Social Skills Training with Children and Adolescents: Interview with Craig LeCroy, Ph.D.
[Episode 60]Today�s Social Work Podcast is on social skills training with children and adolescents. My guest, Craig Winston LeCroy defines social skills as �a complex set of skills that facilitate the successful interactions between peers, parents, teachers, and other adults� (LeCroy, 2009, 653). Social skills include everything from dress and behavior codes, to rules about what, when, and how to say or not to say something. Social skills training is a form of behavior therapy, and as such focuses on behaviors, rather than thoughts or feelings, as the targets for change. Traditional behavior modification is often thought of in terms of task completion, for example, using star charts to get kids to clean their rooms or do homework. But in social skills training, behavior modification principles are used to teach people skills that help them to be successful in social situations. Download MP3 [28:42] I encountered an example of social skills training last week with my 2 1/2-year-old