Vocabulary of Social Skills Instruction

updated 1/23 Do you teach the vocabulary of social skills in your speech therapy or social communication lessons? There has been focus on emotional literacy and social skills groups (check out this post on Social Skills Activities with Vocabulary Components!) SLPs and teachers are teaching the language of emotions. Just as we teach the vocabulary behind academics and emotions, we also need to teach the vocabulary behind new social skills or social communication concepts.

Why teach the vocabulary of social skills?

Many students with social-communication needs, especially those on the autism spectrum, have difficulty with the ‘semantic’ aspects of language. Verbally adept students may develop an extensive, in-depth vocabulary for their special interest. However, they may not understand vocabulary of topics of low interest to them.
Exploring vocabulary involved in social skills instruction can lead to the student’s deeper understanding of the social skill you are teaching them.

How can SLPs incorporate vocabulary of social skills into sessions?

1. Teach Vocabulary of the Social Skills Approach:

Some social skills approaches have a framework that contains specific vocabulary that is present throughout many of its activities. For example, with the social thinking vocabulary, you would teach “expected” and “unexpected.”

2. Teach the Vocabulary specific to the actual skill.

For example, if you are teaching about using a social filter, it is important that your students understand what a “filter” is and how it functions. Show them a strainer as an example.

3. Teach character traits.

Cooperation, trustworthiness, citizenship are all excellent words to explore with your students. Exploring character traits not only helps in the social-emotional arena, it also helps in literacy, literary roles and point of view. Here’s a link to my I’m Done Early: Character Traits product. It includes one page activities to explore 20 vocabulary traits.
Pick character traits that are relevant to things in the news, (tolerance, cooperation). Help your students make connections between the vocabulary and current events.

4. Include targeted vocabulary instruction in your social skills instruction.

This doesn’t just apply to emotional literacy. Think about the specific lingo around conversation skills. Some specific words you might teach include monopolize, dialogue, monologue, interrupt, maintain, and comment. Taking a deeper dive into the vocabulary will enhance your student’s understanding of the topic.

5. Pick 3-4 words from books or videos.

For example, if you are using a video about being a social fake to teach your students that there are times when you can’t say whatever is in your head,spend some times on the word “fake.” It can be quick as in having students give you antonyms and synonyms for the word “fake” and answer questions about if it is ever ok to be “fake.” (Here’s a link to this video if you’re interested: The Social Fake Video on Youtube.

6. For older students, do a Frayer model or word wall.

A FRAYER MODEL is a graphic organizer that helps students determine or clarify the meaning of vocabulary words encountered while listening, reading, and viewing texts. It is used before reading to activate background knowledge, during reading to monitor vocabulary, or after reading to assess vocabulary.

“Show you know” activities.

Students give you a sentence about the selected vocabulary that demonstrates their understanding of the concept.
Facilitate personal connections to the vocabulary.
Use sentence openers such as “tell me about a time you didn’t monopolize a conversation.”
Have students act out a word.
If you are working on “interrupting,” have them act out interrupting each other in a conversation.

7. Probe student understanding of vocabulary

When I was a CFY, I would have students tell me what words they didn’t understand. For example, I’d ask them to “circle the words in this paragraph that are unfamiliar to you.” Then, we would review the circled words…only. I don’t do that anymore. Students don’t always know what they don’t know. Or, they may want to rush through a task so they don’t admit to “not knowing.” If I feel certain words are vital for them to understand in order to benefit from social skills instruction, I will teach them, or at least probe the student’s knowledge of the word(s) prior to my speech therapy or social communication instruction.