| Within the school setting, social skills influence students' interpersonal relationships and academic functioning. Deficits in social skills have been linked to rejection by teachers and peers, as well as poor academic performance. To minimize the negative consequences of such deficits, interventions such as social skills training (SST) have been developed. Considering that school psychologists have been identified as the most effective social skills trainers, the purpose of this researcher was to develop an increased understanding of school psychologists' perceived effectiveness of SST with three populations: (a) students diagnosed with Attention-Deficit/Hyperactivity Disorder (ADHD), (b) students diagnosed with Autistic Disorder, and (c) students classified as Learning Disabled (LD). Five hundred ten school psychologists were randomly presented with one of three vignettes describing a student exhibiting symptoms of a disorder/disability. Participants were asked to rate how effective SST would be in improving social skills, estimate the number of students referred to and by them for SST, and indicate for how many hours SST should be implemented. Results were that school psychologists perceived SST to be an ineffective treatment option for each population, despite existing support for the effectiveness of the intervention with ADHD and Autistic populations. In addition, school psychologists reported significantly fewer SST referrals for Autistic students than for the ADHD and LD populations. Finally, students with Autism were perceived as requiring more intensive treatment than the ADHD and LD groups. Based on results of previous investigations, the number of SST hours reported by school psychologists for the ADHD and LD populations fell well below the 30-hour minimum recommended. Interpretation of the results is limited by the failure to examine participants' familiarity and experience with SST. Future researchers, therefore, should assess school psychologists' knowledge of SST (i.e., articles/papers read, workshops/inservices attended, training received), as well as seek information about personal and observed attempts to elicit the desired social behaviors through use of SST. Regardless of the explanations for the findings, this study underscores the need for school psychologists to remain cognizant of the body of empirical literature that both supports the effectiveness of social skills training and establishes guidelines for successful implementation. |
