TUESDAY TIP!
Social Communication Skills
When learning a new skill, the feeling of success and enjoyment are major driving forces for the continued desire to engage in the activity. Desire to engage in the activity leads to more opportunity to practice, which leads to improvement, which leads to feelings of success and enjoyment, which increases the desire to engage in the activity…and the cycle repeats.
This is no different when it comes to an individual learning and working to improve social interaction and social communication abilities.
The cycle of learning social communication skills:
Desire to engage socially —> more opportunity to practice social skills —> improvement with social skills —> feeling of success and enjoyment in social interactions —> increased desire to engage socially —> even more opportunity to practice social skills. And so on…
Social interactions are hard! To be successful in these complex interactions, individuals are required to initiate interactions, follow turns and topics of conversations, use appropriate nonverbal language (e.g., body language, facial expressions, eye contact), use appropriate symbolic language, recognize and repair communicative breakdowns, and respond to contextual and nonverbal cues that reflect a partner’s attentional focus, background knowledge, and preferences. This can take time…so where do we start?
As a communication partner, your goal is to
Ensure your child finds social interactions emotionally satisfying
This can be done by interpreting and responding positively to their attempts at interaction and communication (verbal or nonverbal), which encourages improvement within those interactions, so that they feel successful. Social communication success is a partnership.
Stay tuned for more Tuesday Tips!
Link Therapies