Group Training for Social Skills

A group training program for teaching social skills was conducted with 13 court-adjudicated youths on probation with a juvenile court. The program taught eight skills—giving positive feedback, giving negative feedback, accepting negative feedback, resisting peer pressure, problem-solving, negotiation, following instructions, and conversation. The youths were divided into three groups, two of which had a homenote procedure that required the youths to practice the skill at home during the week. The skills were trained in a multiple-baseline design across skills using skill explanation and rationales, modeling, and behavioral rehearsal with feedback. Behavioral role-play results showed substantial skill increases for the youths in all the groups with the youths in the two homenote groups showing more rapid increases in skill levels. Folow-up testing eight months later showed good retention of the majority of the skills. Self-report questionnaires showed that the majority of the youths viewed themselves as more competent following the training.