De Facto Leaders

Many people treat social skills groups as if they’re the complete package, when in fact they’re just one part of a bigger service plan. 

When we “lesson plan” we can’t think of our intervention as something that starts and ends with a 20-minute therapy session. Instead, we should think of it as a “planning” or a “priming” session. 

That’s why one of the very first things I teach clinicians in the School of Clinical Leadership is how to utilize multiple service delivery models when supporting executive functioning because social skills should fall under this umbrella.  

In this episode, I wanted to share two sneak peaks from the program. I’ll share the audio from two video clips from the School of Clinical Leadership that will set the stage for effective social skills intervention.

✅How to use social skill-building sessions in a way that builds resilience, situational awareness, and considers a student’s neurodevelopmental differences. 

✅Why many premade social narratives don’t result in good generalization, and how to be a good consumer of commercially available products. 

✅The three components of effective social skills intervention and where the “social skills group” fits. 

✅The components of good social narratives, and how to create them “on the fly”.

*In the video modeling tutorial, I mention that a lot of people write goals for eye contact-and I wanted to clarify that I do not recommend writing eye contact goals. Instead, I recommend focusing on helping kids with the underlying communicative function, such as showing others you're paying attention or gaining attention of others, which can be achieved through other ways besides eye contact.

In this episode, I mention the School of Clinical Leadership, my program that helps related service providers develop a strategic plan for putting executive functioning support in place in collaboration with their school teams. You can learn more about that program here: https://drkarendudekbrannan.com/clinicalleadership

If you’re already a member of either program and you refer a friend, tell them to email me at talktome@drkarenspeech.com if they join and let me know you referred them and I’ll send you a $100 referral bonus. 

We’re thrilled to be sponsored by IXL. 

IXL’s comprehensive teaching and learning platform for math, language arts, science, and social studies is accelerating achievement in 95 of the top 100 U.S. school districts. Loved by teachers and backed by independent research from Johns Hopkins University, IXL can help you do the following and more:

🚀 Ready to see why leading districts trust IXL for their educational needs? Visit IXL.com/BE today to learn more about how IXL can elevate your school or district.