What are the main steps involved in establishing a social or self-determination skills program? Give specific examples

Question

What will be an ideal response?

Answer 1

The main steps involved in establishing a social or self-determination skills program include:
(a) Identify students through observation and assessment—This may be done by observing student behaviors during classroom activities, using standardized adaptive behavior scales, and surveying significant other people (i.e., other teachers, parents, and peers) concerning the students’ social behaviors.
(b) Develop students’ social skills profiles—The profile will illustrate the competency level of each skill and indicate which skills need to be taught.
(c) Consider the grouping of the students—An important consideration may be grouping students who are friends and would enjoy learning the social skills together.
(d) Prepare for program implementation—preparation for the social skills teaching includes deciding when and where the teaching will take place (e.g., three times a week), making sure the teaching procedures are well understood (refer to the skill teaching section of this chapter), and explaining the program to the students (e.g., describing the social skills that will be learned, explaining the benefits of learning the social skills, enlisting their cooperation, and creating enthusiasm for learning the social skills).
(e) Implement social skills teaching procedures—Teach social and self-determination skills from acquisition to mastery.
(f) Evaluate student performances after each skill is taught—The teacher should evaluate the students’ performances in the test setting and in the natural environment. Assessments that take place in the test setting allow the teacher to evaluate the student’s individual performance on novel, simulated situations in a setting outside the teaching environment.
(g) Program for generalization of the learned social skills to the natural environment—An analysis of whether the social skills are generalizing to the natural environment must be made.