Friendship class or Social Skills class - do they help?

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I'm thinking about putting my 8 year old son in a friendship class, designed by the social worker at his school. He is in 2nd grade, and she plans to have a couple more children like him in the class.

My son has mild Aspergers. At 8 years old, he has friends that he plays with daily - and he enjoys it. In fact, playing with friends is what he would do all day if he could. He makes social mistakes, but more often than not - he corrects himself, says he was "just kidding," or apologizes profusely. He often pretends he understands something when he doesn't. While his behavior doesn't always fly under the radar with his teachers, it does with his friends.

What I would like him to learn - or improve upon - is his ability to discern who is a friend, and who isn't. Is a "friend" that lies to you or trys to get you in trouble a friend? Is a "friend" someone you've never met? What are your friends names?! (If they're a friend - at a minimum you should know their name....)

So, question is - will "social skills" or "friendship" class benefit him? I asked him if he wants to do this and he wants very much to - get out of regular class and play games with a few friends in the social workers office..... (did I mention he's pretty smart )

Welcome to WP

The answer depends on the teacher/facilitator and your approach. A good teacher/facilitator will tailor the class to the needs of the children in it, will focus on teaching basic social skills, and will be open/receptive to your ideas and input. I suggest you tell the teacher what you want your child to get out of the class and keep the communication open with the teacher. Also, this is a long-run thing, you shouldn't expect results or changes in weeks or months...you've got to be in it for the long haul. 2nd grade is young, and your child will go through many changes in the coming years and may lose friends as he gets older and his differences become more apparent. If the teacher is in it for the long haul and the social skills class can be a constant through elementary school and middle school, it will be hugely beneficial. It was for us. Best of luck!

I think that a social skills class at school could be VERY beneficial. I've had two boys with Asperger's, and both had social skills classes at their elementary school. With the oldest, this was before we even knew anything about asperger's -- and it was helpful. With our second son, he was diagnosed with PDD-NOS, and had speech-related social skills classes from day one of elementary school, through the six grade, and the speech teacher really knew what she was doing with kids on the spectrum. It was VERY helpful.

Having said that, I have to say that I'm not a big believer in social skills classes with a big group of kids on the spectrum, as they tend to perpetuate behavior that makes it hard to make friends at school, from each other. The plus side of that sort of thing is that they have built-in friends, so I guess that it's a plus in that way. But as far as learning behavior from peers, it's better to have a social skills group at school -- it's just more productive in my opinion.

How were the social skills classes helpful? What exactly did your child learn that he wouldn't have learned without the classes?

I'm in a quandary about this because 1.) currently he has friends and a very active social life with neighborhood children, classmates, and team-mates in gymnastics. (He does make mistakes, sometimes over-reacts to criticism, talks too loudly, and has difficulty being told what to do... - but it hasn't been a HUGE deterrent to friendships... as of yet. And 2.) in the friendship class there will be other children who need help with social skills as well - will my son pick up bad behaviors from them? i.e. could I be making matters worse rather than better? The social worker tells me she needs at least 3-4 kids to be able to teach effectively, so they can practice with each other. The idea is that they then can go back to class and use what they learn in their classroom environments.

I'm also really curious about your comment that as he gets older his differences will become more apparent and he may lose friends -- how so? How can I lessen this from happening? (Can it be prevented with social skill support ?)

Social skills classes can be very useful, or a complete waste of time. It really depends on what the 'social skills' being taught are, and how the teacher goes about teaching them.

For example, some people think of 'social skills' as things like making eye contact, smiling, using proper expressions, and so forth. Basically, they are just thinking about the superficial appearances. Now I will admit that learning how to 'fake normality' with one's superficial expressions and body language is a useful skill. It comes in handy at things like job interviews, and other occasions where first impressions are important. But overall, it doesn't help much in the long run. You can fake normality for a few hours, or perhaps even a few days, but you can't fake normality forever. It is just too draining, and furthermore who want's to live their life pretending to be somebody that they arent?

So all that to say, if the 'social skills class' is just an attempt to teach your child to smile the right way, walk the right way, and so forth then don't bother. Those may be useful skills to learn for interviews and such later in life, but for now they aren't important, and only serve to put more pressure on the child to change who he is in an ill conceived attempt to fit in.

It is also possible that the term 'social skills' refers to proper etiquette, or more commonly known as manners. For example, some people think of social skills as saying things like 'thank you', 'please', 'hello, how are you today?' and what not. There is also cultural conventions about things like holding open doors, and so forth. And I would have to admit that teaching your child to know about proper manners isn't going to hurt him, but it isn't exactly going to help him.

If he is anything like me at his age, he is very confused by all the crazy (aka normal) people around him. Teaching him proper manners will help him be nice to the crazy people around him, but it isn't going to help deal with the core problem, which is a complete lack of understanding all the crazy people. So while I would put manners in the 'nice to know' category, I wouldn't consider it to be especially helpful.

A third meaning of 'social skills' is teaching your child how to respond to certain situations. For example, if Classmate A says this, then you should do that. Basically, it is breaking down social interaction into a series of if-then flow charts. This is a usable technique that can be beneficial in learning simple things like 'ice breakers' or 'small talk'. I have these sorts of flow chart style conversations worked out in my head, and I have to admit that they are useful when I am stuck talking about the weather with somebody who is being overly social in my general direction.

However, much like proper manners, this is one of those things which, while not harmful, doesn't really address the core problem which is a lack of understanding the crazy people. It might be useful for pre-scripted, and predictable social events, but it doesn't really allow for much flexibility or adaptability. In other words, it is good for the first 5 minutes of conversation, but not very effective when you are trying to build a lasting friendship.

The fourth, and perhaps most accurate (IMO) meaning of social skills is learning to understand people who are different then you. The world is full of all sorts of people who are different then you, and learning to understand and consider their thoughts, emotions, and moods, is important in effectively communicating with them. Of course, the problem is that figuring out how crazy people think can be challenging, after all they are crazy. And that is where good 'social skills classes' can come in handy. Taking the time to analyze a situation, and figure out what people were thinking (and also why they were thinking it) goes along way in helping you learn how other people operate.

Just take an everyday conversation, and turn it into a case study. For example, John says something to Suzy, and Suzy does XYZ. Why did Suzy do what she did? Well, to start off, lets look at why John said what he did. What point was he trying to make? Consider not just his words, but also the context, and the relationship between the two people. And keeping that in mind, consider what interpretations Suzy could get from what John said. Could Suzy have misinterpreted what John said? What did Suzy think john meant, and does that explain her actions? Basically, the social skills class becomes a case study of human behavior, sort of like an applied psychology class, but simplified for children.

This method is somewhat of an indirect route for helping your child with relationships. It doesn't give him any specific advice, but it does help him to understand other people better. And while it may take some time, it is ultimately going to prove the most helpful in building and maintaining good, and functional interactions.

I personally think that all children should get this sort of 'social skills training'. After all, understanding and effectively communicating with other people who may be different then you is a useful skill that all people should learn. And I do get annoyed when people think that autistic children need to learn social skills, but normal children don't have to bother with it. It sets up a discriminatory double standard which says that autistic people have to learn how to adapt and understand others, but normal people are under no such expectations. Ignoring the needs of everybody to make an effort to understand others is harmful, not only to the minority, but to the majority as well. However, I will get off my soap box, and get back to the question at hand.

So, to answer your original statement of 'will this help?' It really depends on what is being taught in these classes. It certainly may help, or it might just be a waste of time. So talk to the person who runs the event and ask them what type of things they discuss, and how this is actually supposed to help the child. Beyond that, if her reasoning seems to be reasonable, and your child is interested in trying it out, then I say go for it. The worst that can happen is the class turns out to be pointless and your child stops attending it after a few tries.

Nah. Name or face or something, but why specifically their names? As long as you know who it is... (Now, if you don't have any idea who they are, that's different.)



Well... be careful. If he says he's not being respected, or if it sounds like he's not being respected, anything like that, be ready to let him quit. There are some really bad ones.

I believe children with AS should have explicit instructions in social skills, and an adult may very well be able to help a child distinguish who is a friend and who isn't.

However many adults, though well intentioned, don't actually know how children socialize as far as making friends go, so if I had a child with AS, and I wished them to know how to make friends as a child, I'd be sure to enroll them in a social skills course designed by someone who is familiar with socialization between children.

Thank you so much! This has been very enlightening! I think I would like him to be in the social skills class - it seems like it could do very little harm and very likely be good for him.

I think Tracker, you make a good point - I think my son will benefit more from learning how to decode what people are expressing, than he will in learning how to act and talk formulaically. I don't want him to be limited to following a phrase-book when needed. I would like him to learn what people are saying to him not only with words but by their actions, expressions, and behavior -- so that HE can make good choices because he has, in fact, understood what is going on around him.

I agree with you!

Our current service providers have enrolled DS in a program called Secret Agent Society http://www.sst-institute.net/

I'm incredibly excited about it; if you watch the video, you will see that it breaks down social interactions into verbal and nonverbal cues, emotions into physical symptoms (?) and deals with personal feelings as well as how to interact. It's got an aspect of CBT to it as well (when they presented it to us, they showed us the helpful thought "missiles" which you direct towards negative thoughts) It is a thoughtful program (that has a very short infomercial!) and offers research that it helps improve social interaction in kids with AS.

DS will be doing this program with a therapist in a group setting, but there is a "home" version that offers both a board game and a computer game. It's a long program (I think they said 16 sessions once a week,) but I will report back as I have better information.

Tracker- what an incredibly awesome response to the subject. Thank you for taking the time to do that, it was eye opening to read such a frank explanation. Thank you.

An update on Secret Agent Society - thus far, it's working really well:

There are 6 other kids in my son's group, and they are all very different - some struggle with ordinary conversation, some are the archetypal "gifted" aspies who are in special academic programs, and some are in the middle, like my son; all have some degree of difficulty with social interaction, but this also varies a lot from child to child. I've found that just being around other Aspies is a great comfort to my son - that in itself has been worthwhile.

There is only 1 computer with the game on it for all 6 kids, so the kids work with the therapists in a group, and each child takes turns with the computer. The first part of the game was all about identifying facial expressions, tone of voice, and physical cues of other people's feelings. When they each finished with the computer, the kids were asked to share experiences of when they saw, for instance, an angry person or a happy person and to describe in detail how their eyes, mouth, and posture looked, and to copy their tone of voice. I didn't post about this, because we weren't seeing any changes in DS's outlook or behavior that I could connect with this class - but mostly that's because he has a good understanding of these cues.

This week, however, they started working on identifying their own feelings: this was enlightening for me, and I think for my son as well. The game involved identifying heart rate, breathing rate, muscle tension and ability to think clearly for happiness, anxiety, anger and sadness - DS did OK at that. However, the game moved on to a kind of mechanical claw that needed to "grab" thought bubbles for one particular emotion - DS got all the "happy" thoughts correct, but we found out something important: he categorized all the other thoughts as "angry." (so, he thought "people don't really like me" was just as angry as "I want to hit him!")

When you make an error in this game, the agent's helper (sort of the game's version of Q) verbally goes over the content of the thought, which category it fits into and why. DS caught on quickly and when he went back to the group discussion of the same thing, he was able to correctly identify anxiety and sadness. I could be reading into things, but I thought he seemed more at ease after the game, like this new understanding had an immediate effect on him.

What this class offers thus far is two things: one, it's giving me real insight into exactly where my son is struggling and why (no wonder we have had difficulty with his behavior if he thinks sadness and anxiety are angry feelings, right?) two, it's using my son's strengths to help him cognitively grasp what neurotypical kids learn experientially. I continue to be excited about this program.

While this program has the "perk" of being a fun video game (though of course DS struggles every time he gets some thing "wrong", so "fun" might be a strong word) I think parents could do the same sort of thing at home. I found it to be no different than teaching my son to ride a bike, or to read, or whatever: breaking social interaction down into the smallest components possible, making sure he cognitively understands each part and how it fits, and then gradually building the pieces back into a cohesive experience. I would have had difficulty breaking things down to the degree that it's been done in the game, but I'm sure there are other books or guides that can give you a jumping-off place.

Um, kind of like building a Lego structure...

I definitely had my daughter join the school 'friendship club' in second grade. She has always been outgonig and more than happy to apporach and interact with other kids. for this reason, most of her teachers felt she was 'okay' socially. I needed to refuse to sign her IEP and sit down to special mediation to get them to really evaluate her social skills. She makes lots and lots of attempts - on the surface she seems 'okay' but if you really watch what is happening, she tries very hard but does not succeed. Many children just walk away from her because of her ramble. She is not good at interactive play - she dominates them. The special interest talk is over the top. And on and on... all things the teachers missed but a detailed analysis caught.

If your son is definitely an Aspie, I would definitely recommend a social skills class no matter how accomplished he seems to be. It can only help.

My aspie son is 16 and has been going to Social Skills class for three years. This is the last year he is eligable. He thinks it was a waste of time and he didnt think he "had" what the other kids did. After discussing it with the leader, she said he was just like them. My son may not have enjoyed the classes but I know he applied what they taught. Just give it a try.

Social skills class that I had in 7th grade seemed to help some but seemed too generic and did not address the social climate of middle school in the late 1980's which was social darwinism at best, and socially canabalistic at worst. The book she was working out of seemed to have been put together in the 1950's. I learned alittle but was bullied and isolated so much that I never had a chance to practice my skills untill high school but still the program was hugely outdated for today's social climate.

My son joined a friendship class and was an ace at it. Because they gave him "the rules" they stuck with him and did great. He even went out of his way to befriend one of the kids who was really struggling with the class. Unfortunately he "graduated" out of the class - I wish they'd continue it for him.

This is all so interesting. My son's therapist says a huge percentage of kids in those classes can't generalize what they learned outside the group so she didn't recommend it for my son. Instead, I bought Thinking of You Thinking of Me, by Michelle Garcia Winner and the corresponding curriculum to do at home. I'll try to remember to report how it goes. My son is 9 1/2 and does quite well socially except in large groups. At home, though, he has a ton of Theory of Mind problems. This curriculum should help with that and with future social problems.