Social communication skills are skills that enable us to share experiences, thoughts, and emotions. They are needed for language expression and comprehension of nonverbal and verbal language. Children typically develop social communication skills by observing and interacting with others but for some children, they need help in learning these skills.
Social communication skills include the ability to:
adjust speech style based on context
understand the perspectives of others
understand and appropriately use the rules for verbal and nonverbal communication
pay attention to relevant details and ignore irrelevant ones
use context and body language and other cues to make reasonable inferences about what is happening and why
develop flexibility in thinking and consider logical possibilities
understand key factors in evaluating and considering another person's perspectives
recognize that people in the same situation can have different thoughts and have different opinions
recognize other people's feelings and attempt to solve social problems
recognize the paralinguistic features of conversations that communicate sarcasm in order to react appropriately in social situations
pay attention to body language, facial expressions, tone of voice
develop and maintain friendships
Some children, for a variety of reasons, may struggle in acquiring these skills which may lead to them being bullied, isolated and/or struggling to develop and maintain friendships.
At ABC Pediatric Therapies Clinic here in Orleans, a few minutes for downtown Ottawa, our speech language pathologists offer services and programs that strive to help develop and improve social communication skills so that every child can reach their full potential. One such program is the ABC Social Stars Intensive Summer Program.
The goal of the ABC Social Stars Speech Therapy Group is to provide ample authentic social learning opportunities in order to help develop and improve social communication skills.
Some of the skills targeted in this group will be how to join in play or in an activity, how to think about other's thoughts and emotions, how to resolve conflits, how to read nonverbal social cues, how to share and take turns, how to initiate conversation and play, how to be flexible in plan and interactions, and more!
Sources consulted:
https://www.asha.org/practice-portal/clinical-topics/social-communication-disorder
Social Language Training, LinguiSystems