Facilitating Generalization of Social Skills
We next discuss strategies that should increase the likelihood of generalization of social skills. These include the Stokes and Baer (1977) generalization strategies (described in Chapter 5) as they relate to social skills as well as additional recommendations that were not presented in Chapter 5.
1. Teach skills that are naturally reinforced in target environments. In school, these might include smiling, responding to peers, greeting teachers, and extending invitations to play. Many pivotal behaviors are selected because they typically result in natural reinforcement.
2. Teach peers (and teachers) to respond appropriately to students’ correct social behaviors and to ignore or redirect inappropriate behaviors. Many PMIs teach peers to do this as part of the PMI training. Differential reinforcement of correct responses is especially important as students begin to exhibit new skills. In our experience, peers often do not respond spontaneously to these new skills, perhaps because peers do not recognize them as appropriate social behaviors that warrant a response or because the new behaviors are “out of character” for the student with autism.
3. Use many examples in the teaching process (Baer, 1999). We would never teach long division by using only one example. Each social skill taught should be demonstrated several times in several different contexts.
4. Program common stimuli or make the training situation as much like real-life situations as possible (Stokes & Baer, 1977). This might mean having role-players use similar language, topics, even mannerisms, as would be used in the actual situation.
5. Once students demonstrate acquisition of target behaviors in the instructional setting, begin to vary the components of instructional lessons, what Stokes and Baer (1977) refer to as general case programming . For example, different teachers could conduct the social skills group at a different time of day and in a different setting. New students could be introduced into the group, and the instructional session might be conducted in a slightly different format (different order for role-players, for example).
6. Teach students to actively recruit their own reinforcement (Morgan, Young, & Goldstein, 1983). General education teachers, secondary teachers especially, often do not provide the high levels of reinforcement familiar to students with autism. Students can be taught to ask teachers “How did I do today?” or “Did I do a good job playing today?” as a way of soliciting reinforcement in case it is not provided automatically.
7. Teach students to recognize the types of reinforcers used by general educators (Graubard, Rosenberg, & Miller, 1974). As part of the initial ecological assessment conducted before developing socialization interventions, teachers should assess the types of reinforcers used in general education environments and then apply those in the special education setting as well.
Incorporating well-planned generalization strategies as part of an overall socialization program will increase functional use of social skills, including a greater likelihood that social behaviors will be used in appropriate contexts, with reinforcing social consequences from peers and adults.
Chapter Review
Summary
Perhaps one of the most critical areas of intervention for students with autism is socialization, and improvements in social behavior often produce concomitant improvements (i.e., collateral changes in nontargeted behaviors) in other areas of functioning such as communication and play. Although children and youth with autism characteristically do not exhibit functional social behaviors that lead to social competence, intervention efforts to remediate socialization deficits can result in significant improvements in social behavior, particularly when applied to pre-school-aged children.
Socialization interventions have evolved from rather simplistic interventions designed to improve discrete social skills in students with autism to interventions that emphasize the importance of the contexts in which those students participate and the social actions of peers in relating to students with autism. A variety of socialization interventions have been shown to produce desired outcomes, including teacher-mediated techniques (direct instruction, antecedent prompting, social stories), self-mediated techniques (self-monitoring), and peer-mediated techniques. The most robust outcomes will occur when two or more of these techniques within or across these categories are used in combination and when these techniques are used in conjunction with well-planned generalization strategies. For example, a teacher might directly teach students how to initiate social questions (a pivotal behavior) and may provide scripts for the students to follow in specific situations. Next, students could be taught to self-monitor their initiations involving social questions during activities with peer confederates. In those activities, peers would be taught to prompt and reinforce social questions from the students with autism in a way that extends the social interaction.
The goal of socialization interventions is social competence. Students with autism may never be viewed as highly socially competent and may never like social interaction to an extent similar to that of typically developing peers. However, thoughtfully planned socialization interventions designed to target critical skills and generalization of those skills should result in improved social outcomes, including a greater likelihood of social relationships such as friendships between students with autism and peers.
Effective social behavior is necessary for successful functioning in all areas of life and has been shown to be an important prerequisite to mental health and happiness. As educators, we must begin addressing socialization deficits in children with autism and developmental disabilities at a young age and continue applying effective interventions to continually expand these students’ repertoires of social behaviors. Anything less may increase the likelihood of more restrictive placements for students, especially in adulthood.
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