Social Skills and the IEP

[gregl]

Has anyone written "social skill development" into their IEP's? Our 3rd grader is doing well academically in school but is not successfull socially. I would appreciate any advice on wording of social development in the annual IEP, coming up for us in about a week.

[lorraine]

I'm sorry I've got no advice for you on that but I just spotted your post and wanted to say ....

Welcome to Uno mas !!!

Look forward to hearing more about you and your 3rd grader soon

Lorraine

[Connie]

Lorraine,

Welcome, first of all!!!

Second, HUMMMMM social skills. Your daughter is a couple of years older than my Collin. I've not really written any social skills into his IEP since he was about 4-5.

Those consisted of shaking hands not hugging, not always trying to be picked up etc...

This maybe something I need to be thinking about.

Connie

[gregl]

Lorraine - thanks for the nice welcome.

[dibrom]

Hello, funny..... I just found this website by searching google for ideas on IEP's. I was looking for more educational goals for reading, math, etc. but social skills is something I have on our IEP so I can help you ;o)
I am typing them word for word so I don't miss anything important. These are last years so they will change with his new one (we have been rescheduled, it was supposed to be last week). He is going into 1st grade so you may be way ahead of this but maybe it could help.

Goal: Ethan will improve personal social skills from present levels to mastery of objectives.
Associated Objective #1: Ethan will use age appropriate means to negotiate peer interactions, such as asking a peer to play, politely refusing a peer overature (no, thanks) or inviting attention (hey, look at this!) 2 xs per observed 30 min activity
Associated Objective #2: Ethan will refrain from hitting peers, by decreasing behavior by
70 % from baseline collected during 1st 6 weeks. Mastered criteria 70%
Associated Objective #3: Ethan will take turns with a peer for 3 turns during a game measured periodically . Mastered criteria 70%

After typing all of this it kinda sounds like he was really aggressive but he wasn't. He just liked to touch, sometimes harder then others. I would call him my "hands on player". Unfortunatly when he was a baby and in Pre K his biggest issue was gross motor (he didn't crawl until he was 2 or walk until he was 3) so he became a target for the behaviorally challanged and once he was mobile he started dishing it out. He's doing pretty well now except for the occational playgound penalty but show me a 6 year old boy who doesn't ;o)

[Connie]

LOL...Diane

Glad you found us!!!

Play ground penalty!! Sounds a lot like my son. Collin's big problem is he gets sucked into bad behaviors so easily!! Our problem is sometimes Collin doesn't know his own strength so when kids start games like tag or tackle, they want to be the first ones to cry FOUL when Collin joins in and doesn't play the way they think the game should be played or be as gentle as they like.

I forgot last year we did put in his IEP that he would interact -appropriately with his peers. Such as giving hi-fives or taping on the shoulder and giving appropriate greetings.

I have to say all the school staff says Collin is the politest child they have in the school so it must be working!!

Connie

PS....welcome again

Connie

[lorraine]

You're welcome gregl

Think there's a bit of confusion going on here LOL

Lorraine

[shele337]

I taught special ed for 6 years and during that time taught several social skills classes. If you could give me a general idea of things that concern you or areas you'd like to see improvement in, I'd be happy to help if I can. The most important thing is to be very specific with your social skills goals.....including how you want your child to practice the skill and how you want to measure success(ie: responding when prompted, responding spontaniously, etc). Also, whatever goals are included, your child MUST have an opportunity to directly practice these skills, just like academic goals. That's the hardest part about goals for social skills.......making sure they are being directly taught and opportunities for practice are given(ie: role playing etc).

[momofrussell]

Welcome to BOTH new members posting here!

You know this is something we keep discussing with Russell. Although he functions like a baby, he will be 10 in a couple days.. and he can't keep wanting to rough house, bite, etc.. to have fun or communicate his needs... and I keep telling the school "no time like the present" to introduce "appropriate" social skills

Russell does NOT know how to shake hands, etc... and what is and isn't appropriate... and I really don't want a 25 yr old biting or roughing around when it's not appropriate! LOL

A.

[shele337]

momofrussell said:

Russell does NOT know how to shake hands, etc... and what is and isn't appropriate... and I really don't want a 25 yr old biting or roughing around when it's not appropriate! LOL

A.

I'm so glad to see someone else say this! My family laughed at me when I told them that we are teaching Xander(age 4) to shake hands. We've also taught him to give a "high 5". My exact reasoning was because shaking hands is much more socially appropriate than hugs and kisses....or touching people's faces(which Xande loves to do!). And giving a "high 5" is more appropriate than everyone kissing all over him when he does something right....because he won't be getting kisess from strangers/school personel! (though we do still give lots of kisses...just not as a reward for doing something right)

[gregl]

shele337 said:

I taught special ed for 6 years and during that time taught several social skills classes. If you could give me a general idea of things that concern you or areas you'd like to see improvement in, I'd be happy to help if I can. The most important thing is to be very specific with your social skills goals.....including how you want your child to practice the skill and how you want to measure success(ie: responding when prompted, responding spontaniously, etc). Also, whatever goals are included, your child MUST have an opportunity to directly practice these skills, just like academic goals. That's the hardest part about goals for social skills.......making sure they are being directly taught and opportunities for practice are given(ie: role playing etc).

[gregl]

To Shele337:
Here are some ideas that I had. Amy is not interacting very much with her peers on the playground at school. She wants to but either doesn't know how or can't keep up or resorts to pushing. She gets no direction from staff except when she does something wrong. I wonder if scheduled play time with specific "play buddies" can be written into an IEP? With oversight and direction from an adult? Socialization starts in school and carries over to after school activities. Amy is active in dance and skating, but these functions are structured around the "activity", with little time for mixing. How could we structure interactive play time with other kids? Or is this something most school systems would say "we don't have time for that"?

[Chris too]

Hey, I didn't know that this is where the new members were hanging out! Welcome Diane & gregl to Unomas!! I am no help at all on the IEPs since we'll be having our first (crossing fingers) in June.

Just wanted to welcome the new guys!

[dibrom]

Hello,
Thank you everyone for the warm welcomes. I LOVE this place, it is so great to hear other story's similar to ours, it's wonderful to know we are not alone!!!

gregl- I think you could put it in her IEP if you can word it educationally. "Amy needs to learn to work with others to be able to complete group tasks in class."
It could be a goal similar to Ethan's "Associated Objective #3: Ethan will take turns with a peer for 3 turns during a game measured periodically . Mastered criteria 70%"

They still work with him on this even though he is much better, he still has his share of battles so I plan on keeping it on his IEP. He is going on to 1st grade so we will have a new teacher, I am so worried that she won't be as concerned about "life skills" vs. "educational skills" I can't stand when they throw that out there......

Even if she is not doing group activites at this point she will be in the future and it's much easier to teach them now then later when they are set in their ways.

[laurasmom]

We have written various social goals into Laura's IEP. When she was younger one of the things we concentrated on was appropriate greetings, not hugging everyone. We used the "bullseye" method to help her understand, the center of the bullseye were the people you hugged, and we put pics of family, very close friends in. The next circle were the half-hug people, where you could put one arm around and give a light squeeze. That included a few family friends, certain close friends of Laura's, and her teacher. The outside circle was the "handshake" circle, which included just about everyone else.
In the older elementary grades, we asked for and got social time for Laura with 3 other girls, non disabled. A couple of afternoons a week they got together during school for about 30 minutes, and talked, played games. The activities were decided upon by the sped and gened teachers together. This worked really well, and Laura loved it, and we did see a change in her social skills, especially in initiating conversations, and participating in small group activity.

Middle school is a whole nother world. One of her speech therapists did work on conversational skills. She goes to high school next year, will be interesting to see what we can do.

But, to make a long story short, yes, social goals are a great part of the IEP. What I found more difficult was picking the best goals to be worked on.

Sharon