Written by: Nimra Khan / Social Skills / November 23, 2022 / 8 minutes read

Many of the clients that I work with have initial conversations with me in which they describe specific situations where they know they felt awkward, uncomfortable or some miscommunication happened. It often is a build-up of these situations that leads to clients seeking SLP support. As an SLP, these descriptions are helpful from my point of view to understand the daily impact on a client’s life. I then try to shape this understanding into possible specific skills that we could target, based on where a client feels the communication breakdown is happening.  See my previous blog post about building a professional relationship with your SLP.

There are a variety, but I often ask clients to describe their confidence in these conversation skills first:

1. Asking Questions

2. Starting a conversation

3. Asking for a favor

4. Giving a compliment

5. Accepting a compliment

6. Accepting criticism

7. Giving criticism

8. Apologizing

9. Giving instruction 

10. Dealing with resistance

11. Expressing your feelings

12. Handling anger

13. Dealing with conflict 

14. Standing up for your rights

15. Stating what you want 

16. Stating an unpopular opinion

17. Saying no

18. Active listening 

All of these aforementioned areas can come with their own challenges, and you might be very confident in some areas but be worried about others. Take a look at this list and consider how confident you feel in each. In my experience, starting with 2-3 targets is best. I have often found that, after starting on these, clients might discover that areas they felt confident in were causing more difficulty than they realized. Self-awareness (not aiming for perfection, but in order to increase your own confidence) is an important step in working on any of these goals, and you as the client are the best person to determine these with your daily experiences. 

The process of working on social skills is flexible and adaptive to you. The targets you choose with your SLP will be the starting point. From there, it is a mixture of:

• Education: Many times, it can be unclear what baseline to set for yourself in terms of what to expect in most small talk conversations, for example. This part of the process focuses on learning more about general ‘rules’ and skills and how to implement them 

• Counselling: There are often many difficult underlying feelings that can be associated with difficulty in conversation. This makes sense of course, as every bad experience leads to less confidence and other negative feelings for future conversations. A part of working on the external skills for this area is also addressing and discussing these thoughts and feelings as they relate to how you could improve this for future. Read more about the role emotion plays on communication and wellness.

• Conversation practice: we’ve all heard the saying that ‘practice makes perfect’, and this is especially true for social skills. By practicing in 1-to-1 conversations with the SLP, you can also practice scenarios that you’ve previously had difficulty with in real life. For example, if a client describes a conversation with a co-worker in which they weren’t sure how to exit the conversation, I pretend to the be that co-worker and we use the skills discussed during the education/counselling stage 

In my experience, a minimum of two to three months is required for the majority of short-term goals to start to be seen in daily life. Progress in social skills is dependent on a few factors:

• A client is working 1-to-1 on these skills weekly: this is the ideal schedule when completing speech therapy sessions, although of course finances and other life responsibilities can affect how feasible this is. In an ideal situation however, having consistent practice, with an SLP to provide feedback and support, can help you progress through your goals more easily

• Completing home practice: for social skills, this often means reviewing the areas discussed during an appointment, and each day having at least 15 minutes that you spend even on your own, practicing a skill that you have difficulty with. For example, if small talk is difficult, then a part of home practice could be to think of what topics you could discuss with a hypothetical list of people (i.e. a colleague who is your age, VP of your company, etc.). Think of it as any other skill you want to learn – you will need to review and practice before you even jump into the conversation  

• Slowly integrating into daily life: It is important to remember that this is a marathon. There will be awkward moments at first and that’s expected. Remember that this is the hardest part for you currently, so will also take repetition to become confident in. As you gain confidence in practice 1-to-1, your SLP will discuss ways to practice in daily situations and how to monitor yourself.   

If you struggle with making and maintain conversation, then speaking with an SLP could be beneficial for you. An initial consultation can also help answer any additional questions you might have. If this feels dauting or is difficult to fit into your schedule right now, you could consider one of WELL SAID’s online Communication Masterclasses to take at your own pace. For more advice and information about professional communication settings, read more HERE. 

To speak with one of the speech-language pathologists at Well Said: Toronto Speech Therapy, schedule an initial consultation by clicking the link below or calling (647) 795-5277.