Perspective Taking: Teaching social skills

Perspective taking is one of the underlying skills for effective social interaction. Children with autism spectrum disorder typically have difficulty with this skill. In addition, many children with language difficulties also have difficulty with this area. These children may get into trouble because they mis-read social cues.

Teaching social skills to children can be difficult for a number of reasons. I posted about some activities that can be use to teach social skills over here.

Social Skill Builder’s perspective-taking app is designed to learn how to take the perspective of others.

The app uses photographs with speech bubbles to teach users to read and interpret non-verbal cues.

The app has four different social interactions to choose from. Within each social interaction there are a number of different scenarios.

Each scenario has five examples:

My Community: Restaurant, Phone Booth, Street Safety, Movie Theatre, Grocery Store, Doctor’s Office, Car Ride, and Friend’s House.
My School Day: Cafeteria, Recess, Lineup, and Classroom.
Structured interactions at school: Classroom behaviour, classroom assignments, feeling fit in PE, PE locker room , walking in the hall
Unstructured interactions at school: Locker, Getting my lunch, Gabbing at Lunch, Social Chit Chat, Hanging Out

Although the app is targeted for users from 7 years of age, there are many scenarios that are applicable to younger children.

Correct answers are rewarded with a little animation.

Users are given two opportunities to select their answers before correct answers are given. If a user makes an error, there is a voice-over stating “that’s okay, try again.”

Progress is recorded for each answer and the scores can be emailed so that progress can be monitored.

What I Like:

User data can be saved

This is not only a fantastic tool for perspective-taking, It is great for generating language by discussing what could have been said. The speech bubbles can also be used as a written language task.

Peer models are very effective for teaching perspective-taking. Although the app is geared from 7 years, I have used it with children from 5 years old.

The situations that are addressed are diverse and relevant.

There are multiple examples in each situation. This allows skills to be practised and discussed in depth.

I Would like:

The option to have more/less foils to increase/decrease the difficulty level.

Some of the options were not always clear. It would be useful to revisit specific items when a student has made an error.

If any of the options are incorrect, then the item is marked as incorrect. I would like to have the incorrect response eliminated so that more scaffolding can take place. This can assist the student in obtaining the correct answer.

Scores can only be mailed if the user has completed all the items in the scenario. It would be helpful to view scores even if the user has not completed all items.

Feature-matching Checklist

The feature-matching checklist below can be used to identify which features of the app are being used during intervention. This may assist you in selecting apps with/without specific features.

Feature-Matching Checklist for Speech –Language Apps
Feature	Description	Yes	No
Theme	Child Friendly Theme with familiar characters		x
Screen	Clean interface no additional pictures/words on screen		x
	Some additional pictures/words on the screen	x
	Many additional pictures/words on the screen		x
	Ability to remove screen elements		x
Interactivity	Allows for interactivity with images on screen		x
	Some interactivity with images on screen		x
	Touch/drag with images on screen	x
Images	Animation		x
	Photographs	x
	Colour illustration		x
	Video		x
Developmental Levels	More than 3 levels	x
	2 – 3 levels
	Only 1 level
Examples per Level	More than 20 examples	x
	11 – 20 examples
	At least 10 examples
Activity selection	Allows user to select specific activity or items		x
Repetition	Target can be repeated		x
Pace	Items can be skipped within the app		x
Pace	App can be paused at any stage	x
Record Feature	Available		x
Error Response	Immediate	x
	Option to try again	x
	Visual display e.g. cross or tick		x
	Sound reflects incorrect response		x
	Reduce level of difficulty		x
	Corrective audio feedback	x
Voice	Child voice		x
	Adult voice	x
	Accent choice		x
Reward	Choice of games		x
	One game		x
	Star chart/token reward		x
Customisation	User Profiles		x
	Text on/off		x
	Background noise on/off		x
	Sounds on/off		x
	Error response can be adjusted		x
Data	Save Progress	x
Data	Report generation		x
Content	Description refers to EBP in the development of content & techniques	x
	Description refers to EBP in development
	No reference to EBP
Nikki Heyman (2017)