Teaching Social Thinking Skills with ABA: Flexible Approaches

For practitioners hoping to teach social skills to their autistic clients it can be difficult to know where and how to start. This talk will review the value of overcoming these challenges when teaching such skills. We will review how our training defines and suggests teaching diverse and flexible behaviors, such as initiating social interactions and engaging in theory of mind. The dimensions of promoting variability in responding, ambiguity in natural criteria, and establishing self-management skills will be analysed and applied to modern techniques. We will review studies that display the effectiveness of using social scripts to increase interactions, as well as specific examples of variable scripts to use. For learners with pre-requisite communication skills this talk will discuss the effectiveness of using curricula such as the Social Detective and Superflex for more advanced social thinking skills.

Learning Objectives
Attendees will understand the importance of incorporating social skills training into their training programs.
Attendees will review and define diverse flexible behavior per the handbook of applied behavior analysis.
Attendees will compare research on using social scripts to increase social interactions.