manipulated so that the AWD can see both appropriate and inappropriate demonstrations of the social skill so that they can make the appropriate discrimination.

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C: Role‐play practice and rehearsal ADVANTAGES: ‐flexibility in presenting a wide range of potentially relevant situations that cannot be easily replicated in the natural environment. ‐control over the places, persons, and environments with which the person is presented. ‐Perhaps greater accuracy in monitoring and measuring precise social skill components.

DISADVANTAGES: ‐Role play tests are highly structured. ‐may be little correspondence between a role play test and the naturalistic interaction (i.e., poor generalization).

D: Feedback and contingent reinforcement ‐A, B, & C above are more effective when feedback is provided following the individual performance. ‐The timing of instructor intervention ‐ that is, whether it is contingent on appropriate or on inappropriate behaviors ‐ is a critical and often

• verlooked determinant of the consequences of

any intervention. ‐Reinforcement from peers for appropriate and/or inappropriate behavior.

E: Research has shown that components were most effective when used in conjunction with other components. Need to consider individual versus group applications of contingencies.

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F: Teach person with disabilities and/or person without disabilities. ‐teaching Non‐disabled peer may increase effectiveness of social skills for both, but may limit "natural" interactions. ‐Peer Mediated Intervention Strategies: 1: Prompting and Reinforcement: can have peers prompt and reinforce or can reinforce peers (vicarious reinforcement), AWD sees peers getting reinforced for behavior.

2: Peer Social Interactions: reinforce peer for interactions. 3: Peer Modeling: Can be very powerful strategy. Need to be in integrated setting for modeling to occur. Can also use videomodeling for some AWD. G: Problem of becoming dependent upon trainer. ‐if trainer is doing all cueing, then learner is likely to focus upon trainer and not natural Sd (discriminative stimulus). ‐poor strategy for facilitating generalization (across people, times, behaviors, and settings). H: Role of communication: ‐individual must have the means to communicate in different social situations (greeting, requesting, calling, commenting).

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I: Back to Table from Robertson et al. ‐problem with teaching isolated behaviors. ‐social skills need to be taught in context of an activity (promotes functionality, generalization, and maintenance).

2. Generalization. A: Research has indicated that: ‐Self‐monitoring and prompting of target behavior in vivo led to successful training and generalization. ‐Self‐monitoring and self‐reinforcement combined were better than social skills training alone in obtaining generalization

(across people, times, behaviors, and settings).

‐self‐recording may be the critical component. ‐Select as target behaviors in the treatment setting those that will continue to be reinforced in the natural environment. These functional behaviors will be strengthened even after training has ended (i.e., maintenance!).

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‐May want to pair praise, acknowledgment, approval, and other social reinforcers with tangible reinforcers such as tokens or other

• items. Any problem with this? (cue

dependency). ‐Gradually fade out the tangible reinforcers, eventually relying solely on more naturally

• ccurring social reinforcers.

‐Train significant others to reinforce behaviors. 3. Maintenance: A: Social skills often do not maintain. B. Use of intermittent reinforcement is better for maintenance than a continuous reinforcement schedule. 4. Social Validation: A: Subjective evaluation. B: Normative levels of behavior. C: Appropriateness of teaching procedures. D: Use of experts to develop procedures and determine if socially important. 5. Simulation: ‐good for when few instances to use behavior in real life situations. ‐massed trials.

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6. Situational Specificity: Social skill/competence is very dependent upon the

• situation. EX: cursing when working in certain

situations is the peer norm and appropriate. Cursing while interviewing for a job is not appropriate. INSTRUCTION OF SOCIAL SKILLS 1. SETTING THE STAGE: 1. Introduce the skill to be taught through discussion, stories, or video. 2. Purpose is to:

A. Communicate to learner what the nature of the skill is.

• B. What it is the preferred way of behaving.
• C. How it can be useful to the person (person

is more motivated to learn when the personal relevance of the skills is clear). 2. SPECIFYING THE SKILLS COMPONENTS: 1. Works like an advance organizer or task analysis for observing the demonstration and attending to the components included.

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2. EX: for assertiveness skill of saying no. a. look directly at the person and make eye contact. b. in a calm, normal voice say, "No! I don't want to do that." c. Suggest an appropriate alternative. d. if the alternative is declined and the original suggestion is repeated, e. in a calm, normal voice, say "No! I don't want to do that.“ f. If the No statement is still not accepted. g. in a calm, normal voice, say, "I'm sorry, I've got to go

• now. I'll see you later.“

h. walk away.

3. MODELING THE SKILL: 1. Model should have previously been through the modeling strategy with you so that everything is clear. 2. Need to have a role‐playing situation to provide the context for the demonstration. 3. Should have more than one role‐playing situation ready so that the demonstration can be repeated if necessary.

4. COGNITIVE REHEARSAL: 1. Before the learner imitates the modeled skill, have that person verbally describe the specific components in the skill. 2. If the learner makes errors in the verbal description, go back over the components with the learner, referring to the demonstration for illustrative purposes. 3. Have the learner describe the skill components until they can be given in their entirety without any errors or prompting.

5. BEHAVIORAL REHEARSAL: 1. The learner is given a role‐playing situation in which to practice the skill. 2. Learner should get practice with different situations before the behavioral rehearsal phase is over.

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3. Give the learner feedback on their performance. A. If you give criticism, sandwich it between positive feedback.

• 4. If the learner has made errors, give additional

practice opportunities, so your feedback can be used to correct mistakes. If the mistakes were serious enough, repeat the modeling phase before giving additional practice.

• 5. Videotapes can be extremely useful for providing

feedback.

6. EVALUATION OF PERFORMANCE: 1. May use direct observation, checklist,

• r rating scale.
• 7. GENERALIZATION (people, times, behaviors,

and settings): 1. Most critical and most difficult. 2. May use a contract with the learner to try out the skill in a new situation. 3. May require a detailed verbal report

• f the situation the skill was used in and

how it was used. May also want input of the other person involved in interaction.

8. STEPS TO DEVELOPING SOCIAL SKILLS CURRICULA 1. Describe the learner‘s difficulties in terms of the skills and actions they must perform to improve their behavior, rather than in terms of the failures they experience. 2. Categorize social situations into structured situations and unstructured situations. 3. Understand explicit and implicit demands in social situations.

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9. PROBLEMS IN ACHIEVING SOCIAL COMPETENCE 1. Learner may not have the requisite skills to interact or to do so successfully. 2. Learner may not be able to match their behavior with the ongoing demands of the situation. 3. Learner may misinterpret or not understand the

• utcomes of their behavior and its potential effects.

4. Learner may be unable or unwilling to value conventional outcomes. 5. Learner may not respond well to the activities

• r circumstances in which social interactions occur.

6. Learner may be reluctant to interact because they fear or expect negative outcomes.

Incidental Teaching

• Incidental teaching uses situations as they occur

throughout the day and the natural interactions between the person and others to form the basis for practicing social skills.

• Providing explicit instruction at the moment when a

social skill error is occurring is an effective way to teach an individual to read the social cues and respond

• appropriately. Support providers can point out

nonverbal cues (gestures, facial expressions, voice tone, standing distance, etc.), characteristics of the environment, and any other factors present that indi‐ cate the need for an adjusted response.

• For instance, if a person is shopping in a grocery store and

yells over to the check‐out clerk who is assisting others, “Hey, where do I find sparkling cider?”, this would be an instance for incidental teaching, where the support provider could quickly and quietly prompt the person to

• bserve that the clerk is helping someone else at the

moment and that the person is in a situation where a more appropriate response would be to ask the clerk when they are not helping other customers or waiting their turn to be

• helped. The support provider could be in and out of that

coaching moment in seconds and has not missed the

• pportunity for correcting a social error and guiding the

person to the expected social behavior.

Social Stories

• Social stories provide an individual with a

narrative or script for appropriate behavior in a variety of situations and assists the person in understanding and rehearsing the steps needed to perform a target social skill. Support providers can design their own social stories or use published social stories. Many support providers create their own comic strip social stories or make video clips of someone acting out the skill.

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The following is an example of a support provider‐made social story for addressing how to behave when answering a question from a boss at work:

• Answering the boss’s question:
• The boss asks me a question.
• I know the answer.
• I want to say the answer.
• I look at the boss and make eye contact.
• I say the answer.

This strategy allows for perspective taking and encourages the person to consider a range of responses to a specific situation. More infor‐ mation on social stories can be found at http://www.thegraycenter.org/ social‐stories

VI. ASSUMPTIONS AND GENERAL CONCLUSIONS SUPPORTED BY EMPIRICAL EVIDENCE 1. Social behavior is influenced by both personal and environmental variables. 2. Social behavior is indicative of what works

• r is adaptive (presently) for a given individual in

his or her particular environment.

3. The extent and quality of social relationships will be a function of the number and type of opportunities to interact with others. 4. The interpersonal meaning of social acts cannot be interpreted out of context; rather, the social norms of the group and the social preferences of the individuals must be taken into account. 5. The personal significance of friendships is influenced by the number and type of alternative activities from which a person derives pleasure and a sense of personal accomplishment. 6. The evaluation of social relationships will be a function

• f the perspective of the informant or evaluator.

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7. Intelligence or adaptive behavior per se is not highly predictive

• f social behavior or patterns of affiliation.

8. Generally, the characteristics of a social group or the dynamic aspects of the environment are more powerful determinants of an individual's social behavior than are his or her personal traits. 9. Friends will be selected to provide an optimal amount of similarity and complementarity to one's life. From: Landesman‐Dwyer, S., & Berkson, G. (1984). Friendships and social behavior. In J. Wortis (Ed.), Mental retardation and developmental disabilities (pp. 129‐154). New York: Plenum Press.

SPECIFIC EXAMPLE Breen et al. (1985): A: Important things to emphasize: ‐Broke social exchanges down into initiation, elaboration, and termination. ‐Paired desirable objects with AWD to make them reinforcing for non‐coworkers to interact with. ‐Planned for generalization (used multiple exemplars (Non‐disabled peers). ‐Built the social skills into the task analysis.

Task Analysis of Breaktime Social Sequence

• 1. Person enters break area.
• 2. Person pours cup of coffee.
• 3. Person takes coffee to table and sits down.
• 3. Person asks if co‐worker would like a cup of coffee).
• 4. Person makes initiation, e.g., asks familiar co‐worker,

“Hi, how are you?”

• 5. Person asks co‐worker, “what’s new?”
• 6. Person makes continuation statement or question.
• 7. Person makes termination statement, “Got to get

back to work.” Keith is a 40 year old man with an intellectual disability who is working in an office. He generally sits by himself at lunch in the lunch room though he would like to join

• thers during lunch.

Situational Specificity: ‐Needs initiation, continuation, and termination skills. ‐Needs to be able to follow conversation changes and make appropriate remarks. ‐Need to analyze groups and conversation topics to determine possible fits.

4/28/2016 20 Instruction: ‐Setting the stage, modeling, role‐playing, correction, feedback, and praise. ‐Instruction shortly before lunch in the lunch room when no one is present.

Assessment: ‐The number of times that Keith eats lunch with

• thers.

‐Feedback from co‐workers would be valuable. Reinforcement: ‐Self‐delivery of money that Keith can then use for buying cd’s. ‐For non‐disabled co‐workers, Keith’s bringing cookies would be a likely reinforcer. Generalization: ‐Generalization across groups might need to be taught. ‐Use of non‐disabled co‐worker with good social skills and social network to involve in instruction after initial instruction period could be valuable. Maintenance: ‐Self‐management system would likely maintain behavior but might need to be tweaked over time.

Warning: Shameless Self Promotion is next!

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