Role Play

Role playing is a great way to help a child or teenager prepare for a social situation or confrontation before it happens in order to set them up for success (Abdoola, 2017). Role play is most likely to be generalized if practicing for a specific situation a child has already encountered or anticipates they will have to encounter in the future (Abdoola, 2017). The evidence based practice this activity is based on is scripting. In scripting, the clinician and student work together to identify a specific situation or area of concern that they need to work on. They then write a social script that models appropriate social interactions (Griffin, 2017). Scripting involves fading cues as the student remembers the social script and begins to generalize the skill so they do not have to use the script anymore (Griffin, 2017). Although the example activity I will discuss targets an elementary aged child scripting has been found to be an evidence based practice for those with Autism between the ages of 3-22 so adjustments can be made for children of different ages (Griffin, 2017).

Example goal

Given a preferred activity, the student will invite a friend to join her in a shared activity during recess. The student will participate in preferred activities with a peer for 10 minutes during recess with 80% success across 3 consecutive weeks.

Example scenario

Tommy is a 8 year old who is having a hard time engaging with other children at recess. He wants to join in with a group of boys who play Pokemon but does not know how to approach them. We can introduce a social script to Tommy by role playing in the session. There are multiple ways to introduce a role play. The first role play we would do includes having Tommy pretend to be one of the boys playing Pokemon while the clinician pretends to be Tommy. In this situation, the clinician can model appropriate ways to join the game using the social script. After finishing the role play and talking about any questions Tommy has we can continue role playing, this time while the clinician pretends to be the boy Tommy wants to play with and Tommy can practice the social script he just saw modeled by the clinician.

How to develop a social script

Identify prerequisite skills the student will need for this social situation. If the student does not have those skills train them on those before targeting the social script. Some prerequisite skills to check for are language skills, vocabulary, body language, and imitation skills (Griffin, 2017).
Identify additional cueing the student might need. Do they need pictures for visual support? Should they have the text of the script broken down for them (Griffin, 2017)?

Implementing the social script via role play

Teach the script to the student using whatever supports they need. Go over the script and explain any unknown words with them. Explain why the script is an appropriate model and how we expect others will feel if the student uses the script (Griffin, 2017).
Role play. The child role plays the situation using the script. They can either role play with the clinician or a peer depending on the setting and what is available. During the role play the student may have questions or need help, the clinician can provide prompting (Abdoola, 2017).
After the role play feedback is given and the clinician and student discuss how to role play went. The clinician should point out skills that were well developed as well as those that may need improvement and give feedback appropriately (Abdoola, 2017).

Data collection tools and example

This is an example of a simple social script for a young student with fading prompts (Griffin, 2017).

This is an example of a data tracking sheet that could be used during this activity as well as when the student implements the social script and skills the used in role playing in real life. (Griffin, 2017)

References

Abdoola, F., Flack, P. S., & Karrim, S. B. (2017). Facilitating pragmatic skills through role-play in learners with language learning disability. The South African journal of communication disorders = Die Suid-Afrikaanse tydskrif vir Kommunikasieafwykings, 64(1), e1–e12. https://doi.org/10.4102/sajcd.v64i1.187

Griffin, W., & AFIRM Team. (2017). Scripting. Chapel Hill, NC: National Professional Development Center on Autism Spectrum Disorders, FPG Child Development Center, University of North Carolina. Retrieved from http://afirm.fpg.unc.edu/scripting

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