Private social skills groups

[Lynn6697]

Hi there
Does anyone know of social communication groups that give children explicit instruction on group norms, conversation turn taking, introductions, staying on topic, requesting information from others, inferences, reading non verbal communication etc etc ? Our son has "features of a non verbal learning disability" according to EP assessment, which means he has similar difficulties to kids with aspergers but apparently not severe enough to qualify him for an aspergers diagnosis. The school agrees that he needs help with all of the above, esp,. as he moves up the school and is expected to do more group work, but the SaLT provision is so minimal in this borough that we'll need to sort it out privately. Groups in SW London or Surrey would work for us. The London Children's Practice can help, but Wimpole St would be such a trek for us. Waiting to hear whether "Say and Play" near Leatherhead might be able to help. Anyone know of other private SaLT practices who run such groups for children? Thank you, Lynn6697

The general thing is you write the stories fir the kids. I have set up a social services workshop for parents in June in herts, I have space if that's any help?
There are some great books out there, highly recommend carol Gray one.

Ask the school to run a social skills group. Ours does.........

Hi - thanks for speedy responses so far.
We've been working with a private SaLT for 3 years now and my son's expressive and receptive language has come on brilliantly. But what our private SaLT can't do so well is work on the social side as she sees him individually, she's not there to troubleshoot during the day....though having said that, she has done a lot of Carol Gray social stories when I have asked her to address a particular problem I know he's having in school and this has sometimes been effective.
With regard to "specialist teaching team", I'm not sure what that is but I'll ask the SENCO. I think you mean the SaLT and OT who are employed by the borough and visit the school every so often?
The SaLT assigned to our school sees our son 4x year only briefly - she is mainly downloading ideas onto the LSA and class teacher. It's really inadequate. They are coincidentally just now raising the idea of doing a social skills as well as a circle of friends (a bit belated - my son is in Year 3), but I thought it might be more impactful if my son was learning these skills in a group of kids who had similar challenges, rather than with a group of high performing kids who will wonder why they're being taught such basic stuff as conversation turn taking and staying on topic! Hence, the reason I am asking if there are any private groups running.

Often groups work well with a few good role models included. School should be able to run these, most do or will have done. Specialist teachers have different names in different LAs, sometimes communication and interaction advisory teaching service, or ASD specialist team, or ASD inclusion service, etc etc. They are LA specialist teachers, SEN type specific, ASD or VI or Deaf etc, who come into schools to advise on specific DC, attend reviews, observe, report on and monitor DC, etc. Most LAs have something like them, they could advise school on setting up social skills groups and resources like 'Language for thinking,' for inference and prediction.

Sorry, can't help on private groups, others may know.

i take it the workshop im running is no good for you then?

try google intuitive skills course in your area. we went to one in staffs with dd

Hi Lisa
Travel to Herts just sounded like a long trek and I was looking for groups for my child, not for me, but maybe you could tell me more about it?
Many thanks

Thanks DavidsOH - will see what comes up in google

Thanks Ellen
I thought I had my SEN lingo down but now I see there's still more to learn...oh dear :)
Good point about including good role models in social skills training

In all my years I have never come across a group for the children.
The thing is social stories are so personal and they need to be written for them, in a the first person.
The whole reason for a social story is to explain a way to behave, so dont understand how they wouold know what to write, because your writing it because they dont understand. iyswim

Lisa, I think Lynn is after a social skills group rather than social stories.

Thanks Ellen, yes that's correct - looking for social skills groups which will teach my son the kind of skills as described in the first message in this post

Not able to help very much I am afraid as my son is in a whacking great school that has 90 kids on the SN list. They run social skills groups within school so I am not aware of any private groups. Was also going to suggest google or asking local SN support groups if they are aware of any. Good luck

so sorry, getting myself all in a mudle!
We had a private man come and do some work with a group of our girls, will see if i can find a name for you if it helps.

I'm not in your area, but there are two social skills groups in our area, run by the same group. One for boys and one for girls, who obviously present very differently and therefore have different needs in terms of learning social skills.

We were told about ours by the assessment centre, when ds was assessed, but they also have links to the local ASD Support Group.

Is there perhaps an ASD support group in your area that might be able to help?

Other than that its our specialist teacher service (Called ASD Inclusion in my area) that tend to be the best point of contact for this sort of information.

the intuitive skills course we did with dd included
eye contact/personal space/greetings
conversations/starting a conversation/body language
building a conversation/taking turns/gestures/compliments/who to compliment
friendships/who is a friend/acquaintance/strangers
facial expressions

Thanks everyone - I'll do some more research with the ideas offered.
Davids OH - that is exactly the kind of thing I'm after and I've never heard it called intuitive skills so will try that angle
Lisa, thanks for offering to look up your private man, but if he is Herts based then probably no good to us as too far away

Hi

I have a son who has overcome many challenges but conversational and socials skills are still very much a work in progress. A couple of thoughts: A good ABA provider could help set up individualized tuition on these topics and could also train a shadow to come with your child to school to teach these things. UK YAP is the provider we use and it teaches all of the skills you have mentioned. Ruth Jacobs also runs group speech therapy. She has offices in Sloane Square and North London. Our son attend two groups with the NHS at the local development centre. Might be worth getting a referral for NHS and seeing what's available. I know others who have done the circle of friends and have thought very highly of this approach. I have not used them directly but I have heard that there's a private group, Inclusive Solutions, that puts circle of friends and similar approaches in place. Final thought: Definitely go with the social skills class with the NT kids -- great role models and from my experience, most of these are set up so kids won't even know they are learning (e.g., turn taking with games, etc.) Wish I had the perfect answer because this is such a tough area. Good luck.

Sorry. That's Ruth Jacobs in Sloane Square ,etc. Have not used, but know others who have.

Sorry. That's Ruth Jacobs in Sloane Square ,etc. Have not used, but know others who have.

Don't know how old your ds is but the resources at www.socialthinking.com have been very useful with some of the kids I work with - some are aimed at younger kids.

My ds is 8 - thanks, I will check out these ideas