Self-assessment of Social Skills!

Are your self-assessment of social skills methods meaningful for your students?

updated 4/2024

Student self-assessment tools provide valuable insight into how a student is functioning in a given area from their personal perspective. It is also important to include ratings from familiar adults for information about how they view the targeted skills of the student. Students typically need explanation, examples and support in order for them to provide honest and constructive answers on a self-assessment tool. In the busy world of the teacher or SLP, it can be tempting to simply provide the self-rating scale to the student with minimal instruction. However, if you spend some time exploring student perspectives, it can be an impactful experience for your student. Here are some considerations for making self-assessment a meaningful and reflective experience for your students during speech therapy.

Student Self-assessment of Targeted Skills

Review and teach the vocabulary: Review the self-assessment tool you are using with the student. Ensure they understand the vocabulary, the rating system and the statements they will be rating. Check out this post on the vocabulary of social skills instruction!
Ask for evidence and examples: Have students support their ratings with evidence. Use questions such as “How does that look in the classroom? Can you give me examples of you performing this skill? Tell me about the last time you used this skill successfully? Do you ever use this skill during our speech therapy sessions?”
Challenge ratings that you suspect may not be reflective of the student’s actual performance through questioning and requesting examples from the student.
Do self-assessments 1:1. Review of self assessment measures with a student are best done in 1:1 situations. Since speech language pathologists and special education teachers often hold therapy groups, we might be tempted to make the self-assessment a group project. Reviewing it in a group, instead of during an individual speech therapy session, may lead to the student inflating the ratings or not feeling comfortable being honest and reflective and that defeats the purpose of the self-assessment.
Goal setting: Use the information to transition to goal-setting. Ask student, tell me some of your higher rating skills? Tell me about the skills where you rated yourself lower? What areas are there for us to work on in speech?
Allot time: Ensure have adequate time for this review process. Students benefit from time to think and reflect upon their skills and this process is a beneficial step towards increasing their self-awareness.
INDIVIDUALIZE! Find rating scales that are useful for the age group and functioning of your student. Use editable rating scales such as this one from my store: Social Skills Self Assessment Tools: Middle and High School. You can edit them by adding areas of concern that may not be covered in the self-assessment tool, reducing the number of questions, or changing the word to be more relatable to your students.

The powerpoint can be used as a printable or during teletherapy. It includes self and teacher rating scales for the follow social communication, emotional regulation, executive functioning and SEL skills listed below.

8. Assess other areas: Don’t forget to assess other areas that potentially impact social skills! Areas such as self-control, impulsivity, organization, and understanding social cues have a significant impact upon the social functioning of the student.

Remember, the notion that children with autism spectrum disorders lack an interest in social interactions is often inaccurate. Many children with ASD do indeed desire social involvement, however, these children typically lack the necessary skills to interact effectively. A self-assessment can often help uncover these skill areas.

Parent/teacher Assessment of the Student’s Social Skills

In addition to the student self-rating, be sure to have another adult also rate the student using the same rating scale.

Parent/teacher Instructions: Make sure the adult performing the assessment of the student’s social skills has adequate instructions as to how to complete it. You can send a cover letter or an email with additional instructions. I like to remind parents and teachers that they are rating how the student performs the skill area without prompts or cues! In my product, you have the option of editing the parent/teacher letter or printing a hard copy.

2. Observe across settings: Have the parent or teacher perform observations of the student across settings, if possible. Children may perform differently across structured and unstructured settings and formal vs informal settings.

3. Videotape: Have an adult (parent, teacher, or slp) videotape the student in a social setting. You can review the videotape with the student and refer back to the student’s self-ratings.

*Are they accurate?
*Does the student want to change his/her ratings?

4. Peer Group Observation: Make sure that the adult doing the self-rating is able to observe the student with his/her peer group. Students with autism tend to interact better and more easily with adults, because the adults do most of the conversational “work” for the child and are better at making the child comfortable.

5. Opportunity for teacher reflection: Social skills rating scales may get teachers thinking about their own methods for developing social emotional competencies in their classrooms. Teacher ratings of social skills provide the reflective classroom teacher(s) with a mechanism for considering their own SEL competencies and to evaluate the impact their skills levels as teachers have on the implementation of practices that support social-emotional learning.

Compare the Ratings:

It is always interesting to compare the ratings from the teacher/parent/slp to the student’s self-ratings. On my rating scale, I encourage discussion of ratings that are more than 2 points apart, ratings that you sense may be not be an accurate reflection of the skills of the student, and ratings that are potential therapy goals. Another potential benefit of comparing ratings is that students who lack confidence in their social skills (students with anxiety or other mental health issues) may gain confdence from seeing how others rate them. Also, consider the following:

*What settings does the adult see the student in (social, school etc.)?
*What might account for the differences in ratings between the adult and the student? Student perception? Observation opportunities? Other?

Progress monitoring tip! Be sure to re-administer the scale(s) across therapy or assessment cycles to monitor progress!

Good luck conducting meaningful self-assessment of social skills with your students!