Is Social Skills Training Effective for Students with Emotional or Behavioral Disorders? Research Issues and Needs

The purpose of this paper is to identify and discuss the factors that may influence the long-term effectiveness of social skills training. Potential impediments to the success of social skills training include: lack of a sound conceptual framework, questionable social validity of target skills, controversies surrounding the nature of social skills deficits, imprecision in assessment procedures, vagueness in description of interventions, inattention to contextual factors, and failure to achieve generalization.