Social Skills Groups
EARLY LEARNERS PLAYGROUP and SOCIAL SKILLS GROUPS
Commencing in October 2008, LEARN will host an Early Learners Play Group and four different levels of Social Skills Groups at the LEARN centre at 217 Canning Highway, East Fremantle.
All groups are restricted to four children only and must be assessed by the Social Skills Group Coordinator before being made eligible. LEARN places an emphasis on matching the children in a group in such a way that they will get maximum benefit from the shared learning experiences and from each other.
We have designed this program to complement our learning and development programs. Importantly, we have merged developmental research and learning science to maximise the ease with which we can teach your child to discover, navigate, influence and understand the social world to have their social and interpersonal needs met.
In keeping with our philosophy of using objective measurement we will conduct regular assessments to verify that the programs for your child are working.
LEARN social skills groups are matched and have a ratio of one therapist for every two children. We also have a coordinator who will assist when required and conduct assessments.
LEARN will run a Play Group for Early Learners and four levels of Social Skills Groups depending on the child’s current program goals and level of speech. The Early Learners Playgroup will run for 90 minutes, while the Social Skills Groups run for 2 hours.
Groups run for 10 weeks and will run most afternoons after school and through the school holidays, as well as Saturday afternoons during school term, depending on numbers.
The cost for the groups is $65/hr. Places are limited so please advise us as early as possible if you are interested.
To register your interest or get further information, please contact Mandy Mason at LEARN on (08) 9438 3800 or This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it
Early Learners Play Group:
The primary purpose of this group is to teach children ways to play in the presence of other children and engage in the basic skills necessary for social development.
Type of child: This group is designed for children who are using minimal to no speech but can follow simple one step directions and has the basic learning skills established.
Aims of group:
- Basic play skills
- Turn taking
- Sharing
- Tolerance of other children
- Ways to learn from observation and modelling
- Compliance and Attending to instruction in group settings
- Simple requesting (using PECS, Makaton or Speech)
- Greetings
Social Skills Group: Discoverer
The primary purpose of this group is to expose the child to the various social environments that our natural world uses to teach us social skills. These environments are:
- Interactive Play (pairs and groups)
- Interactive Games
- Role Play
- Modelling of others
- Attending to and telling stories (eg newstelling)
- Shared activities and goals
- Free play
The discover group is primarily targeted at developing your child’s abilities to learn social skills and remove their fears, confusion or lack of motivation for participating in social learning experience.
Type of child: These children must have completed all tool and transfer learning skills in the LEARN Adaptive Learner curricular and have basic to intermediate speech.
Aims of group:
- Learn to interact with other children in a variety of ways
- Basic story telling skills
- How to ask questions of others
- How to get the attention of others
- How to follow simple social rules
- Appropriate distances and tone of voice
- Following group instruction
- Extend on task time in social environments
- Following group structures (eg schedules)
Social Skills Group: Navigator
In the discoverer group your child was taught the different ways to value and learn from social experiences. Now we aim to teach them the many ways to they can respond and influence their social world to have their needs met.
Type of child: This child must have passed the Discoverer stage.
Aims of group:
- Commenting
- Directing
- Requesting
- Engaging others in activities
- Early conversation skills
- Coping (eg with winning and losing)
- Assertiveness
- Recognising emotions in context
Social Skills Group: Creator
The creator group is a more advanced level of the navigator group. In the navigator group we are aiming to teach the child the numerous ways we can influence our social worlds to have our needs met in given social contexts (eg within games, play and group contexts. In the creator group we are teaching the child how to create new social contexts so they can use their social skills more effectively.
Type of child: This child must have passed the Navigator stage and be able to use and answer most types of questions.
Aims of group:
- How to introduce and maintain a conversation
- How to use information from others
- How to compromise
- How to generate and maintain social situations
- How to meet and generate friendships
- How to end and change play activities
- Basic theory of mind
Social Skills Group: Thinker
The role of the thinker group is to dramatically increase the childs awareness of the social environment. Up to this stage we have essentially aimed to teach you child how to value and respond to the social world in a variety of skilled ways. Once these social skills are established we seek to give them even more insight into how they can analyse the environment even further so they may apply their social skills more efficiently and sensitively.
Type of child: This child must have a good language level (pronouns must be present).
Aims of group:
- Develop and apply theory of mind
- Empathy
- How to make social inferences
- Negotiation skills
- Dealing with teasing
- Changing how others feel
- Learning ways to reflect on own behaviour
- Recognising emotions and traits in self and others
SOCIAL SKILLS GROUP FAQ
What methods do we use?
LEARN uses ABA methodology due to its strong body of scientific support and the fact it allows for objective assessment of whether or not the methods are helping your child. Importantly, we aim to use natural reinforcement at all times in social skills development as we are aiming to promote social motivation as much as we are social skills.
What is the assessment?
If you are already a LEARN client we may already have all the information we need to tell you which group is appropriate for your child. If you are not you will need to make a time to meet with our Social Skills Group Coordinator for formal assessment. Assessment should only take 1 hour and is a mixture of observation and interview at your home or in the centre.
Why do I need my child assessed to access a social skills group?
Because we don’t want to waste your child’s precious learning time by placing them in a group that they will not be able to learn effectively from.
It looks like a group curriculum, does that mean you will not tailor to the needs of my child?
It is a group curriculum in the sense we have overarching aims for the group as a whole. However, each child will have a slightly different profile of needs and goals. At the end of the first session we will sit down with the parents and identify 5 major and 5 minor goals for your child. These will be the target skills we will program and assess your child for across the 10 week course.
What if my child achieves all targets before the course is up?
We will meet with you and identify and other set of 10 goals for the following weeks.
Is there a way I can report to the school or other therapists on what my child is doing and how he is going?
Yes. It is essential that all people in a position to promote social development are given the information they need to achieve those goals. We will happily speak with other professionals and educationalists and at the end of the course will provide a report on skills achieved, issues not yet resolved and recommendations for future goals. Importantly, we will also report on strategies your child responds and learns better from so other environments can learn from what we have found works (and doesn’t work) for your child.
