What are social skills?

Social skills, or pragmatic language, is the term that refers to a child’s ability to interact with other people.  Many different skills fall under social skills, including understanding social rules, using correct body language, using appropriate language, and using empathy to understand someone else’s point of view.  Many children with language delays also have difficulty with social interaction.

How does pragmatic therapy work?

As children get older, the social skill demands get higher.  Children with language delays often have difficulty making inferences, such as making inferences about how someone is feeling.  The speech therapist will use a variety of different techniques to identify and address where breakdowns in social communication occur. The following are just some of the skills students in middle school might need work on:

• Topic Maintenance
  • Topic Maintenance refers to a child’s ability to stay on topic during a conversation.  Many children with social skill problems have difficulty staying on topic for an appropriate length of time. 
• Self-Calming Skills
  • Although it may not seem like a social skill, our ability to manage ourselves and our moods impacts our social interactions greatly.  If a child has difficulty knowing how to calm himself down and deal with emotional ups and downs, it can affect his ability to build and maintain friendships. ​
• Figurative language
  • Children with language delays often have difficulty understanding and using figurative language such as idioms, similes, and metaphors.