Publications

Developing social skills of adolescents

Silva, Ana

Climepsi

Lisbon, Portugal, 2004

Book

Portuguese

Students with learning difficulties

The book is a study developed with adolescents with learning difficulties and risk behaviours.
Prior to the study, the author had had professional experience in dealing with adolescents, especially in the area social skills development, as a member of the childhood and adolescent team of the Psychiatry and Mental Health Department of Santarém Hospital in Portugal. She also had an interest in social skills development in adolescents and its importance during the learning process. Thus, she carried out a qualitative case of study with the objective of developing social skills in the adolescents. The samples she used were not probabilistic but based in convenience samples. She made analyses of the thematic content of the data she gathered through observation, documents she consulted, adolescent registration and interview surveys. The target group for the study was composed by seven sixth-grade adolescents, with ages between 12 and 13 years and their respective parents.
The principal conclusions were the following:
- attitudes and behaviours of the primary network interfere negatively in the development of social skills in adolescents, because parents will not encourage them to develop those skills;
- social anxiety influences negatively the development of social skills in adolescents;
- acceptance into the peer group influences the development of social skills;
- faulty familiar supervision influences negatively the development of social skills in adolescents.
After participating in the group for the development of social skills, the adolescents present general benefits regarding social skills, their behaviour in and out of the classroom, and their learning capacity. Some of these results were confirmed by the theoretical reference used and by previous studies.
This book can constitute an incentive to the development of social skills in the adolescents. It was selected to share the experience and also to contribute to the development of further research in the area.
Problem behaviours have been on the rise inside the classroom with direct impact on learning difficulties and inappropriate social behavior and schools have been quite unprepared to deal with these kind of situations.
The development of new competences to avoid or solve interpersonal conflicts, to grow up and live harmoniously and with solidarity has been reached through teaching social skills not only in clinical environments, but also at school. It is a kind of extension of psychological procedures and techniques to the educative context, specifically the practice of social skills.
The occasional barriers in the interpersonal relationships of adolescents are not considered pathological, although, as noted, they reduce the life quality and adaptability of adolescents, and require therefore preventive and educational intervention.
Middle and secondary schools are privileged places to spread basic knowledge about the development of social skills that otherwise young people would never get access to it. The training of social skills constitutes an additional training for schools. This task demands changes, such as that teachers expand their action field and competences, that health personnel play a more active role in the educational context, and that families are more committed to education and to their relation with schools.

This book can constitute an incentive to the development of social skills in the adolescents. It was selected to share the experience and also to contribute to the development of further research in the area.
Problem behaviours have been on the rise inside the classroom with direct impact on learning difficulties and inappropriate social behavior and schools have been quite unprepared to deal with these kind of situations.
The development of new competences to avoid or solve interpersonal conflicts, to grow up and live harmoniously and with solidarity has been reached through teaching social skills not only in clinical environments, but also at school. It is a kind of extension of psychological procedures and techniques to the educative context, specifically the practice of social skills.
The occasional barriers in the interpersonal relationships of adolescents are not considered pathological, although, as noted, they reduce the life quality and adaptability of adolescents, and require therefore preventive and educational intervention.
Middle and secondary schools are privileged places to spread basic knowledge about the development of social skills that otherwise young people would never get access to it. The training of social skills constitutes an additional training for schools. This task demands changes, such as that teachers expand their action field and competences, that health personnel play a more active role in the educational context, and that families are more committed to education and to their relation with schools.

Ana Isabel Mateus da Silva

Instituto Politécnico de Portalegre- Escola Superior de Educação

Coordenadora do Ensino à Distância/eLearning IPP, Professora Adjunta da Escola Superior de Educação