Social Skills
What are Social Skills?
Social skills are used every day when interacting or communicating with others either verbally or non-verbally (gestures, body language, and expression). Social skills are very important during interactions with others to help the individual foster and maintain positive interactions with their peers and members of the general public.
Why are social skills important?
Friendships require a range of skills, especially social-emotional skills. It is important to understand and recognise when someone is open to starting a friendship and how to navigate engaging and approaching others. When it comes to fostering a friendship, children learn skills such as empathy, sharing, turn-taking, listening, winning, and losing. Many of these skills are crucial in developing and keeping friendships.
Making Friends
Learning and understanding social cues are an important step in social skill development. Our Occupational Therapists help children and adolescence to identify signals people are sending by understanding body language and facial expressions. Individuals who have difficulty understanding social skills often struggle to identify non-verbal and verbal social cues. This can lead to misunderstanding people and situations impacting friendships and socialising with others especially school and/or work environments. .
Social Cues
Children learn through social situations what behaviours are expected or not expected. Some children require more assistance to help them understand what are expected behaviours. This is especially important within a learning classroom environment, group environment and building friendships.
