At my middle school placement, I push in to the SDC functional skills classes to work on social skills and functional communication. I began thinking about life skills my students will need when they are adults. Interview and conversation skills are very important for getting jobs as well as being a part of a community!
Most of the students in these classes have Intellectual Disabilities, but they are all verbal. Some students need visual supports to make novel utterances more independently. It is pretty tough planning lessons for this bunch because there are various levels, so some need visuals and the lessons have to be middle school friendly even though most of the students are functioning around a 1st-2nd grade academic level.
As a team, we have been picking themes for the week and/or month to help guide our lesson planning. I did these activities back at the beginning of the school year and then tried to make this pack more formal, so I could save the lesson plans for next year!
My kids are too young for practicing job interview questions, but I thought they still needed to work on how to ask/answer questions in conversation with peers and in more formal situations like talking with the PRINCIPAL! Yes, my students were able to formally interview the principals using the “favorite” question guide. There are three activities in this pack: greetings, turn taking in conversation with peers, and job interview skills. I include a lesson plan with links to youtube videos that support these skills. I have several students on the autism spectrum, so these videos are perfect for video modeling (evidenced based practice)!
First, I show the class the youtube video. I embedded the greetings video that I found to give you an example. Then, we break up into groups, or stay as a whole class to discuss expected vs. unexpected behaviors. I will have the students and staff role play and the class rates if the students were expected or unexpected.
Here is an example of my “rate my communication” forms that I made!
I put velcro on one of my clear vinyl dry erase pouches to use with my expected vs. unexpected file folder activities. These are great to do during the lesson and then allow the teacher to use them the rest of the week with students. Some of my students can read well, so there is a sheet with just words and then a sheet with visual supports for those that need help with reading the words.
This video is perfect for showing turn taking with peers and seeing that other people are having thoughts about us when we are talking! I loved this video! My kids practiced asking each other about their favorite things and working on making comments too. This was a great activity to help lead into asking/answering questions in a more formal setting.
There are visuals for asking and answering questions with peers about their favorite things. I also included Q and A visuals, to help some of my kids understand who should be asking the question and who is answering the question.
I showed the job interview video to talk about what to do during a job or formal interview. My kids aren’t ready for practicing for job interviews, but I wanted them to try to practice talking with someone in a formal setting. So, I asked my principals if they would be willing to help and they said “yes!”. We have a follow up appointment coming soon to re-interview them. We talked about how greetings with adults and professionals are different compared to their peers. We also practiced what kind of body language we need to have during the interview. I filmed them all and then we got to critique everyone’s performance!
I loved all these lessons and I hope you do too!! The first three peeps to comment below with some cool activities you have been doing in your speech room, will get this pack for FREE!
I serve middle and high school students. At my high school, I push in to the self contained class serving students with severe and profound intellectual disabilities. While I am in the class, we do a lot of very functional activities like preparing simple recipes. For example, we made pigs in a blanket. While they were cooking we did a sorting activity in which the students had to find pictures of the ingredients/tools we used to make the recipe. We then did a sequencing activity in which the students had to put the steps of the recipe in the correct order. The steps were printed on slips of paper and the students cut and pasted the strips onto a recipe sheet. Most of the students in the class are non-verbal or are minimally verbal. But this allows us to work on lots of great skills like sequencing and following directions. I can also so elicit some verbal responses as we describe how things feel and taste. I love doing cooking activities with all of my students!
I have my students play board games and guide them through the challenges of rules, turn taking, listening to others while they speak, helping others, not being first, not being the winner every time, losing or winning with grace, and many other skills.
these are great! Is there a way to download videos to a jumpdrive and play… YOUTUBE is blocked at my school and I don’t have an Ipad. My middle schoolstudents would really benefit from these. We have started going to the office and greeting everyone
I’m sorry I didn’t read this soon enough in order to get in on the giveaway! It looks great! I really like the interviewing aspect and hadn’t thought about including that into the social thinking realm, but now think it’s very doable. I work with middle schoolers too and have been following Social Thinking guidelines for my behavior/autism kids. Lately, we’ve been developing personalized 5 Point Scales in order to help shape behavior into more socially acceptable reactions.
I really love to read about what you do with your kids. Great and helpful blog!
I really like Michelle Garcia Winner’s Thinking About You, Thinking About Me. I pull techniques for “thinking with your eyes” and love the dynamic assessment protocol. My students really respond to the social behavior map so I made it into a giant poster board. It really helps them to lay out expected vs. unexpected behaviors, how they make others feel, consequences, and how it makes them feel about themselves.
Love the idea of making a giant poster! Would love to see pics of that.
We group our K-6 student body into “houses” that meet once per month. There are 12-15 per house, with each classroom teacher leading, and one specialist as a co-leader. My 6th grade ASD student has read to younger house buddies, made valentines, marched in a walk-a-thin, and is getting ready to tackle outdoor grounds cleaning in preparation for Earth Day. This House system has been a wonder for all our students, but especially our ASD kiddos.