by Richard
Part 1 and part II can be found here and here, respectively.
For most of this week, we have been and will be talking about a seminar I attended with Diane Stewart, the k-5 counselor at The Fletcher School, which is a fantastic private school for kids with learning disabilities here in Charlotte, NC. So, yesterday, after listing all the problems that can land on kids who have poor social skills, I was feeling a little depressed and thought I’d leave you with some good news. Sounding familiar? No? Dude, you have one awful short-term memory. Whatever. The good news was that social skills can be taught, and taught successfully, to little dudes, both those with and those without learning disabilities.
According to Stewart, the literature in the field suggests that there are a few steps to follow before you embark on teaching your little dudette correct social behavior. The first thing to do is identify what deficit is present. Then, for each mishap, identify the skill that would be needed to solve it. You next prioritize the skills in terms of importance, that is, it’s probably better to make sure your little dude isn’t running around naked in the playground before you worry about what salad fork he should be using. Finally you bring the child on board so you can get him or her enthusiastic about the program you’re all about to start. Now the real work fun begins.
Now, what vaguely academic seminar (and that includes pretty much any seminar. I don’t think I’ve ever heard of a seminar where you just go and drink. Oh, wait. There was that toga party. . .) would be complete without some PowerPoint slides with bullet points? Answer: none. So, yea, we’re getting into it.
Stewart told us about Rick LaVoie, a popular author and speaker about kids with learning disabilities. LaVoie has developed “4 R’s of Social Development.” Here they are: (FSM do I love trying to translate PowerPoint to text) reason, rule, reminder and reinforce. What? You want more detail? Fine, but remember, you asked for it.
Reason means you need to provide the little dude a reason for the social rule you’re going to work on. Rule means, oddly enough, you need to tell the little dude what the rule actually is. Reminder is when you provide a memory trigger for your little dude to follow the rule, which might be something like placing your finger alongside your nose to mean lower the vocal volume. Finally, reinforce means you need to recognize when the little dudette follows the rule and then praise her for doing it. After you rehearse the skill, the only obvious thing to do is go try it out.
This is when the autopsy comes in. No, I don’t mean a dead body. What I’m talking about is where you and your little dude go over the skillz work and see what went wrong. You’ll need to ask the little dude what happened and to identify the mistake that was made. Then have him identify some alternate responses he could have used. Have him create a hypothetical scenario where this sort of skill can be used again and then assign homework, that is, ask the little dude to try again and then report back to you after.
I don’t know about you, but all this book learnin’ is plum tuckerin’ me out. I’m gonna need to take a break now. I think you do to. See you tomorrow.
Tags: A Dude's Guide to Kids, A Dude's Guide to Life, Academic Seminar, behavior, Bu, Bullet Points, charlotte, Charlotte Nc, Counselor, Diane Stewart, dude, Dudette, Fletcher School, homework, kids, Kids With Learning Disabilities, Literature, little dude, little dudes, love, Memory, Mishap, Playground, Poor Social Skills, Powerpoint Slides, Private School, Raising Butterflies, Reminder, richard, Rick Lavoie, Salad Fork, Short Term Memory, Social Behavior, text, Toga Party