Social Emotional Reciprocity

Lesson 1

The feelings exercise group

Lessons 2 and 3

Understanding your feelings

Lesson 4

When you’re angry

Lesson 5

When you’re happy

Lesson 6

When you’re worried

Lesson 7

Understanding other people’s feelings

Lesson 8

Being a good friend

Lesson 9

Solving people problems

Lesson 10

Finishing up!

Strong Kids lessons were designed according to principles of effective instruction. According to Kame’enui and Simmons (1990), effective instruction is that which emphasizes both the design and delivery of content. Strong Kids lessons are semiscripted and were designed to carefully consider the precise wording implementers may use to communicate new concepts. Limiting implementer wording overall ensures that students acquire an understanding of the intended vocabulary associated with the content of the lesson without confusion (Becker 2001; Watkins and Slocum 2004). Meticulous attention was paid to the range and sequence of examples used to demonstrate instances and noninstances of new concepts. Consecutive lessons are increasingly complex and build upon simpler skills that students have already mastered. With each lesson, visual and/or verbal cues are provided to secure student understanding of concepts and to use later as a prompt for skill practice. Additionally, Strong Start lessons include parent newsletters that include both visual and verbal cues from the lessons presented. This increases practice opportunities for children in a context other than school and promotes generalization of skills.

Although effective instructional design is a critical element in the facilitation of student learning, delivery of Strong Kids lessons is an equally important consideration. Implementers, who are able to efficiently deliver content, are those who maintain a brisk pace, ensure multiple opportunities for students to respond, and provide immediate and corrective feedback when necessary (Becker 2001; Brophy and Good 1986; Kame’enui and Simmons 1990; Watkins and Slocum 2004). Strong Kids includes a sequence of modeling, rehearsing, and role-playing of new skills, which has previously been found to enhance student learning (Joseph and Strain 2003), and implementers who share relevant examples from their own lives are more likely to maintain student engagement (Doll et al. 2004). Finally, Strong Kids lessons include “tips for transfer” that are specific strategies for integrating the use of skills learned over time and across contexts. This is essential in order for students to build fluency in choosing appropriate social and emotional responses across a range of contexts and situations (Gresham 2002).

Clearly, the content and design of Strong Kids lessons includes several of the features of effective intervention outlined in this chapter for children with HFA and AS. Strong Kids is intended to be flexible enough in instructional design and implementation to allow implementers to adapt and/or intensify materials to meet the needs of specific children. For example, Strong Kids supplies examples and nonexamples of each of the skills taught; however, implementers are encouraged to adapt these so that they are more relevant to the children with whom they are working. Children with HFA or AS may benefit from exposure to examples and nonexamples of key skills that directly relate to issues happening in their own lives. In our own clinical work, we have often built examples of cognitive thinking errors around personal experiences of the particular students/clients with whom we are working and we have also practiced “ok” and “not ok” ways for handling anxiety-provoking situations based on client scenarios.

Many of the lessons in Strong Kids include opportunities for adults and peers to model social-emotional skills and simple social scripts. For students with HFA or AS, it is critical that each new behavior is explicitly modeled. This enables students to “see” the skill being practiced and provides a more concrete way for students to access difficult cognitive skills. For example, in Strong Start, children learn the ABC’s of Happy Thinking. This includes helping children to identify when they have (A) a problem that gives them (B) bad feelings and to (C) comfort themselves in a way that makes them feel better. Comforting oneself might include happy self-talk. The first author of this chapter consulted with a teacher who used a relevant example from a student’s life to teach her this strategy. This student with AS had a particularly difficult time when she did not win games that she was playing with others. Her teacher first helped her to identify the problem, namely losing, which resulted in a “bad” feeling, frustration. This student learned to engage in self-talk to help herself feel better. At the end of the game she learned to say, “That’s ok, maybe next time I will win. That will be great!”

In addition to simple social scripts, more elaborate Social Stories, a specific type of story-based intervention, can also increase understanding for students with AS or HFA. Social Stories can be built on strategies presented in Strong Kids. A story was written to incorporate the ABC’s of Happy Thinking and scripts for losing gracefully for the student mentioned above. This Social Story was very useful to review prior to every attempt at an interactive game. A Power Card could also have been useful in this instance. Power Cards are similar to social stories, in that they provide written and/or visual cues regarding appropriate behavior (see Linn and Myles 2004). Power Cards typically are written to incorporate favorite or preferred characters, which engage in the behavior that is expected of the student. In this case, a Power Card featuring Sesame Street’s Elmo, as he practiced successful interactions during game-playing, would have been helpful.

Video modeling can also be a powerful method for enhancing students’ use of skills presented in Strong Kids. This is a particularly helpful strategy for children with HFA or AS and entails video-recording individuals as they utilize the newly taught social-emotional skill, such as perspective taking (Charlop-Christy and Daneshvar 2003). Children then watch the video and are able to see themselves successfully using the skill and can learn to point out key features of the skill. Video recording the student who was learning to lose gracefully at board games would likely have been a potent teaching method.

Implementation of Strong Kids with children with AS or HFA, who may have interfering behaviors, could also include explicit behavior management programming. Having clear behavioral expectations and even visual cues to remind children of expectations for Strong Kids time may be helpful. Sometimes, systematic reinforcement procedures are also useful. This may include giving points or stickers to the students when they appropriately participate and meet behavioral expectations. One strategy that the first author has used with small groups of younger children is to incorporate “Henry Bear” as a behavior management tool. Henry is a character who is integrated into the Strong Start Pre-K and Strong Start K-2 curriculum. Henry helps to communicate concepts and serves as a puppet/mascot for the lessons. Implementers are encouraged to actually use a stuffed animal to represent Henry. Students generally show great enthusiasm toward Henry and learn to associate Strong Start skills with Henry. During lesson implementation, the first author has allowed children, who are appropriately managing themselves and/or positively contributing to the lesson, to hold Henry. After a few minutes with Henry, children are then asked to look around at their group and decide who else is demonstrating appropriate behaviors and should have a chance to hold Henry. This strategy not only acknowledges students who are displaying appropriate behavior but also encourages students to study the behavior of others.

As was noted earlier in the chapter, giving children opportunities to practice skills learned in a range of situations and settings with a variety of individuals is critical. These opportunities are naturally built into the Strong Kids curriculum, but increased opportunities for practice is often helpful for children with AS or HFA. For example, each Strong Start Pre-K and Strong Start K-2 lesson includes lists of children’s literature relevant to the lesson theme. Implementers are encouraged to read one book per lesson and focus discussion of the book on the lesson’s theme. The goal is to help children practice identifying the emotions of characters and discussing how characters might engage in particular Strong Start strategies to solve problems at hand. One teacher, with whom the first author consulted, taught Strong Start to a small group of K-2 students with AS and HFA. Although she only taught one lesson per week, each day she worked to systematically incorporate learning activities that reinforced that lesson’s content. She read books from the literature list and facilitated discussion every day. Additionally, this teacher incorporated art activities and games daily to ensure that students were getting exposure to content through a variety of activities.

Ensuring that adults, other than those implementing the curriculum, are involved in skill practice is helpful. Parents, teachers, special subject teachers (e.g., art, music, physical education), speech-language pathologists, school psychologists, guidance counselors, recess monitors, etc., can all take part in prompting students to use skills learned. It is particularly useful if these adults have access to the language and visual cues presented in the curriculum. If all staff cue students to use the Stop, Count, Breathe in, Breathe out strategy when they are angry, for example, the likelihood that students will internalize and independently use the strategy increases.

Case Examples

Below are specific examples of cases of individuals with whom authors have worked. Both individuals were diagnosed with AS and struggled with emotion recognition, appropriate social interaction, and symptoms of anxiety. These cases were chosen on the basis of their behavioral similarities, different developmental levels, and exposure to the Strong Kids curriculum.

Ali

At the time of intervention, Ali was a kindergarten student. She was a very bright Caucasian girl and was beginning to read and understand basic math. Ali’s fine motor skills were not fully developed, and writing was very frustrating for her. Additionally, Ali performed best when classroom routines were structured and behavioral expectations were made explicit. Children were naturally drawn to Ali, and at times, she was able to appropriately engage in pretend play with others. During structured, competitive games or when presented with frustrating academic tasks or changes in routine, Ali would often shout out expletives. This was clearly an unacceptable behavior that needed immediate intervention. In addition to the implementation of antecedent strategies (e.g., breaking tasks into manageable chunks) and reinforcement (e.g., visual token board) and extinction procedures, Ali’s resource teacher implemented Strong Start. Because of the intensity and frequency of Ali’s behavior, Ali’s teacher intensified aspects of the curriculum. For example, she used a large pocket chart to display pictures of basic emotions offered in the curriculum. She and Ali also accessed the Internet and found several more pictures of more complex emotions (e.g., frustrated, embarrassed, etc.). Each picture was labeled. Ali’s teacher continually referred Ali to these pictures to help her identify emotions during calm and emotionally charged situations. As Ali progressed through Strong Start, she and her teacher developed more visual cues for the pocket chart that were examples of coping strategies and social problem-solving strategies. When Ali experienced strong, uncomfortable emotions, she learned to go to the chart and fill in sentence starter that was placed there. It read, “I feel_____________. I will use _____________strategy to help myself feel better.” Consistent prompting to use the chart, paired with reinforcement for using the chart was helpful. Ali also benefited from the Social Stories and social scripts that emphasized Strong Start strategies (noted above).

Only gold members can continue reading. Log In or Register to continue