Social Skills Interventions for Children

Children who exhibit social skills deficits experience short-term, and often long-term, negative consequences. Reasons for such deficits, which have treatment utility, are reviewed and a number of procedures for treating children's social skills deficits are examined. In this article, these procedures are categorized into one of three broad and somewhat overlapping treatment approaches: operant conditioning, social learning, or cognitive-behavioral procedures. Descriptions of specific treatment procedures are provided, along with an examination of the effectiveness data, to support the various approaches to enhancing children's social behavior. The research literature provides strong support for the use of operant and social learning techniques, particularly with preschool and elementary school children.