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Social Skills - Intermediate/Advanced Level

Reading Social Cues
Intermediate/Advanced Level
Shasta Quigley
  • Description of Skill - This is the ability to attend to others’ reactions in social settings. This may include reading facial expression, gestures, and body language.
  • Examples of what the skill looks like -
    • The student can label a variety of feelings based on facial expressions that can look similar, such as sad/ angry/ frustrated.
    • Jacob sees another student’s face and observes him pounding on a desk. He asks the teacher, “Why is Jacob mad?”
    • Mark walks away from Sam during a game and doesn’t respond to his name. Sam later tells his mom that Mark is mad at him.
    • At lunch, Bob’s girlfriend avoids eye contact with him and speaks in a quiet voice. He asks her, “What’s wrong? You seem upset.”
    • Sally goes to a baseball game with 2 friends. When she comes back from the bathroom she notices that they are not talking to each other and have moved to different seats, concluding that they are mad at each other.
  • Skill Sequence
    • Read others’ facial expressions and body language to identify a wide range of emotions: eg. Surprised, Confused, Disgusted, Disappointed
    • Spontaneously observe social cues and commenting/ asking questions about other’s feelings
    • Attend to more subtle social cues to gain information about others’ feelings: Including posture, changes in tone of voice, eye contact
    • Identify others’ feelings based on their actions in a social context
    • Read interactions between 2 or more other people to identify how they feel
  • Assessment -
    • Read others’ facial expressions and body language to identify basic emotions: eg. Happy, Sad, Mad/Angry
    • Label others’ feelings when asked “How does he/she feel?” or “Is he sad?”
    • Identify the feelings of a variety of people- beyond familiar adults & peers
    • Reference others’ facial expressions for information and direction
Lesson Plan
  • Student Outcomes -
    • Read others’ facial expressions and body language to identify a wide range of emotions: eg. surprised, confused, disgusted, disappointed, nervous
    • Spontaneously observe social cues and commenting/ asking questions about other’s feelings
    • Attend to more subtle social cues to gain information about others’ feelings: Including posture, changes in tone of voice, eye contact
    • Identify others’ feelings based on their actions in a social context
    • Read interactions between 2 or more other people to identify how they feel
  • Materials - Pictures , movie clips, voice recordings, and other examples of social situations. Use examples that have a range of emotions and a range of social cues. Examples used further into instruction may be ambiguous.
Teaching Format
  • Introduce the skill -
    • Review basic emotions and more complex emotions that the student has learned. Include emotions such as confused, frustrated, and anxious.
    • Discuss with students the need to understand how others are feeling.
      • Why is it important? (So you can make and keep friends. So can understand other people better).
      • How do you know? (Facial expression, tone of voice, body language, subtle actions)
    • Emphasize the preskill of reading facial expressions and identifying obvious and basic emotions. Explain that there are many other ways to read emotions (Tone of voice, body language, subtle actions and reactions)
  • Model - Present multiple examples of the following variables (do not present more than one variable in an instructional setting):
    • Voice samples or live voices (without a face visible) saying the same phrase in many different voices and tones- identify the emotion behind the voice.
    • Posture changes such as leaning toward or away from the speaker, hunching over, moving closer to the other person, hanging or hiding head, standing erect.- identify the range of emotions that each one might indicate.
    • Social actions in response to a situation (e.g asking to play) such as jumping up and down, leaving the room, laughing, becoming silent, sitting down or standing up- identify the range of emotions that each one might indicate.
  • Role-play for practice -
    • Have students act out pre-determined social situations. Have the teacher or other students react in a variety of ways. The student should identify how the other person feels and how they know
    • Reactions should be fairly clear to begin with. As the students become more skilled, combine several cues (tone of voice and posture) that may be ambiguous. If students are unclear about the reaction, discuss it as a group and identify the possible emotions behind them.
  • Skill maintenance/Generalization Activities (identify real-life situations to apply the skill) -
    • Act out social situations with puppets – students must guess their feelings based on tone of voice and actions
    • Discuss social cues that occur in other subjects, such as during reading (in stories), P.E., or movie times.
  • Extensions -
  • Resources -
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