Benefits of Social Skills Learning

Schools, therapeutic practices and families that foster socially and emotionally sound learning environments — and that proactively help students, staff and family members develop greater social competence — help ensure positive short- and long-term academic and personal outcomes for students, and higher levels of teaching and work satisfaction for staff.

These findings are supported by a significant body of research.

Social skills learning improves students’ positive behavior and reduces negative behavior.

While effectively preventing a variety of problems such as alcohol and drug use, violence, truancy, and bullying, social skills learning promotes students academic success, health, and overall well-being.

Effective social skills learning in schools significantly improves students’:

At the same time, it decreases their levels of emotional distress.

Social Skills learning is associated with improvements in academic performance and attitudes toward school.

A significant meta-analysis by The Collaborative for Academic, Social and Emotional Learning (CASEL) has shown that students who receive social skills instruction have more positive attitudes about school and improved an average of 11 percentile points on standardized achievement tests compared to students in control groups without such instruction.

Social skills learning helps prepare young people for success in transition and adulthood.

Social skills learning improves students’ communication with peers and adults, improves cooperative teamwork, and helps them become effective, caring, concerned members of their communities. At the same time it teaches them how to set and achieve individual goals and persistence, skills that important for their successful development into adulthood, work and life.

Watch the POWER-Solving Curriculum in action with our HI-STEP Social Skills Summer Program.