CHAPTER 14 - Social Skills Enhancement in Students with Learning Disabilities

Abstract

This chapter discusses the rationale for teaching learning-disabled (LD) students social skills and explains why teachers shy away from social skills instruction. The interpersonal cognitive problem-solving (ICPS) model focuses on teaching thought processes that are expected to mediate behavior. The assumption underlying this model is that if children learn how to think through problem situations it will influence how they act. The ICPS model has received perhaps its most extensive evaluation through the work of Shure, Spivack, and their colleagues who taught an ICPS training program to inner-city preschoolers. The key components of an ICPS model include goal identification, alternative thinking, and consequential thinking. Goal identification teaches children to identify what they want and what another person wants. In the case of a problem situation, children are taught to identify their goals as well as the goals of others involved in the problem. This process starts with recognizing one's own feelings, how to prevent these feelings from leading to undesirable behaviors, and recognizing and coping with the feelings of others.