FREE SOCIAL SKILLS APP TEACHING FRIENDSHIPPING
Parents of youth approaching adulthood may worry about their child’s ability to socially engage with others. Whether youth have disabilities or not, parents want to know what they can do to help their child make and keep good friends, communicate successfully with members of their community and learn appropriate social skills. For youth with disabilities, it can be difficult to develop such skills without having the right tools for success. For parents, it can be difficult finding tools that can model real-life scenarios. PEERS® is a lesson tool that teaches appropriate back and forth conversation through the use of video role-playing scenarios modeling good and bad social engagement. It is encouraged to have a parent or social coach practice with the young adult the scenarios discussed during these sessions. Do not be afraid to allow your young adult to be exposed to the content and adjust the practice session to meet the individual’s level.
“The PEERS® app helps you with making and keeping friends. It provides you with information, video examples and assignments to stimulate your social cognition, skills, and experiences. Textual information is given to educate you about social situations. Video role-play examples are provided to illustrate a) behaviors that are less helpful to make and keep friends, and b) behaviors that are more helpful to make and keep friends. The assignments will help you practice and apply the learned social skills to your daily life.”
