How can you connect this new skill to the student’s priorities? How can you assure ownership by making the development of this skill the student’s goal rather than just your goal for the student?
The use of a social narrative to connect the importance of ‘first impression’ in getting a job and in meeting the student’s priorities (money, specific position, etc.) may prove helpful. Often the student may be initially uninterested in the ‘formalities’ of meeting someone in an interview. Consider providing a pair of coping comics to show different impressions or thoughts of a supervisor. One may show the thought balloon for a supervisor meeting someone who says “hey” and appears unprofessional. The second may show the thought of the supervisor meeting someone using a professional and invested greeting. Provide these comics and elicit a reaction from the student. Does the student see the importance of the ‘first impression,’ of the effort to appear professional? Labeling the ‘professional’ behavior in an interview may be a part of priming to focus student attention that this is not merely saying hi as one does in social environments.
As you introduce this skill, how will you incorporate (visually, thematically) the student’s unique interests?
If the student likes comics or drawing, you may create activities that incorporate humorous illustrations, such as the person’s hands being too large to shake. However, carefully gauge the ‘silliness’ factor! Some individuals may become distracted by the humor and miss the message of professional greetings and farewells.
Can you make it visually clear to the student who is resistant to change that his assumption is only one way of looking at things? Can your use of visual supports and self-assessments help get agreement that there is a problem, get agreement on the solution, and create the motivation for change?
Even when the student thinks that professional behavior is ‘stupid,’ you have several tools at your disposal. The self-assessments have assisted you in identifying his preferences in job tasks and in job descriptions. Hopefully, you have identified motivation for getting a job or for getting job experience that will help him with his goals. As noted earlier, the use of this information from self-assessments and motivation may be incorporated into a social narrative or comic to help him see the value of professional behavior in an interview.
Priming is a form of negotiation that can reframe and sharpen a student’s assessment of self. Below are the self-assessment tools that align with this intervention topic:
Interviewing - During the Interview
Interspersal is a proven technique involving the presentation of familiar, higher success tasks with the new, more challenging task. When it is appropriate, are you varying the activities to maintain the student’s confidence and focus?
It is counterproductive in most situations to repeatedly practice difficult tasks relentlessly. While repetition is absolutely necessary, be sure to offer familiar, enjoyable activities for the student during instruction. If she experiences heightened anxiety during speaking parts of a role-play, integrate performance of the non-verbal skills as a warm-up activity; this can even be its own activity with a rule of “introduce yourself without speaking” to make it a fun challenge while intentionally avoiding the stress of verbal performance. Practice of one component at a time can be addressed in this manner.
Before the student encounters a situation where he will need to perform this skill, how do you help the student prepare? How do you orient the student to the upcoming situation? How do you activate prior knowledge?
Reminder cards, social narratives, and video models can be reviewed prior to a role-play or real-life situation to help prime the student’s developing skills. Much like reviewing for a test, these visual supports can provide the structure necessary for the student to execute the skills successfully. As the student progresses, these supports may be reduced or edited into a custom “Interview Guide” organizer that depicts the steps, rules, and/or hints for ‘nailing’ the interview (see the Visual Cues section for an illustration-based “Interview Guide”).