The Family Center on Technology and Disability

Re:Using video to teach social skills

This message was posted by Linda Hodgdon on May 19, 2008.

First, the research. http://www.education.uiowa.edu/REACH/documents/AutismandSocialSkills_000.pdf (Scott Bellini et.al., This has some interesting information. They identified 55 studies of social skills interventions for students with ASD. They found that school based social interventions were minimally effective for teaching social skills. One of the reasons they identified was that only one study in the group systematically matched the type of intervention strategy with the type of skill deficits of individual students. There was a tendency to fit the student into the selected teaching strategy rather than program for specific individual student needs.

Another piece of research explores video specifically.
A Meta-Analysis of Video Modeling and Video Self-Modeling Interventions for Children and Adolescents with Autism Spectrum Disorders
Journal article by Scott Bellini, Jennifer Akullian; Exceptional Children, Vol. 73, 2007. This study finds Video modeling and Video Self-Modeling (VSM) are effective intervention strategies for addressing various functional skills, behaviors and communication skills.

It would be nice to just be able to buy the set of videos to teach all the social skills the students need, but I suspect that to be really effective, video will need to be designed to meet very specific needs.

Given that thought, there are some videos available to help teach social skills. Storymovies http://www.specialminds.org/storymoviestm/ developed by Mark Shelley and written by Carol Gray (the queen of Social Stories) is an interesting approach to combine the effectiveness of Social Stories with video. The Attainment Company www.Attainmentcompany.com has several materials to teach social skills with video. Social Skill Builders http://www.socialskillbuilder.com/ have some great interactive video computer programs to teach social skills. A set of videos by Watch Me Learn http://www.watchmelearn.com/ model a variety of important skills for young children to learn. No prepared video program will meet all needs. I suspect that the best results will come from using these tools as a part of a more comprehensive program for teaching social skills.

I have looked extensively for videos that can be used to teach skills. A number of them have been developed for early child education. One thing that I find frequently is videos that are created in pieces and fragments. What I mean by that is that the video (generally set to music) will show one or two steps of various skills, but they don't show whole sequences from beginning to end. Although I don't have specific research to back up this thought, I suspect most of our targeted students will learn more effectively if whole sequences are being demonstrated.

I applaud your efforts to teach a social skill for a month. That is bound to produce more integrated learning than less intense approaches. Some of the video resources above could provide some good support for what you are doing.