Social Difficulties and Social Skills Therapy
Social language skills are the verbal and nonverbal ways we communicate and interact with the people around us. These communication skills are important because they support friendships, relationships, learning, participation at school, and successful social interaction throughout life.
Some people develop these skills naturally, while others may need additional support to understand social cues, participate in conversations, build relationships, and feel more comfortable in different social situations.
At S.L. Hunter SpeechWorks, a Speech-Language Pathologist can assess social communication abilities and provide individualized social skills therapy to help children, teens, and young adults develop practical communication strategies.
What Are Social Communication Skills?
Social communication involves understanding how to use language and verbal and nonverbal communication appropriately for different people, places, and situations.
Important social skills can include:
- Using and interpreting body language
- Understanding facial expressions
- Maintaining comfortable eye contact
- Respecting personal space
- Taking turns during a conversation
- Staying on topic
- Starting conversations
- Asking and answering questions
- Practicing active listening
- Understanding humour and figurative language
- Recognizing social cues
- Understanding another person's perspective
- Adjusting communication for different social settings
- Participating in reciprocal play
- Developing conversation skills and relationship-building skills
These skills are important building blocks for effective communication and interpersonal skills.
Social Communication Disorder and Social Difficulties
A person who experiences persistent difficulty using verbal and nonverbal communication appropriately in social situations may have challenges with social communication. In some cases, these difficulties may be associated with social communication disorder or another developmental or communication condition.
A child may understand words and sentences but still struggle with the unwritten rules of conversation and social behaviour.
They may have difficulty:
- Knowing when or how to join a conversation
- Taking turns appropriately
- Understanding another person's point of view
- Interpreting facial expressions or body language
- Understanding jokes, sarcasm, or indirect language
- Maintaining friendships
- Recognizing when another person is interested or uncomfortable
- Adjusting their behaviour to different social situations
- Managing emotions during challenging interactions
Social communication difficulties can affect confidence, relationships, self-esteem, and participation with friends, family members, classmates, or coworkers.
Social Difficulties in Preschool Children
Some social difficulties may become noticeable during early childhood.
Early signs can include:
- Limited eye contact
- Difficulty responding to their name
- Limited shared attention
- Difficulty imitating others
- Challenges with turn taking
- Limited reciprocal play
- Difficulty joining group activities
- Reduced interest in interacting with other children
Children develop social skills at different rates, so a single behaviour does not necessarily indicate a communication disorder. Assessment considers the child's development, strengths, communication abilities, and interactions across different environments.
A neurodiversity-affirming approach does not aim to make every child's social behaviour look the same. Instead, therapy can focus on helping the child understand communication, advocate for their needs, build confidence, and develop useful strategies for situations that matter to them.
Social Difficulties in School-Aged Children
As children grow older, the social demands of school become more complex.
A child who lacks certain social skills may struggle to:
- Initiate play
- Respond to invitations from other children
- Join an existing group
- Learn social behaviour by observing peers
- Understand the main point of a conversation
- Maintain friendships
- Use appropriate small talk
- Understand social reasoning
- Resolve disagreements
- Recognize how another person may be feeling
- Communicate effectively during group activities
Some children may want friends and relationships but struggle to understand how to begin or maintain them. Repeated social difficulties can contribute to anxiety, reduced self-esteem, or avoidance of social settings.
Social Difficulties in Teens and Young Adults
Social expectations continue to change during adolescence and young adulthood. Conversations become more subtle, relationships deepen, and people are expected to interpret increasingly complex social cues.
Teens and young adults may struggle with:
- Starting conversations
- Maintaining friendships
- Perspective taking
- Small talk
- Understanding humour or implied meanings
- Managing emotions during social interactions
- Reading body language
- Knowing how much personal information to share
- Participating in school, work, or community settings
- Building and deepening relationships
Some individuals may also experience social anxiety, particularly after repeated experiences of rejection, misunderstanding, teasing, or difficulty making friends.
How Social Skills Therapy Can Help
Social skills training and social skills therapy are individualized according to the person's communication needs, goals, age, and real-life situations.
A Speech-Language Pathologist may use different techniques to help a person develop and practise new social skills.
Treatment may include:
- Role play
- Behavioural rehearsal
- Social stories
- Practising active listening
- Conversation practice
- Perspective-taking activities
- Direct teaching of social cues
- Practice with verbal and nonverbal communication
- Simulated situations
- Corrective feedback
- Strategies for managing emotions
- Activities targeting turn taking and reciprocal communication
- Practising skills in a group format when appropriate
Therapy may begin one-on-one before providing opportunities to practise communication skills with other people.
The goal is not to teach a person to perform a rigid list of behaviours or make every interaction feel unnatural. Instead, social skills therapy can help individuals understand different communication options, develop strategies that feel natural to them, and build confidence in situations that are personally important.
Developing Social Communication Skills
Improving social skills often requires both learning and practice. A strategy that works well in one situation may need to be adjusted in another.
For example, communication with a close friend may be different from communication with a teacher, coworker, unfamiliar person, or group.
Treatment can therefore focus on applying new skills across different social situations rather than practising them only during therapy.
When appropriate, Speech-Language Pathologists may also collaborate with parents, teachers, healthcare professionals, or other professionals such as an occupational therapist to support the person's broader communication and participation goals.
Social Skills Therapy at S.L. Hunter SpeechWorks
Speech-Language Pathologists are trained to assess and treat social communication, conversation, language, and other communication disorders.
At S.L. Hunter SpeechWorks, intervention is individualized to the person's strengths, challenges, relationships, and communication goals. Therapy may address social interaction, interpersonal skills, body language, conversation skills, perspective taking, social cues, confidence, and effective communication.
If you or your child struggles with social communication or would benefit from support developing new social skills, contact S.L. Hunter SpeechWorks to learn more about social skills therapy and social communication assessment.