Groups

2. Social Skills & Social Coaching Groups

Group therapy provides individuals with a supportive environment to learn and practice essential social communication skills, ultimately improving their ability to navigate social interactions successfully. Groups involve intensive practice with specific individualized skills that guide participants through aspects of social understanding or social expression that are interfering with relationship-building. Outcomes include improving social interaction, enhancing social awareness and understanding, fostering empathy and perspective-taking, learning the language of social interactions, building confidence in social situations, and promoting positive social relationships.  

We believe strongly that for a group to be successful, participants in the group need to be well matched both in age and in ability.  When groups are available, they are usually run weekly in 60-minute sessions for a school year or for a summer.  In the summers we also sometimes offer shorter, more intense groups that run for a week at a time, daily, and focus more intensively on a few particular skills.  For middle and high school ages and some younger groups, we also require at least one, 15-30-minute 1:1 therapy session where pre-teaching and post-analysis (individual coaching) occur.  Goals/Lessons are individualized for each specific group based on the social engagement and/or social cognitive needs of its members.