Social Skills Groups: Middle & High School

Are you running social skills groups with middle and high school students?

Yes? This blog post is for you if you are looking for a calendar and/or template to use for each session. If you are looking for more specific lesson plans, check out the free lesson plans in my TPT store!!

It can be tough to structure and run these groups. I always feel like I’m walking a fine line between being overly structured (and not representing a “real” or “spontaneous” communication interaction), and not being structured enough. Without structure, groups can get unruly depending upon the members of the group. It’s like either no-one talks or some members talk too much and take over the group. I tend to run social skills group more on the structured end, until I feel the students have mastered the skills and/or follow the rules of the group. If you struggle with running social skills groups with older students, here’s a template to consider for your speech therapy social communication sessions.

1. Begin your social skills groups with a greeting:

Start with a greeting where students greet eachother by name. During the first session, perhaps one student can introduce another student to the group or students can introduce themselves. You can make this multicultural by having a list of how we can verbally greet eachother in other languages.

“Selam” in turkish,
“Hola” in spanish,
“Salut” in french, and
“Goedendag” in dutch.

Consider having students wear name tags for the first few sessions to help them learn and remember names.

2. Icebreaker:

Icebreakers are especially helpful for the first session or two of a social skills group. Check out this prior post on Icebreakers for middle and high school students. I like icebreakers that help students discover things they have in common with other students.

If you are looking for something digital to use in a teletherapy platform, you might find this product helpful: No Print Icebreakers for Middle and High School. These activities work well if you are working in a large classroom or you need digital activities for a teletherapy platform. One of my favorite speech therapy icebreakers is called “the long and the short of it.” Students are given different lengths of yarn and presented with sentence starters. They must keep talking about the topic until the yarn is wrapped around their finger. If you are working in teletherapy, you could use a timer instead of the yarn!

3. Teach the skill(s):

I start out the school year with a list of social skills I need to cover in the group. I first write down the skills related to the IEP goals of the group participants. I then add any skills from applicable common core state standards or things I have observed.

Here are some skills I typically cover in my social skills groups for older students. It is not intended to be an all-inclusive list. I also might include some holiday related social skills activities! If I have a blog post on the skill, I have linked it below for your convenience.

Remain flexible and add any skills you think would benefit your group as issues arise. For example, when a student brought up issues around being bullied, I added a session on “how to respond to a bully.”

TIP: go to my home page. Click on “blog” on the top menu. You’ll see a dropdown of blog pieces organized by month.

4. Practice the Skill(s):

Have some practice time in your social skills groups where you practice the skill(s) you have taught the students using structured games and activities. Make the practice relevant by being topical and seasonal. Consider upcoming holidays. For example, in November, practice conversations that might occur around the thanksgiving table. In the spring, practice asking questions about summer plans.

This might also involve presentation of a story or video clip and anyalysis. I have a pinterest board where I save and add video clips that can be used in social skills activities: Social Communication Videos for Middle and High School.

You might also find this bundle helpful for structuring your analysis of the videos and finding materials for topics like tone of voice, perspective-taking, understanding emotions and cultivating conversation skills:

Let’s Talk: Social Communication Bundle for Middle and High School.

Here’s a sample activity from my tone of voice packet which is in the above bundle.

Consider videotaping students during conversational exchanges and then analyzing these videos with your students.

5. Summarize the social skills session:

Summarize what you did during the session or have a student give a summary statement. This is a good time to give students homework or ideas of how they can continue to practice the skills adressed during the session.