This group is designed to provide structured social skills intervention for children with social anxiety, autism spectrum disorder, and attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder (ADHD), with an emphasis on adaptive functioning and community integration consistent with California Regional Center service criteria. The purpose of the group is to enhance social communication, emotional regulation, and functional life skills necessary for successful participation in home, school, and community environments. Interventions will be delivered by a trained group leader using evidence-based treatment approaches, including Relational Therapy, Play-Therapy, Cognitive Behavioral Therapy (CBT), and the Social Thinking® curriculum developed by Michelle Garcia Winner and colleagues. 

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The Social Thinking® curriculum utilizes developmentally appropriate, visually supported, and theme-based instruction to target core social competencies such as cognitive flexibility, sustained attention, personal space awareness, and reciprocal conversational skills. Instruction is adapted to minimize reliance on reading and to emphasize visual, experiential, and interactive learning. Group members will be taught to identify “Unthinkables,” defined as cognitive and behavioral barriers to effective social interaction, and to apply structured problem-solving strategies using the “Superflex” framework to support self-monitoring, emotional regulation, and behavioral control. 

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Group sessions will incorporate structured activities, clinician-facilitated peer interactions, and multimodal supports to promote skill acquisition and generalization. Adaptive functioning and community integration goals include improving the ability to initiate and maintain age-appropriate social interactions; follow group rules and routines in community-based settings; manage transitions and changes in expectations; demonstrate appropriate help-seeking and self-advocacy skills; tolerate frustration and regulate emotions in social contexts; and apply problem-solving strategies to resolve peer conflict. Additional targets include increasing independence in navigating community environments, participating appropriately in group and recreational activities, and generalizing learned skills across settings to support meaningful inclusion and functional participation in the community.