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?
Perhaps there is a specific career goal, job opportunity, or upcoming social situation that might motivate the student to improve his conversation skills (going to an upcoming dance, joining a new club, applying for a desired job). As you engage this student in modeling and practice opportunities, you might base role-played scenarios on these upcoming events. These events might be thematically integrated into the visual scripts and scenario cards, the social narrative, or the video model.
As you introduce this skill, how will you incorporate (visually, thematically) the student’s unique interests?
Is there a student or a couple of students with similar interests that could assist in prompting the student to enter a conversation?
Does the student have a “lunch bunch” group where conversations and joining into a conversation could be practiced with familiar people?
Can the student be encouraged to join into class discussions that are centered on one of his topics of interest?
Can you make it visually clear to the student who is resistant to change that her assumption is only one way of looking at things? Can your use of visual supports help get agreement that there is a problem, get agreement on the solution, and create the motivation for change?
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:
"Social Communication – Basic Skills 2"
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?
Before the student encounters a situation (e.g. at lunch, after school, during breaks at work) where he will need to enter ongoing conversations, how do you help the student prepare? How do you orient the student to the upcoming situation?
Modeling and practice along with visual supports such as graphic organizers, social narratives, scripts, and visual reminder cues can serve to prime and prepare a student prior to expected performance.
The visual supports you devise (e.g. scripts, reminder cues, graphic organizers, social narratives, and video models) can support your efforts to prepare the student for a situation where he will likely encounter a greeting or goodbye exchange.