Social skills training with adolescent male offenders: I. Short-term effects

The effect of a social skills training programme consisting of instructions, modelling, role playing, videotaped feedback and social reinforcement, was examined in a multiple baseline design with five adolescent male offenders. Training led to specific improvements in certain target behaviours. It was found that, whereas improvements in the performance of certain skills such as appropriate eye contact could be brought about relatively quickly, certain listening skills proved much harder to train. Where training was effective in producing improvements in the performance of a skill, these changes were generally maintained at two weeks follow-up.