At recess, Joey hangs back and does not interact with his peers or participate in recess activities. Colleagues avoid Sue because she talks on and on about the same topic and stands too close. Allie attempts to communicate, but her peers exclude her. Nick hogs the conversation and only talks about his preferred interests and excludes any other topics during conversational exchanges. These are just a few examples which demonstrate the dynamic relationship between language and social skills and the consequences of not understanding what it takes to be a successful social communicator.
Being a good social communicator requires several skills including language ability, social skills, social-cognition, and executive functioning (e.g., attention, memory, inhibition, and problem-solving). A social communication disorder can occur in individuals with specific language impairments, language-based learning disabilities, intellectual disability, traumatic brain injury, selective mutism, and Autism.
How can a Speech-Language Pathologist help?
Speech-Language Pathologists can support individuals with social communication disorders in a variety of ways. SLPs work together to form partnerships with their clients and their client’s family. Some ways in which a SLP can help support individuals experiencing social-communication disorder are:
- Providing real world opportunities to practice conversational skills during interactions with others
- Providing treatment focused on topic maintenance and how to change topics
- Practice initiating a conversation, participating in small-talk exchange, greetings/farewells, turn-taking, listening skills, asking/answering questions, making connected comments, giving/receiving compliments
- Providing treatment regarding personal space
- Provide treatment focused on perspective-taking skills
- Provide treatment around conflict resolution and social problem solving
- Provide practice in understanding sarcasm, humor, and figurative language
- Provide treatment focused on how to join a group, how to play with others
- Utilization of social narratives and video modeling to support social skills
