Ep. 62: How to Run Social Skills Groups in Schools and Clinics

Running social skills groups can be tricky—especially when you’re balancing different student needs, group sizes, and settings. In this episode, we unpack how to structure and differentiate social skills groups for learners at every level—whether you’re in a school, clinic, or classroom. From dyads to full-blown community outings, we’re breaking down what works (and what really doesn’t).

👥 Whether you're supporting early learners or advanced social thinkers, you'll walk away with practical strategies, game ideas, and real-talk about flexibility, planning, and data collection.

🗝️ Key Takeaways
      • 3 Types of Social Groups: Understand the difference between social behavior groups, early dyads, and advanced cognition groups—and when to use each.
      • Who Goes Where? Learn how to match learners thoughtfully (and realistically) in group settings.
      • Structure Matters: Tips for creating predictable routines and flexible lesson plans that work in both schools and clinics.
      • Simple Game Ideas: From UNO to Play-Doh, get low-prep group game ideas for every skill level.
      • Realistic Data Collection: How to track goals without losing your mind—or the moment.

🧰 Resources & Links
      🎯 Free Group visuals, lesson plans, and data AND Group Data Sheet Template
      🧠 Episode Mention: Michelle Garcia Winner – Social Thinking®
      🧩 Related Episode: Reverse Inclusion (Ep. 46) and Naturalistic Teaching (Ep. 5)
      💥 Beat the Teacher Game: Shop It Here
      📥 Grab our Favorite Low-Prep Group Games! Add to the list in our Facebook community:
            • Pop! the Pig
            • Pop-up Pirate
            • Don't Break the Ice
            • Animal Ring Toss
            • Kerplunk
            • Uno
            • Qwirkle
            • Blokus

🤝 Join Us
      💬 Let us know your favorite low-prep group activity in the Misfit Behaviors Facebook Group
      🌟 Subscribe: Don’t miss upcoming episodes on practical strategies and must-have resources for behavior support!
      📢 Share this episode with a teacher, BCBA, or administrator looking for fresh approaches to special education and behavior analysis!
      💬 Let us know how YOU connect with staff in our Facebook group  @TheMisfitBehaviorists
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👋 Find us!

• Audra | ABA in School
• Caitlin | Beltran’s Behavior Basics
• Sami | B.A.S.S.

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Transcript

Ep. 62: How to Run Social Skills Groups in Schools and Clinics 

[00:00:00] 

Audra: We would like to take today to talk about running social skills groups. It's been a request in the group as well as just, it's such an important topic because it's a little tricky, especially if you were working in schools and how do we run groups? What are the, what's the purpose? How do you run them? Who do you put in them? How does it go? What's been your experience, Caitlin, over the years in running social skills groups?

Caitlin: I used to hate group instruction and I feel like when I first started I was much more adept and fluent with working with one learner, maybe two at a time. I feel like working in the public school system as opposed to private and the clinic world has taught me a lot, and I don't know that I am the best at running groups, but I've seen them done in so many phenomenal ways. So I really see the value and can appreciate a really well run group when I see one.

Audra: Yeah, they're really fun. I've been in clinical and school for many years, and so I've run groups, everything from your smallest little dyad group [00:01:00] into your adults going on community outings and talking about relationships and stuff. So I've seen the gamut of what a social group is and how it benefits and where it works and doesn't work. And I think the biggest thing, the big takeaway I want to talk about is the kind of the purpose of a social group and who to put in it 'cause I think a lot of people, I saw this more in the clinical setting, wanna jam kids into groups because a group is lovely, because you wanna be around peers and stuff, but some kids are not ready to be in a group setting. They're not ready for that type of learning. So really analyzing who you want to do a group. And I don't know if you follow Michelle Garcia Winner at Social Thinking, but I learned a lot from her mentorship program that there's social behaviors, the first set of things, where you have your most supported learners who's just learning to follow certain rules of social guidelines, the rules of sitting in a group or walking in a line or just basic behaviors that we need to teach. And we do a lot of reinforcement to reinforce those behaviors. So social behaviors. [00:02:00] And then you have the next level, which is social skills. So those who are just emerging with some of the social overtures and they're starting to be aware of peers and stuff like that. And I'm gonna talk about that group in a minute. And then there's more like the social thinking, the social learning, social cognition. Those who are really capable of understanding that their behavior has an effect on other people's thoughts and feelings and other people's behavior has an effect on their thoughts and feelings and kind of this symbiotic relationship that we have. So that's a different type of learner that we would put in group. And so there's different things that you do at those three different levels. Your social behavior kids, your very early learners, I wouldn't put into a group at all. We're just basically learning the facets of living, in an environment. There's so many basic skills that we have to teach that I wouldn't put them in a group setting. First of all, they're not gonna learn from their peers anyway, just because observational learning has not really kicked in yet. We're really working as a teacher, learner, and practicing skills. And then that middle group is they're just starting to emerge in that you wanna [00:03:00] capitalize on that, but you don't wanna overwhelm them with a lot of other peers and stuff going on. So you wanna keep a very structured and very small. And then your social thinking, social cognition kids are those that you can really do more typically developing, and these are where I would pull peers, typically developing peers in so they can learn from those. So there's those three different sets of kids that I think about.

Caitlin: That's such a great overview, like a hierarchy of the group models. And then hopefully we can touch on too, working in that clinic versus school setting. Because I know just like you're saying, sometimes the child might not be ready for the group, if you're sometimes in a public school, like the group is there and we have to find a way to fit either the child into the group or work on those prerequisite skills, all the skills you mentioned, like waiting and turn, taking. So even if they're not in a group, I'm always training teachers to think about if they're not ready for a group, we have to be seeing you teaching some of those skills to get them ready for that group.

Audra: Exactly. So I kind of wanna talk about kind of three group models that I've used over time and then a [00:04:00] deeper dive into an example of a group in that middle most of the kids would go into, and then how to know if your kids are ready and how to do that, and the role of the different things that we do in the group.

The three group models that I think about is, the first one is what I call the dyad group, which isn't really group, it's just basically two kids. I'm not gonna talk about those, just social behavior kids, because I'm not gonna put them in a group, even in the dyad, they're just not ready for that. The dyad is the very early middle group. Those that are just starting to show attention to their peers and awareness, they're able to learn in a setting with a little bit more distraction. So I usually would just have two early social learners in this group, plus the facilitator or teacher. And these are kids who usually have some language, they have some social awareness, they're showing some interest in their peers or maybe they're interested in their peers, but it's negative interest. So anytime a peer's near their puzzle, they're freaking out or something, they're not able to have a peer around, that's a really good time to have that practice group, and those are kids who are working [00:05:00] past that social behavior into, focusing on what can we do next?

Caitlin: I love the idea of that early group introduction with a pair, and then sometimes we look at the kids we have, like you were mentioning in the beginning and thoughtfully choose, I think this kid will work well with this kid. And of course, sometimes it doesn't always work out. Sometimes you have to put this kid with this kid based on the day. But trying to be thoughtful about that if you can, like maybe this kid is really good at waiting and this student can learn from watching, and they have some of that observational learning, or they can do some of their tasks together. So looking at their skills and their skillset is a really good thing to start with as well.

Audra: That's a really good point in thinking about who you're putting with. So either somebody who is the exact opposite, somebody who has the skills and then you're working on the skills or have two working on the same skill, and you as the facilitator is really the peer in that setting is that you're the one, the example, that they're building off of. If you have two kids who are working on the same skill, just make sure that you are presenting [00:06:00] yourself as that practice, that example, and that your games and stuff incorporate all three of you. When you have a dyad where you have a typically developing peer and a peer who's working on skills, then you can facilitate it more as like working the two together. So there's the two different ways that you can run that group. And in that group you're gonna work on really simple goals like sharing materials, greetings, turn taking very simple concrete things that you can set up and you're gonna use lots of language, look how they feel, and what a great choice to share with your friend, and what could we do next? You're just beginning to bridge that gap outside of themselves and into what is the peer thinking and doing and how can that affect me. Then physical activities are really good in a dyad. These are the kids who are really responsive to swinging and running around and doing physical things, and it gets the body moving, but it triggers the brain in some ways and they get really excited, and they're more aware of their surroundings, including their peers when they're doing the [00:07:00] physical activities. And then the other kind of activities that I like to do with the dyads is very simple, put in activities and games where there's a simple turn taking, there's like a Pop the Pig and the icebreaker game, and those type of games are really good for this. There's some really fun ones, like the tossing of the rings onto the clown's hat was one. There was one with scarves. That's a really fun one.

Caitlin: So for the most basic low cost that everyone has in their classroom, we just use a deck of UNO cards and we take out any reverse wild plus four, so it's just color matching, and we put like red, green, yellow, blue in the middle, so that it's not so much as a winner or loser 'cause it, a lot of times they're not understanding that concept anyway, but it's your turn, my turn, and it's just matching, and sometimes they do get like a little bit of competition with in it, which is nice, but it's like a such a simple game. You can even just do five or 10 cards at a time. It's a nice intro that we use for almost all of our kids who just start turn taking.

Audra: I love that. There's another one, and I just had, [00:08:00] it's like in my other room, but there's a bag and they're little squares. They're black squares that have different colored shapes on them. I can't remember the name of it, but it's, you play it like a Dominoes thing, but we never went into the real game. It's basically a simple matching game. So you each have a set of these little blocks and you take turns matching either the color, the shape. Those kind of really simple games that is just a basic turn taking or perfect for this group.

Caitlin: This is making me think, I'm gonna start a thread in our Facebook group, like what early games do you play in your dyad, pairs, or small groups? But I love this conversation because I feel like when I first was trained in working in a small group or a dyad like a million years ago, I feel as a field we were still more on the wave of getting as many data points as we can and like fast paced instruction sometimes at the cost of that social emotional piece. So I feel like thankfully we've evolved and grown to where I would really never run a dyad the way I did when I first started because now we see the value in more of the peer interaction and less of the one-to-one [00:09:00] drill fast paced instruction. So I might sacrifice like four or five trials per student per goal for that one opportunity for them to come together. Maybe I am working on something with one student and the other student can't participate in, but I can say, Hey, can you help me set out the cards? And then can you wait for 10 seconds? And then can you pass your cards to him and he'll clean up and then you pass them back to her or find other ways for them to interact where it's going beyond just that, like strict number readiness or something.

Audra: Yeah, those are really good. We used to get those big chunky puzzles are really good 'cause they're easy to do and they're easy to hold. But we'd give them each one and then put all of the puzzle pieces into one set and then divide them out. So they would each have some of each others as well as their own. And so as they put them together and they were puzzles they liked and they knew that they could do. As they put one in, they'd find one for their friend, and so they'd either have to hand it over or to ask that, or to ask that one, but we'd make sure that they had some of each, both their owns and the other ones, just crossing boundaries. And then there's other ones [00:10:00] like sharing materials, having a group craft project, but all of the materials are divided out, and so you all need circles or whatever it is, but only one person holds the circle, so you have to ask your friend for the circles, so the whole idea in this group is to cross boundaries, to share materials, to turn, taking very simple things. And in this group, I'd really keep the sessions really short. I'm talking 15 minutes. Of course it depends on your learner, but most of the time their attention spans aren't ready to do a full, 45 minute group. So keep, 10, 15, 20 minutes max for this group. And I like to keep it very structured. So the whole set of the time is always the same. We may not do the same activities every time, but we always come in, we have a certain kind of greeting, we have a certain kind of prep we have a cleanup time, we do the activity, we clean up, then we leave. And it's always the exact same, so they have that predictability.

So then the second type of learners, that intermediate social learner, and this is where the bulk of our students that we have in groups are, at least that, that I've seen over the years. It can range from those who are just past that dyad group to [00:11:00] ready to really do that social cognition stuff. But these are most of the kids and I think of, six to 10 year olds. They're, three to four kids in a group. They have basic social skills, they have some social language. They're not just rote speakers anymore. They have some social language they may need to work on understanding kind of the impact of their behavior on other people's thoughts and feelings. These may be kids who have some gen ed time or are fully gen ed, but they can really exist in a group. I still would keep the number of the group down to three or four, because you don't wanna get too many of this group. It just becomes mad chaos. We've tried that before. Just keep it short.

Caitlin: A hundred percent. Sometimes we had groups with five, and I think too, one thing I would say is one of the common mistakes I see, myself included, when I first started was in thinking that, we've talked a lot about putting a lot of thought into pairing of the group and the makeup of the children involved, but not to be discouraged if you feel like they're all working on skills that are at very different levels. And I think you can go too far down that rabbit hole where it's, I can't put these three, and I can't put these three, and I [00:12:00] can't put these three, that doesn't mean because they're working on different skills none of them can sit together, like you said before, opposites sometimes are great pairings, as long as you're being thoughtful about it. Because I've worked with teachers in the past who are like, can't run groups this year. I can't run groups with them, can't run groups with them. And it's there's a lot...

Audra: Get creative.

Caitlin: We learn from each other. Yeah. Or we can start getting creative with that.

Audra: And even if you're having a free time together and you're all working on different skills, but you're sharing space together. There's so much social cognition that you have in just sharing space with somebody. Maybe your group is just 15 minutes of free time, you guys are sharing space together and learning how to navigate basic play, we don't play enough anymore.

Caitlin: Oh my gosh. I love that you said that. And going back to, I love the puzzle example you did, where they're doing it together. The one teacher that I work with who runs a phenomenal group, and she differentiates for all of their goals, but what she also started doing was a more like chill, fun group where it's just 10 minutes of like free play. And she started it, not because she just wanted to kick back, but because the kids were having such a hard time with shared [00:13:00] materials. So she puts all the Play-Doh out, all the cutting tools, all the like accessories. You always have those one or two kids that are like hoarding all the materials the second you sit down. So she was like, wow, I need to work on this more so that they learn this is not just mine. Like we're all just sharing and putting back and sharing and putting back, and it really worked wonders.

Audra: You had a guest come on, I can't remember if it was Michelle or somebody who did.

Caitlin: That's who it was. It was Michelle.

Audra: Yes. So she does the clubs after school and we've had that in one of our other schools. What a great opportunity to get some of your kids in there and not have any set plan, but just to be there, sharing space with peers and learning how to navigate the normal stuff that comes up in play. We had a Lego club at the elementary I was working out was fantastic. Oh, it was for everybody. Anybody could go, and you can group them all together if you need to. There was the Pokemon Cards Club. Ooh, chess Club of course. You know all of those things. Those are social groups. They're just naturalistic.

So in this kind of intermediate group you're gonna talk about flexible thinking, so much flexible thinking, sportsmanship [00:14:00] being a good loser, a good winner. It's like social thinking, cooperative play, being part of a group, planning as a group. Those are your basic goals that you're working on. You're gonna look at the kids that you have in the group and come up with the goals that you want. If you're not doing the naturalistic one to have a kind of structured plan, I just found it was better if we had a planned group that we'd come in, we'd do the same activity, the same structure every time that we met together. And they like that, especially if you're working with kids on the spectrum, they like the predictability of having kind of a schedule and knowing what to expect. So when we come in, we have 15 minutes of just open play, then we clean up, 'cause that is part of the play, is clean up time. And then we're gonna talk about the activity we're gonna do, and then we're gonna do the activity. And then again, we're gonna clean up 'cause that's part of the plan. We're gonna think about what we're doing with our friends and then we're gonna wrap up and talk about it. And then we're gonna, so it's always exactly the same. And we'd have certain kind of fun activities that we would do every week that would excite them and then plan for that.

Caitlin: I think that's a great point and another common mishap I see sometimes where, in thinking that the [00:15:00] group is just gonna run itself, like I'm gonna read a story and ask questions and what could go wrong. But like all the prep that goes into that. Again, are you remembering differentiating? Do you have a list of each child's kind of goals or prerequisite skills. Have you trained your paras, if they're shadowing behind, so that one's not sitting over here and one's not hovering on top, someone's ready to prompt. Are there augmentative devices ready and close by? So we don't have to grab materials as we're going. Just all the prep work. And like you said, if you're running it the same every day, even if the activity changes, it really becomes like a well-oiled machine. And if little things do go wrong, 'cause of course they're going to, I do like that it teaches the flexibility with the kids and us. So like sometimes something gets knocked off the table and they can't pass the material, but they have to learn to say, oops, I'll get it, or something like that.

Audra: Then the third group would be those advanced social learners, and these are usually your older or very socially adept kids, and you can have maybe a couple more, maybe two to six kids into a group like this. I found most of the groups that I was [00:16:00] running like this was just in the clinical model, just because we were able to do more of the outings and stuff like that, community outings, these are kids who usually, in a school setting you can do this too, but kids who are working on friendships and deeper friendships, relationships you might be dealing with, interacting independently. They may need help with kind of the subtle and nuances of social interactions. And we do, in this groups, a lot of role play and thinking about the impact of their behavior on other people, really trying to get them to think about how other people are thinking about them. So this is where we're talking about dating, getting a job, hygiene issues and stuff like that, hygiene is a huge thing. I don't know how much you've worked with teenage and the young adults on the spectrum, but they just do not understand the importance of getting their hair cut, using deodorant. S o little things like that. They're not little, but I think that's kind of part of it, is realizing the things that we think are little, are really, and what are the hurdles, the barriers to them, first, understanding what the social expectations are and why it's [00:17:00] important to them, and I think that's a really deep conversation. So these are kids, they're more advanced. You're able to do a lot more just sitting around and talking. So we used to have like teenage group in the clinic. We'd have like teenage room where it looked like a teenage bedroom, it was decorated, like teenage stuff, it had, Xbox and all this stuff and we were able to just come in and sit around and chat about things and so you may not see that as much in a public school, but it's really important, if you're working with kids, that you understand that is where they're going and so some of the things you're working on, these older, more adept kids is you're doing more project based stuff. You're doing role plays, you're focusing on empathy and problem solving, the social risks of giving compliments or asking somebody out on a date, is risk taking stuff involved and how to handle that rejection when it comes, 'cause it does come for everybody. So those are all really good things to focus on in this group.

And again, with this one, you're not gonna have as structured of a plan. It's a lot of them [00:18:00] driving what's important to them. It's a lot more of what do you want to work on? What's important to you. I have a lot of young adults that want to get a job and so they think they should just be able to walk in and get a job. But there's all the interview process and how you look, how you present yourself, who you talk to, how do you present a resume, there's all these little pieces that become a great project. Or dating is a huge one, wanting to have a relationship and not understanding how to get there. I have somebody very important in my life who would just like a person to drop out of the sky and doesn't realize there are a lot of things that go into finding a person. The whole point of all of these is become socially aware, but to gain independence away from facilitators and teachers and parents, the whole point is we want all these kids to grow up and be independent and happy and living in the social world and being successful in whatever success means to them.

So my big question for you, Caitlin, 'cause you're the data guru, what's the best way that you've seen of taking data [00:19:00] when needed in some of your group settings?

Caitlin: I do have, and I'll share it in the Facebook group for sure, just like a very basic one page group data sheet. I think it has enough for maybe up to five students and you can list like one to three goals per student. And so when you first look, it's almost like a table, like students on one side, goals on the other. And then you're not necessarily hitting every goal with every student the whole time or every time, every group. But that way if you're running groups every day for a week, you can use the same data sheet and just like crosscheck, circle the plus or minus and move on, and you can use it on a clipboard or a binder so that any para or teacher can grab it. So anything like that I can make as easy as possible for staff. I love to use that.

Audra: I'm glad you're gonna share that. We did an NET episode last year, I think a naturalistic environment. I think we did a data sheet I put using that a nd a naturalistic environment data sheet is really good for a group setting because it is more natural and we recognize, absolutely recognize how [00:20:00] hard it is to take data when you're trying to navigate two to four students as well. It's almost impossible, so unless you have a para or somebody that's able to take data in the moment, it's really hard to take accurate data after a moment. And so finding you have to get creative. Beat the Teacher game is my favorite one to use in groups. And I just created a product that I'll link that to, but Beat the teacher game can be as simple as just using a Post-it note and a t-chart and so on one side it says me, the other side says, teacher, and you go through beforehand what the expectations are, hey, this week we're gonna work on being a really good listener to our peers when they're talking. So that's the goal we're gonna work on. Everybody has a t chart, sticky note, in front of them, and you just keep a pencil and every time you see that, yeah, wow. Point for you, point for you, point for you. And if you have to give reminders or they're off task or whatever it is, then the point goes to the teacher on that side. And the whole point of beat the teacher is just to beat the teacher. So at the very end, they can either be individual, Hey I beat the teacher, I beat the teacher. [00:21:00] Yay. You wanna be really lavish with their points and very reserved with, so it's almost always that they be the teacher, or you can put all their points together, all the teacher points together and see as collectively as a group. And then you're always working for something. The last five minutes of free play, we're either gonna get to the Pokemon cards or we're just do puzzles. You're gonna choose which one, anyone who wins. So beat the teacher, a really easy one to use and it was probably my favorite. And it's not necessarily data taking unless you're really concrete about how you're taking it, but it's motivating them to have one goal in mind that they're really working for. Or you can do multiples at once, that's a really easy one to use.

Caitlin: I love that. And it like highlights and reinforces all the staff to remember to call out all those positive behaviors you're seeing too.

Audra: So just to wrap up, couple of quick tips and best practices for running social groups. Set those clear, but flexible structures to always have a plan but be prepared to throw the plan out the window 'cause things change or somebody comes in sick and miserable or somebody comes in a bad [00:22:00] mood. Be prepared to be flexible yourself as you are teaching them, and I think would add to that to always narrate your own feelings and your own flexibility. So if something happens and the game that you wanted to play isn't accessible or something that day, be really clear about how you are being flexible about changes and stuff like that. Flexibility is such a huge thing with the kids that we're working with. So be flexible about, wow, this is really frustrating. I wanted to play this game. But I'm gonna be flexible. And then, so using the same language for yourself, same thing with working as a group plan. So what was the group plan? We were gonna do this, but I don't want to do that, but I'm gonna be part of the group here and I'm gonna think as a group. And so using the language about yourself I think is really important when you're dealing with that. Use visuals and timers those are really helpful for preparing for change and transitions. Role play is a great way to do a lot of activities. We talked briefly about taking data, but be mindful that the data you take and the goals that you have need to be [00:23:00] simple enough that you can take it , and I think our next episode, Caitlin's gonna be talking about data collection mistakes and stuff. And this is one thing, it's just don't overextend yourself in taking data or planning to take data. Don't get down on yourself. If you weren't able to take data in a certain situation, be flexible about that. I would say in a group setting to really be as small as possible with the goals that you take, just so you can be successful yourself.

Caitlin: Yeah, just prioritize. Maybe you're hitting one to two targets per learner, per group, and that's totally sufficient.

Audra: And celebrate those small wins, the social wins, the safe risk taking, things that they're doing because if they're coming out from the social behavior, the early social learning stuff and starting to interact with peers, there's gonna be a lot of negative situations that they are gonna start feeling bad about. They wanna be reinforced positively for social overtures as well. There's a lot of risk taking in social groups and social interactions. And so make sure you're celebrating those wins for [00:24:00] them. And the last thing is to really communicate with your families. Keep that consistency up. Make sure they know what you're doing in group and what they can work on at home. I think that's a really helpful thing to do.

Wrapping up, hey, just try maybe one new dyad this week or one new intermediate group. Try to put some kids together, see how it goes. Take your own risk taking. See what you can do. Try to take some data you hadn't done before in a social group. So those are the things that we want you to try this week. Go to the Facebook group, join us.

Caitlin: Grab that free data sheet and then I'm also gonna start a thread for like easy low prep dyad or group games that you guys have going on.

Audra: Yes, I love that. Thank you so much, and we will see you guys next week.