The Social Skills Game

Item Number: 8412

$59.99

This skill-building board game teaches children attitudes and behaviors that promote positive social interactions.

Game cards focus on four skill areas: Making Friends, Responding Positively to Peers, Cooperating with Peers, and Communicating Needs.

Included in the game manual are three inventories that can be used to identify the child’s specific skill deficits. Can be played by one or more students with an educator or parent.

Skills Covered

The game addresses 20 specific behaviors, which fall into four social skill categories:

Making Friends

Asking questions
Giving compliments
Introducing oneself
Listening
Starting conversations

Cooperating With Peers

Following rules
Joining in
Sharing
Suggesting activities
Taking turns

Responding Positively to Peers

Accepting compliments
Helping peers in trouble
Offering help
Showing concern for peers
Standing up for peers

Communicating Needs

Asking for help
Asking to borrow others’ property
Expressing negative feelings
Expressing positive feelings
Getting attention appropriately

The game also teaches the six cognitive skills and orientations that improve social interactions:

Self-Reinforcement (SR)

Socially competent behavior is likely to be repeated if the child compliments or rewards himself or herself for it.

Causal Attribution (CA)

Socially competent behavior is likely to be repeated if the child attributes success to his or her own effort and/or ability rather than to chance or others’ behavior.

Performance Mediation With Anxiety (PMA)

Socially competent behavior is more likely if the child can learn to cope with the anxiety that is often associated with social interaction.

Performance Mediation With Mistakes (PMM)

Socially competent behavior is more likely if the child can learn to focus on the successful components of imperfect social interactions.

Expectations of Efficacy (EXE)

Socially competent behavior is more likely if the child feels capable of performing the behavior.

Expectations of Outcome (EXO)

Socially competent behavior is more likely if the child feels that it will lead to desirable outcomes.

Various taxonomies of social skills have been developed and validated (Cartledge & Milburn, 1986; Hughes, 1988; McGinnis & Goldstein, 1984; Stephens, 1978). Research has also identified the cognitive processes related to the acquisition and enactment of these social skills (Bandura, 1977; Beck, 1976; Ellis, 1973; Meichenbaum, 1977; Meichenbaum & Goodman, 1971).

The Social Skills Game embodies these various concepts and therapeutic approaches in a game format.

The instruction manual provides three inventories designed to help identify a child’s social strengths and weaknesses.

The Parent/Teacher Evaluation of Social Skills

This inventory directs a parent or teacher to evaluate the child’s specific behaviors in relation to other children of the same age; it offers a straightforward summary of the child’s social skills.

The Children’s Social Behavior Inventory

This inventory is a 20-item questionnaire that prompts the child to disclose his or her attitudes toward social behavior; it includes four scales that correspond to the four broad social skill categories addressed by the game and outlined in the previous section.

The Children’s Social Cognition Inventory

This inventory is a 24-item questionnaire that prompts the child to disclose his or her cognitive orientation; this is scaled according to the six cognitive skills that are addressed by the game and described in the previous section.

The inventories may be photocopied and administered to the players(s) prior to game-playing sessions. After identifying each child’s strengths and weaknesses, teacher’s can select game cards that focus on each child’s individual needs.