Social Skills Videos/Course for 2nd Grader?

[Turkey Leg]

TLDR: A young relative has an extremely bright 2nd grader. (Let's call him Joe.) He occasionally has trouble reading social cues. Is there a set of YouTube videos or a website that might help cultivate social skills? They don't mind paying, but free would be preferred.

About the boy:
- 7 years old
- has been the verbal target of his class' bully, but so have other kids (Joe is tall and solidly built, so his parents aren't too worried about physical bullying)
- very smart: into engineering, computers, robotics, can read like crazy (he read "Moby Dick")
- has a few friends

He just doesn't pick up on social cues some time. For example, during the summer when at the school for orientation, he was walking with his parents and passed one of his friends who said, "Hi, Joe." He didn't respond at all. Later a girl started talking to him, and he basically ignored her. He doesn't do this all of the time, so his parents think maybe some training could help him recognize situations where he should respond.

Thanks!

[EverythingisNew]

My son is 7years old and in 2nd grade. He was diagnosed with autism and is similar to the boy you describe. My son is very mild autism, but I’m happy for the diagnosis because he gets social skills classes at school through his IEP. I would highly recommend that the parents of the boy talk to his teacher about getting resources at school. My son gets pulled out of class for pragmatic language counseling with the speech pathologist. He gets group social skills classes with the social worker. It’s probably a $500 value a month! He is so much happier at school since we got him these services!! Please talk to the school! He doesn’t need an autism diagnosis to get help. Almost every kid can get some kind of help just by the parents requesting it. We also do social skills classes in the summer at a local counseling center. It’s $50 per group class. All the kids are quirky and they practice throwing a birthday party for a stuffed animal or little scenarios that could lead to “big emotions”. It’s very cute and helps a lot!!

[former player]

I'm not sure why the default here is video?  Time spent with adults who knowingly model good social behaviour is probably the best way to go - EverythingisNew's suggestions are excellent - but as the kid is such a good reader a book on good manners could also work.

[Freedomin5]

Autism Speaks has a lot of good information and links to resources: https://www.autismspeaks.org

National Autism Resources also has links to games, books, and resources: https://nationalautismresources.com/social-skills/

Personally, I like using Social Stories with younger kids on the spectrum (and even for younger kids not on the spectrum) to teach social expectations/rules: https://carolgraysocialstories.com

[Turkey Leg]

Thank you for the resources. I've been going through them. Good stuff!

[Morning Glory]

Has he had formal vision and hearing tests recently? Does he miss social cues all the time or just in loud or distracting environments?  Does he have sensory issues like being afraid of public bathrooms because the flushes are too loud? Just mentioning because a problem with hearing or sensory overwhelm are both reasons why a cue might get missed.  A lot of people also have trouble remembering faces, especially out of context. I totally miss things like that when I'm in a loud place without my glasses on.

Ive got 2 boys with autism diagnoses and vision/hearing was the first part of the process.  My older son's speech delay has resolved but he still gets pulled out for social skills as part of his IEP and they do a lot with identifying feelings and expressing them appropriately.

[Turkey Leg]

Has he had formal vision and hearing tests recently? Does he miss social cues all the time or just in loud or distracting environments?  Does he have sensory issues like being afraid of public bathrooms because the flushes are too loud? Just mentioning because a problem with hearing or sensory overwhelm are both reasons why a cue might get missed.  A lot of people also have trouble remembering faces, especially out of context. I totally miss things like that when I'm in a loud place without my glasses on.

Ive got 2 boys with autism diagnoses and vision/hearing was the first part of the process.  My older son's speech delay has resolved but he still gets pulled out for social skills as part of his IEP and they do a lot with identifying feelings and expressing them appropriately.

No speech delays at all, and he's a voracious reader.

[waltworks]

I have a neuro typical/non autistic son (who is in middle school now) who is extremely smart and has often done the same sort of thing. We had him do a bunch of social skills training and some therapy but what he/we eventually concluded is that he's just not interested in kids who are, by his standards, dumb and immature.

The solution has been to just skip him a couple of grades for now. We're planning to move him to a school/district where there more kids at his level this summer, though.

So keep in mind that it's possible that Joe just needs to be around smarter/older kids. It's also of course possible that he's mildly autistic.

Regardless, the first thing to try is probably to have the school counselor/psychologist meet with him. Youtube videos are IMO probably not going to be very helpful.

-W

[economista]

Our therapy office has social skills classes for different age groups and I think they are super helpful! Each group has a speech therapist and an OT who work together on the class. My daughter is 4 and is in a class for 4-5 year olds. There are 4 kids in the class so they get to practice doing the things the therapists are teaching them, with peers their own age.