Do you use youtube for social skills instruction? Do you incorporate social skills videos into your speech therapy sessions? As a teletherapist, youtube is my go to when I’m working on social skills and I love it when a child has his/her first “youtube during school” experience while he/she is in speech with me. I had a second grader last week who whispered (loudly) “my speech teacher is letting me watch youtube” to his older sibling during teletherapy. “Surprise,” I told him, “youtube has educational videos too!” Let’s chat about why youtube and other social skills videos are so awesome for social skills and speech therapy!
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Why YouTube for social skills?
YouTube for social skills and social skills videos from other sources are the way to go for these reasons:
- Engaging Material: YouTube is new, fun, slick, and interactive. Since many of them watch youtube for fun outside of school, students almost feel like they are breaking some type of school rule when they watch it!
- Authenticity: Worksheets and pictures are static. The component of movement and fluidity in videos lets students practice processing social information as it happens! It’s the next best thing to real life situations!
- Pause and Rewind or Review: Kids can freeze the social interaction to really look at how the faces changed, identify the facial expressions or consider the feelings of the person in the video.
- Safely Explore Social Mistakes: Watching social skills videos can help a child identify a character’s social mistakes and victories without focusing on their own challenges and that can be a safe place to start for many chiildren. Talking about characters can help build a comfort level for kids over time and strengthen their ability to self-reflect on their own social challenges.
View youtube videos safely on viewpure
Safety first when using youtube for social skills, right? Viewpure is free at the time of this writing. You can purify your video before your students view it in therapy or you assign it for homework. All you do is add the youtube url to the search box and click the “purify” button. Viewpure is used to:
- Removing inappropriate ads and comments from videos to show kids
- Removing unwanted related videos at the end to show students
Subscribe to your favorite channels!
Are there certain videos you use all the time in speech therapy? Hit that red subscribe button so you don’t miss out on new content from your favorite youtube creators.
Tech Tip: use a split screen during teletherapy!
When you are using a youtube video with an accompanying activity during teletherapy, a split screen really comes in handy! You can have one screen open to the youtube video and the other screen open to the activity, allowing your students to move from the video to the activity with ease. Not sure how to do a split screen? Check out the video below on how to do it on a mac.
Do you use a PC?
Here’s a tutorial I found on how to do a split screen on Windows 10.
Subscribe to Pinterest boards with youtube videos!
Youtube playlists may eventually replace pinterest boards and they are worth checking out. Find some SLPs or special ed teachers that you like and trust and follow their pinterest boards for youtube for social skills videos. Here are mine!
Badger State Speechy Videos for Elementary Students
Badger State Speechy Videos for Middle and High School Students
Make YouTube Playlists!
Did you know that there is a feature now where you can create your own playlists? It’s awesome! You don’t have to bookmark your favorites anymore-you can make a playlist just like you do with your music! I have playlists for a variety of different skills so when I’m planning for speech therapy sessions or looking for a video on the fly, I can check out my playlists for that particular skill! I don’t make excel lists of social skills videos-I find it easier to make playlists on youtube!
Check out my “go-to” playlists!
Check out my favorite playlist on videos for conversation skills! I have a number of other playlists too, many for social skills or other skills I teach during speech therapy sessions.
Are you wondering how to create a playlist? Check out these steps from the youtube site!
My favorite youtube channels & clips!
An adult male, Jonathan, has some videos where he teaches social-emotional or lessons such as “dealing with disappointment” and “coping with change.” There are also some video modeling clips on social skills such as “making friends in middle school” and “taking turns speaking.”
This youtube channel offers social skills videos at the middle school level as well as other topics such as organization. Check out his playlists too-there’s a great one on figurative language in pop lyrics aand popular culture.
This is a great channel to follow if you see younger kiddoes. There are so many great clips on this channel for emotional regulation, friendship skills, cultural awareness, perseverance and more! Hit that red subscribe button!
4. Short Films, Wordless Animations, Clips:
I don’t have one certain channel I like for short films. Here are a few of my favorite animated, wordless short films:
- Lifted by Pixar: A young alien tries to abduct a human and makes some mistakes along the way! Great for perspective-taking, size of the problem and problem-solving.
- Like an Elephant in a China Shop: An elephant enters a china shop and mayhem ensues….or does it? A great wordless animation for perspective-taking, making inferences and identifying emotions and character traits. I have an accompanying activity packet in my TPT store here!
- Geri’s Game: In this wordless short, an elderly man plays chess against himself as if he was wo people. Great for making inferences about emotions, discussing inattention and perspective-taking.
- The Present: A touching animated film about a boy who prefers playing video games until his mother gives him something special! Great for perspective-taking, making inferences, talking about disabilities and identifying emotions. I have an accompanying tiered activity packet to this film here: Social skills activity to accomany “the present.”
3 Favorites for Speech and Language:
Mystery Doug is a science teacher that produces quality videos that answer questions, mostly about science. He has some five minute videos that are a nice length for a teletherapy session, giving you time to view the video and answer wh questions about it. During my speech therapy sessions, I like to pair a video with the time of year, such as watching “why do skeletons have so many bones?” around Halloween or “why do we celebrate April fool’s day” on or around the first of April!
2. Super Simple Songs-Kid’s Songs
This is one for the younger kiddoes! They have kid’s songs, nursery rhyme songs and songs for movement breaks! This channel has a “celebrate diversity” playlist that features 22 songs where the “cartoon characters” have darker skin colors. I mostly use this channel for my younger articulation students (to teach rhyming) and students with autism (they have a “see you later, alligator” song that’s fun to play at the end of sessions). Check out all of their holiday video songs too!
If you aren’t using “peachie speechie’s” articulation videos, you are missing out! She has a full playlist of 21 articulation videos where she demonstrates how to make the sound using the big “mouth model.” Then, she has students practice the sound in isolation. I use them for teletherapy when I am introducing or reviewing a sound and they are great for parent reference too!
Did you know that I send monthly social skills plans for middle and high school to your inbox when you join my newsletter? Let me help you plan your social skills interventions!
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