Social Skills and Teletherapy

I get it. When you think of providing social communication therapy, teletherapy might not seem like the best service delivery option for speech therapy. You might even think, how can you work on social skills when you are not person to person? After all, the word “social” conjures up images of people talking, in person and face to face. In the brick and mortar school or clinic setting, we think of social skills sessions or groups as often consisting of 2 or more students, talking and playing games that target social skills in a face to face or side by side format. The image of a computer screen doesn’t come to mind.

When I first started doing teletherapy, I had some similar concerns swirling around in my speech therapy head. Now that I’ve been doing social skills sessions during teletherapy, I no longer have these concerns. Here’s what my experiences have been:

Students that disliked social skills sessions in the brick and mortar setting seem to enjoy it more online. Why? Maybe they feel more comfortable in their homes and don’t feel the peer pressure they felt at brick and mortar.
Some of my high school students are craving positive adult attention. These students want an adult who can help them become more successful in the social arena.
The definition of communication is changing. More companies are moving to online interviews, meetings and work at home scenarios. People are finding partners online. In the digital age, our definition of social communication has to include situations like video chats, texting, emailing, as well as face-to-face communication!

If you’ve followed my blog, you know that I believe that the teaching and instruction piece of social skills training is just as important as the practicing of social skills. The instruction piece can easily be done online! How?

Don’t break the bank with all new materials.

Look to your static pdfs that you have on your computer. You know, the teaching materials, cards and even worksheets that you used to print out for your sessions. Also, know what features your teletherapy platform offers! If you are on a platform that offers the features of screen sharing and digital annotation, students can see and interact (write, circle, color, underline) with the material. Most platforms have video so you can see your students and converse with them just as you would if you were person to person.

teletherapy distance learning, speech therapy, social skills, pragmatics

Use Task Cards from static pdfs!

Did you use task cards during your brick and mortar sessions to practice social skills? You still can. Look at the pdfs that you already have that contain social skills cards. Hallelujah! You can put the scissors and laminator away. Instead of cutting out those cards, see if you can modify them in an online format. Can the student verbalize, circle, underline, use stickers or use a text box to answer the questions on the cards as in the picture above.

Boom social skills, speech therapy, teletherapy, social communication, pragmatics

I have a line of Boom cards specifically for social skills for both elementary and middle and high school students that you can find here in my TPT store or learn about them in a prior blog post. Check out a sample of from my on or off topic boom cards for middle and high school.

Use youtube videos!

What did we do before Youtube videos? There are a ton of videos that can be used to teach social skills. You can find many housed on my youtube videos pinterest boards for elementary and middle and high school. You can also use movie shorts to work on social inferencing like in the picture below which is from my social skills short called like an elephant in a china shop. Use a split screen and have the youtube video on one side and the worksheet or a visual on the right!

youtube social skills, speech therapy, social skills, teletherapy, pragmatics, online instruction

You can also find some read-aloud social skills books on youtube!

Know your camera/video options!

First of all, explore your video options on the platform you are using. For practice of social skills, use a side by side video option, if it is available on your platform. Also, make your video screens are large as possible. While we are on the topic of video/camera, let me warn you that some students will refuse to have their cameras on during your session. Sometimes, this is surmountable by getting help from the learning coach. Other times, this can be a sign of social anxiety and emotional dysregulation, and this is how it manifests itself in teletherapy. In the latter situation, try to ease in to having the camera on during sessions. Start out with camera off, then camera on for increasing amounts of time. There are some students who just won’t work with the camera on and you have to meet them where they are at!

teletherapy, camera off, social skills, speech therapy, anxiety

When the camera is on, you should be able to tell if your student is looking towards you (versus looking down at their phone or i pad) so you can still provide feedback on their nonverbal communication skills during your sessions.

Use Visuals!

Use visuals, just like you would in a brick and mortar session. You can display the visuals on one side of a split screen, draw them on a white board or write them using digital annotation. In the image below, I am teaching a high school student about Kari Dunn Buron’s, “a five is against the law.” I have a visual on the left that I made in smart notebook and I use the whiteboard on the right to write my social scenario for him to rate. He uses digital annotation to rate my scenarios using the scale we established together. He has the visual to refer to during the actiivity.

speech therapy, social skills, teletherapy, online therapy

Split Screen!

The split screen comes in handy for many types of activities we do in therapy! The image below is from a session I did using conversation scripts. My student’s camera is hidden (confidentiality) but his video camera would be right next to mine in a session. We review a script, analyze, and fix it! Then, we roleplay the fixed script!

Not sure how to do a split screen? Here’s a mac tutorial . I’m a mac girl but here a link to a split screen tutorial for windows 10.

Record the Student!

Some teletherapy platforms have allow you to record your session! So, you can record students (with permission) while they are practicing social skills and then analyze the recording during a session, perhaps with the video on one side of the screen and a whiteboard with questions on the other side! Check with your teletherapy company or school for any restrictions on student recording.

Some teletherapists run social skills groups. There are MANY considerations related to billing, confidentiality etc. so be sure to check with your adminisrator prior to setting up a social skills group. Each student would have the same link to your teletherapy session. If you aren’t able to run a social skills group, you could include the learning coach or a sibling in your practice sessions. Some virtual schools offer social skills groups run by the special education teacher. Ask to attend the group periodically or consult with the teacher who runs the group.