Super Skills -- A Review of Super Skills, a Social Skills Program

Designed as self contained programming for therapists or special programs, Super Skills provides lots of great ideas that could be adapted for special education classrooms, especially for students with Asperger's, high functioning Autism and other children on the Autism Spectrum who need coaching in appropriate social interactions.

Thank you, Judith, for trusting us to know something about the social deficits children on the Autistic Spectrum have. Instead, she launches into evaluating deficits and explaining the design of the lessons. The check lists are in the back and easy to copy. She offers examples in the second chapter to show you how you could use the deficit assessment with specific children, and then planning for the programming.

Perhaps it's because the program was designed for therapists, who usually work with individual children, Coucouvanis includes a chapter "Dealing with Disruptive Behavior." Those of us who work with children on the spectrum have many of these skills, but it is still a refreshing review of effective ways to deal with the disruptive behavior, as well as ways to prevent them. It was also kind of fun to think of PhD psychologists struggling to deal with a melt down, like many of us do on a daily basis.

The third chapter was a bit less helpful for those of us who are in self contained classrooms with children on the spectrum, but I imagine a Super Skills group would be great in a large high school with several children on the spectrum who are able to participate in general education classes most of the day . . . and a delight to think the special education teacher might actually get some support from one of the school counselors.

The lessons are divided into three major areas: Social Initiation Skills, Social Response Skills, and Getting Along with Others. Social Initiation is helping the child initiate interactions with peers, especially neuro-typical peers. We sometimes assume children on the spectrum don't want to interact with peers, but the truth is that they really don't know how to initiate a social interaction. They give up because they don't know how to begin. Social Response Skills are those skills a child needs to interpret social situations and interacting appropriately, including managing anger. Getting Along are those skills which neuro-typical children develop on the playground: showing interest in others, dealing with teasing, and cooperating, among others.

Each lesson is structured in a similar way. Even if you chose to use Super Skills without following the exact format, it is certainly wise with children on the spectrum to provide structure--in fact all children with IEP's do well when group interaction and instruction is structured. Each lesson provides "steps to success", a time to discuss questions concerning the skill, some practice activities, often including scenarios and scripts and activities for the students to practice at home and in the community. Coucouvanis provides reproducible cards, bingo games, and other resources for each of the lessons.

This is a great resource for teachers with students on the spectrum, or for students who are socially immature. Many of these skills lessons could be used with younger children starting school who have language--and with the increase in early intervention, there may be more rather than fewer of these students in the future. I would recommend these lessons specifically for children under the age of 13, or children whose cognitive and social development are like those of that age group.

If you need more information on the social deficits in this age group, I would recommend that you use this alongside Building Social Relationships by Dr. Scott Bellini.