Spotlight on Social Skills Groups - Westport Moms

by Caryn McAllister, PT, DPT / President & CEO of High Quality Home Therapy

Does your child struggle in social situations? Or have difficulty making and maintaining friendships, communicating with peers or even reading social cues accurately? Perhaps she/he might benefit from a little extra help to help exceed in peer relations and social competence. We can help!

At High Quality Home Therapy, we offer social skills groups for people of all ages & diagnoses. Currently we have programing available Mondays through Saturdays in Stamford and on Wednesdays and Thursdays in Fairfield.

These well-structured, comprehensive social skills groups cover several areas and are led by licensed & highly skilled therapy professionals. Our physical, occupational and speech therapists, along with our licensed clinical social workers, exercise physiologists and personal trainers bring a collaborative approach to ensure that individual goals are met within each group environment. Multidisciplinary teams allow therapists to directly target each child’s individual needs, as well as promote their personal strengths (ie sensorimotor system, motor control, social, development, emotional regulation, etc.). Our therapists love what they do and provide a safe & fun environment so children want to participate and make new friends!

Social skills groups often include participation in activities aimed at:

1. Managing Stress & Anger
2. Improving Flexibility
3. Developing Higher Order Cognitive Functioning
4. Understanding & Responding to Social Cues
5. Improving Fine & Gross Motor Skills
6. Active Listening
7. Learning Turn Taking
8. Improving Social Cognition & Communication
9. Making a Good First Impression
10. Developing Eye Contact
11. Perspective Taking
12. Enhancing Pragmatic Language Development
13. Improving communication and conversation skills
14. Facilitating Social Entry & Transitioning
15. Coping effectively with others
16. Enhancing self-esteem
17. Understanding nonverbal communication

A good social skills group is only as good as the leader& make-up of the group, so sometimes you may have to try out a couple of different groups before finding the best fit. Also, it’s important to set your own expectations because change doesn’t happen overnight. All change requires work, repetition & positive practice. If your child is in a social skills group, be sure to ask for feedback so you can encourage your child to perform skills and drills at home.

We are all unique and thank goodness for that! Life would be plenty boring if we all looked, acted, thought and behaved the same! So celebrate your child’s individuality and perhaps “quirkiness”. Bill Gates wasn’t so skilled at socializing when he was young and he did just fine in life, albeit his mother pushed him to develop his social skills from when he was quite young. If she were alive, boy would we want to hire her for High Quality Home Therapy!

If you have questions or would like your child to be screened for a social skills group, please feel free to reach out to [email protected]!

(This post is sponsored by High Quality Home Therapy. Photos provided by High Quality Home Therapy.)
Opinions in this article do not reflect those of The Local Moms Network.

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