Social Skills Lessons for Middle School | Speech Therapy Goals and Activities

What social skills should middle school students have?

What can we do to help 11-14 year-olds who are struggling with social skills?

What are some social skill lessons for middle school that we can use in speech therapy or in the classroom?

How to Teach Social Skills to Middle School Students:

Many of our children with language delays also have trouble with social skills.  This may be due to certain conditions that impair social skills, like autism, or it may just be because these children have trouble learning language and social interactions rely heavily on language skills.  Whatever the cause, one of the best ways to help improve social skills is through the use of social skills groups.  Doing social skills training in a group setting allows children to practice new skills with their peers instead of just talking about them theoretically.  Practice is crucial for these children to actually be able to use those skills in real life.

However, knowing exactly how to run a social skills group can be tricky.  I’m going to present you with some great social skills activities for middle schoolers (ages 11-14 years).

Listen to the Social Skills for Middle Schoolers Podcast:

What Social Skills Should Middle School Students Learn?

• Topic Maintenance
• Announcing Topic Shifts
• Not talking too much (ask the other person questions)
• Responding to others with relevant information
• Not asking personal questions
• Keeping secrets and respecting someone’s privacy
• Including enough information for the listener to know what you’re talking about
• Using clear speech with complete sentences
• Beginning and Ending Conversations
• Vocal Volume
• How to Listen
• Thinking about others
• Using clues in conversations (making inferences)
• Approaching and entering a group conversation
• Not perseverating on a topic
• Making small talk

How Should I Choose Social Skill Targets and Goals for Middle School?

• Observe student in natural interactions with peers (host a lunch group or push-in (“supervise”) during lunch or free time)
• Ask teachers what social problems they’ve noticed
• Ask the child what he has trouble with in conversation or when things seem to break down
• Ask the child’s friends (with his permission)
• Observe other children his age in typical interactions and see what they are doing that the student is not

How to Run a Social Skills Group for Middle Schoolers:

1. Choose one topic per session (or one topic for several sessions)
2. Read a story or watch a video about the topic or give a scenario where the skill was not used correctly and have the students identify what went wrong
3. Explain the skill to the children and write out rules for the situation or scenario
4. Have one or two students come up to the front to demonstrate the skill in a staged scenario that you control and plan out
5. Ask the students questions about the rules of this topic
6. Have students pair off and practice the skill while you watch and provide feedback
7. Come back together and ask questions again to ensure comprehension. Watch the video again or read the book again.
8. Assign each student to write in a journal about one time that they used the skill (either correctly or incorrectly) and review at the beginning of your next session
9. Check to see if the students retained the info during the next session. If not, repeat these steps.

A Structured Program for Teaching Social Skill Lessons to Middle School Students:

The SLK Curriculum has five different structured programs for teaching social skills to middle school students.

Each Curriculum focuses on a different aspect of social communication and comes with everything you need to teach those social skills.

Our SLK Curriculum Platform even includes AI-Powered Social Scenario Generator, which will give you endless practice examples of social scenarios based on specific skills.

Subscribe to the SLK Curriculum today to get all of the Social Communication Curriculums.

About the Author: Carrie Clark, MA CCC-SLP

Hi, I’m Carrie! I’m a speech-language pathologist from Columbia, Missouri, USA. I’ve worked with children and teenagers of all ages in schools, preschools, and even my own private practice. I love digging through the research on speech and language topics and breaking it down into step-by-step plans for my followers.

Fun Fact: When my son was three, he once got mad at me and told me he was going to send me to Antarctica in nothing but a t-shirt.  He had an overly large vocabulary for a 3-year-old….along with an overly large amount of sass.  He still has both to this day.

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