The Effectiveness of Interpersonal Skills Training on the Social Skill Acquisition of Moderately and Mildly Retarded Adults

Abstract

Sixteen moderately and mildly retarded adults were selected from a group residential facility and randomly assigned to experimental and control groups. The experimental group received a 12-session interpersonal skills training program consisting of instruction in the following areas: (1) Introductions and Small Talk, (2) Asking for Help, (3) Differing with Others, and (4) Handling Criticism. The social skills instructional package included verbal instruction, modeling, role playing, feedback, contingent incentives, and homework. As a result of this training program, moderately and mildly retarded adults acquired new social skills as evidenced by performance on a situation role play assessment. These gains generalized to untrained role play situations but did not result in significant group differences when assessed in a more natural setting (i.e., local grocery store).

Behaviour Analysis and Social Skills Training: Some Points to Consider

“…In general, the use of the multi-faceted procedure referred to above has been consistently associated with improvements in social competency in the training setting, which have subsequently not occurred consistently outside this setting (Bates, 1980;Roessler & Lewis, 1984).…”

“…The first approach is a modification of the basic skills training approach (Bates, 1980;Kelly, Wildman, Urey & Thurman. 1980) and is described as a 'general-case training' approach (e.g., Horner & McDonald, 1982;Horner, Sprague & Wilcox, 1982).…”

“…If observation is difficult or impractical, details of thebehaviour may be elicited by careful questioning about typical responses in the situations of interest, or by simulating them in a role-play type format (Bates, 1980;Kolko & Milan, 1985;Minkin, Braukmann, Minkin, Timbers, Timbers, Phillips & Wolf, 1976). …”

“…If competent performance on a given item is not as clearcut as in the example given above, then it will be necessary to rank order the range of typical responses obtained in each situation from most to least competent so as to provide a graded measure which is sensitive to improvements that fall short of complete mastery (Bates, 1980). For instance, thefollowing eight 'rules'of 'asking to join in a game' might beelicited by watching others or by asking participants to state them.…”

Effects of Feedback and Self‐monitoring on Head Trauma Youths' Conversation Skills

“…Social skills research emphasizing the use of instruction, shaping, prompting, modeling, feedback, reinforcement, and behavior rehearsals has been conducted with several populations induding the mentally retarded (Bates, 1980;Lancioni, 1982), chronic schizophrenics (Bellack, Hersen, & Turner, 1976), alcoholics (Eisler, Hersen, & Miller, 1974), and depressed persons (Schloss, Schloss, & Harris, 1984). These studies have demonstrated that learning principles, applied in various combinations, are effective in modifying interpersonal skills such as eye contact, use of gestures, speech latency, loudness and intonation, and the content of speech induding requests for information, compliments, self-disdosure, and initiation of conversations.…”