Contextual considerations in social skills instruction.

Abstract

In the article entitled "The Effects of Social Skills Curricula: Now You See Them, Now You Don't," DuPaul and Eckert (this issue) have provided a valuable and considerate review of empirical studies that have evaluated popular, commercially published social skills training programs. Their review is particularly useful for practitioners because it focuses on arguably the most important question about social skills curricula: what effects do training students with these programs have on students' behavior in typical school environments (e.g., classroom, playground, etc.)? To answer this question, the authors review how various investigators using social skills training programs have implemented one or more strategies to promote generalization and maintenance of training effects (see Baer, 1977, andOsnes, 1989 for a review of these strategies), as well as the outcomes achieved.Despite "a comprehensive search of the psychological and educational literature" (p. 117), the authors could find just seven studies reporting generalization or maintenance effects for commercially available social skills training programs. Six of these studies described somewhat positive results, with the most promising outcomes achieved by altering the local environment so that newly learned social skills were more likely to be maintained by natural consequences. Thus, in their concluding comments, DuPaul and Eckert suggest "it is unclear whether the primary focus of social skills interventions should be reprogramming the environment as opposed to specific skills training" (p. 130).We fully agree with DuPaul and Eckert, and in support of their concerns, this commentary is devoted to the identification and brief discussion of issues raised by the suggestion to reprogram school environments in order to promote and change social behavior. Of particular importance here are consideration of: (a) a technology and strategies to insure that newly learned behaviors are maintained by natural contingencies (Kohler & Greenwood, 1986), (b) application of this technology to the area of social skills, and (c) contextual approaches to conceptualizing

Interpreting Outcomes of Social Skills Training for Students with High-Incidence Disabilities

“…One of the most persistent weaknesses of the SST literature is its failure to demonstrate sufficient generalization and maintenance of instructed social skills. Two reasons have been noted for this lack of generalization and maintenance: (a) failure to adequately program for generalization and maintenance, and (b) the use of weak treatments in contrived, restricted, and decontextualized settings to teach social behavior (Carey & Stoner, 1994;DuPaul & Eckert, 1994;Gresham, 1994;Haring, 1992;Scott & Nelson, 1998).…”

Social Behavior and Skills in Children

“…Two main reasons for this are commonly cited: (1) failure to adequately program for generalization and maintenance, and (2) the use of treatments in contrived and restricted setting to teach social behavior (Carey & Stoner, 1994;DuPaul & Eckert, 1994;Gresham, 1997;Haring, 1992;Scott & Nelson, 1998).…”

A contextual approach to the assessment of social skills: Identifying meaningful behaviors for social competence

“…Although many practitioners and researchers advocate for a multimodal approach to social skills assessment (i.e., the incorporation of various methods, sources, and settings into the assessment process; Carey & Stoner, 1994;Elliott & Busse, 1991;Gresham, 1995;Maag, 1989;Sheridan & Walker, 1999;Walker, Irvin, Noell, & Singer, 1992), this assessment approach is rarely used (Maag, 1989;. In keeping with a contextual framework for understanding social skills, not only must the behaviors and perspectives of an individual child be examined, but the social responses and expectations of the environments in which that child interacts also must be accounted for (Haring, 1992;Sheridan & Walker, 1999).…”