An Evaluation of a Social Skills Application for Children Who Are Homeless

Abstract

Purpose: Homeless children are more likely to have social skills deficits relative to same aged peers and may benefit from a social skills intervention. Therefore, the purpose of this study was to assess the Let’s Be Social application with the addition of behavioral skills training (BST) to teach social skills to children who were homeless. Method: This study used a multiple baseline across behaviors design to evaluate the effects of the iPad application and BST for teaching three social skills to three participants. Results: Participants did not demonstrate increases in targeted social skills after the introduction of the application, but social skills did increase after BST was added. Conclusions: The findings suggest that the application needs to be paired with BST in order to see improvement and maintenance in social skills. Future downloadable applications might consider including features that are similar to BST to assist in teaching social skills.