Group Counseling

Stephens, D., Jain, S., & Kim, K. (2010). Group counseling: Techniques for teaching social

skills to students with special needs. Education, 130, 509-512.

Article Review 1

Special needs children often experience social issues in addition to the difficulties they already experience due to their disability. Children with special needs often have a hard time interacting with the general student population in socially acceptable ways and this decreases their ability to learn social skills. Not only does this affect others perception of them but it also affects their self esteem and self perception. Many times early social failures will set the stage for a downward "spiral" of social failures (Stephens, Jain, and Kim, 2010). It is also pointed out that social isolation tends to deepen over time. This fact has led counselors to look for ways to reach children early in their school years in order to help them develop the social skills necessary to function as socially accepted children.

Recent research has focused on group counseling as a means of helping special needs children acquire the social skills that they will need to better interact with their classmates in a school setting. Stephens et al. (2010) states that group counseling is "critical to developing comprehensive programs." Other studies by Court and Givon go on to reinforce that group counseling is the most effective way to teach social skills to children with disabilities. The major advantage of using group counseling is that it allows school counselors to reach a larger number of students than they would be able to on an individual basis. Using small groups of four to six children counselors will be able to effectively help a larger population of students. Group counseling also allows students to see that there are other students who share the same struggles as they do. It helps them to not feel as isolated and can help to reduce their anxiety or fears. It has also been found that including socially accepted in the group has a two-fold advantage. The first thing it does is it elevates the status of the group since special needs children are often averse to the idea of being singled out for groups. The second thing it does it that it allows the children who lack social skills to be able to observe the socially accepted skills that they are lacking. The socially accepted children are able to serve as a model for those who are lacking in social skills.

The success that is evident from using small groups to help children with special needs learn social skills has necessitated the need to train school counselors in group counseling techniques. It has also been found that early intervention is key since often when children experience social failures early in their school