Abstract
The Coronavirus pandemic (COVID-19) has had a major impact on students’ social and emotional behaviors in school. Students displayed a wide range of feelings from joy to anxiety in returning to school after the imposed lockdown. The purpose of this study was to understand how educators could teach social skills to students and support students in their social-emotional health. A group of sixth-grade students with disabilities participated in a social skills class. The lessons were from a known curriculum titled Helping Students with Disabilities Develop Social Skills, Academic Language and Literacy Through Literature Stories, Vignettes, and Other Activities: A Secondary and Post-Secondary Emphasis by Drs. Elva Durán, Rachael Gonzáles, and Hyun-Sook Park (2016). A seven-step process was used to teach the following social skills: taking responsibility, communicating with others, setting goals, managing stress and frustration, and dealing with emotions appropriately. Using the seven steps, students discussed and analyzed the stories, vignettes, and scenarios they heard. Each story, vignette, or scenario was based on a particular social skill and the seven steps were: “What’s happening?” “What choices?” “What might happen if…?” “Which is better?” “How could I do it?” “Do it.” and “How did I do it?” (Durán et al., 2016, p. 42). Students were also engaged in activities such as role-playing. Students completed reflections and were individually interviewed for purposes of this research so the researcher could understand each participant’s perspective on the social skills and how the lessons could help them with their social-emotional health. The researcher recommends and advocates for educators to teach middle school students with disabilities through the use of social skills as a means to support students in not only understanding their emotions but to also be able to expressthem to others.