ESDM social skills groups

By May 5, 2018 May 14th, 2023 ESDM
Group of children doing intensive group social skills in Early Start Denver Model ESDM intervention for young children with autism in Sydney.

Parents are keen to see their child’s social skills emerge at the playground, play dates and preschool. However, the preschool environment is a more challenging environment for their children. Learning social skills with a therapist does not ensure that your child can socialise more at preschool. How do we support children in their Early Start Denver Model (ESDM) sessions? How do we teach them interact with peers and make friends at preschool? This is where ESDM social skills groups become part of a child’s program.

What is an ESDM Social Skills Group?

ESDM social skills groups provide a bridge  for social skills development. Each child develops social skills in a smaller, more supported group environment. There are up to four children in each group and Certified ESDM Therapists support each child. The children are able to use the skills they learn in their individual sessions. Then they start to generalise them to the small group situation. Once a child has generalised social skills to the small group environment, then we can support them to use these skills in the preschool environment.

Small ESDM groups consist of 2-3 children with 2 therapists.

How do you monitor a child’s progress?

Generalising skills to other people and other environments is a key part of the Early Start Denver Model. This is one of the unique components of the Early Start Denver Model. We always strive to work with parents and preschools to ensure that skills are mastered in the children’s natural environments. Every school holiday break, we do a quarterly review of every child’s program. In the quarterly review, we analyse the child’s progress and update the program. We get feedback from the parents about progress at home. We try and do a preschool or day-care visit before we do the review so we have a very good idea if the child’s skills are being used independently in these settings.

What happens after the social skills group?

Children can join our intensive ESDM program. This program runs for 3 hours each morning. There are 9 children in this group and 3 therapists. We are able to target social skills in larger group activities and children doing a larger variety of activities in this group.

How can I enrol my child for ESDM social skills groups?

OneOnOne Children’s Therapy is located in Bondi Junction and Mascot in Sydney. Our team of therapists is trained at the highest levels of fidelity so we can improve children’s lives. If you want to find out more about the ESDM, then call our clinic on (02) 80657837 or email us.