Social Skills - Choosing Conversation Topics
Social Skills / Choosing Conversation Topics
Choosing Conversation Topics
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Choosing Conversation Topics
This activity helps students understand what makes a topic good, and gives them practice at deciding what topics are good for the activity's specific participants.
Choosing Conversation Topics
Many individuals (both neurodivergent and neurotypical alike) worry about keeping conversations going and how to select good topics for enthusiastic discussion; this activity demonstrates how to select appropriate, interesting, and relatable topics while emphasizing the vital tenets of good topics and showing how sustaining conversations requires informed choices.
A good topic of conversation involves three main tenets: the participants should find it appropriate (i.e., inoffensive), interesting, and relatable. A notable exception therein is when one participant is informing the others about a topic on which they are more well-versed or if they are telling a story. The context of with whom you're speaking and where the conversation is taking place can also provide exceptions. This handout can act as a checklist. First, the educator and student alike fill out the handout, going through each topic and marking whether or not they find a topic interesting, whether or not the topic is relatable, and whether or not it's an appropriate topic to discuss within their specific group. Good topics (i.e., those used for conversation) are those receiving checks across the board on every participant's handout.
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These social skills worksheets and activities for individuals with Autism and Social Pragmatic Communication Disorders target a variety of social skills, including the development of empathy, perspective taking, kinesics, listener/reader presupposition, and conversational skills.
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A collection of 28 social skills worksheets and activities that cover conversation skills, kinesics, perspective taking, development of empathy, and real-world communication.
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A collection of 52 language and communication worksheets and activities that cover a plethora of reading comprehension, writing, grammar, and social communication skills.