Enhancing Social Skills of Students with Nonverbal Learning Disabilities

The researches indicate that about one third of students with learning disabilities (already the largest group of students with disabilities) have nonverbal or social disabilities. Students with nonverbal learning disabilities, then, not only face academic challenges but have difficulty meeting social expectations, as well as many of life’s other demands. Actually, social skills problems and difficulties with interpersonal interactions are the major problems of children with nonverbal learning disabilities. This article discusses the difficulty with which children with social disabilities establish and maintain friendships, as well as the significance of this difficulty within the school setting. The article also illustrates practical classroom strategies and interventions such as entering/initiating conversation or play with classmates, working in groups, exhibiting empathy, resolving conflict, managing frustration that target select social-skill deficits frequently encountered by students with nonverbal learning disabilities.