Peers may not be the best people to have as tutors for social skills, in the first place.
Honestly, that has always mystified me a bit-- the notion that kids learn those skills "best" at the tender mercies of their age-mates and peers.
Logically, that makes no sense at all to me. While I agree that children with social skills deficits may find adults preferable to their peers, since adults are adaptive in ways that children are not-- just like puffin's reading analogy, isn't that actually a good thing with respect to children who struggle to learn those things?
Adults can be capable of scaffolding the development of those skills, and not just punitive re: the lack thereof.
apm, if the school hasn't been following through on their promises thus far, my guess is that they won't. Not unless you do have an IEP that says that they have to introduce particular interventions and measure outcomes.
At least if you are in charge, you'll have the ability to intervene during those hours of the day that are currently "lost" to this area of skills development, right?
I'm not so sure that parents can't be the ones teaching such skills. After all, most of his social interactions will be with you anyway. I guess a lot depends upon personality, but shifting your own parenting style to one which gently pushes rather than compensates perfectly-- at least in theory, that should be better than the current situation, yes?
