[Author’s Name]
[Institution’s Name]
Essay on Video Review
Geoff Glenn stood at the living room window and watched his son, Andrew. A group of boys was shooting baskets in a neighbors driveway. At the first opportunity, Andrew grabbed the ball; then the father heard one of the boys say, "We're not playing with you!" Throwing the ball into the street, Andrew stomped off toward his house screaming, "1 don't want to play with you creeps!"
As he entered the living room, he tearfully said to his dad, "Those creeps never want to play with me. "After giving Andrew some time to cool off; Geoff went over to him and said, "Let's see if we can figure out what happened. "
Geoff Glenn did not know it, but he was about to conduct a social skill autopsy, which involves discussing outcomes after a child used (or failed to use) a social skill (Lavoie, 1994). Conducting a social skill autopsy involves discussing:
? what the child did,
? what happened when the child did it,
? the direction of the outcome (i.e., was it positive, negative, or neutral?), and
? what the child will do the next time.
Social skill autopsies can be performed any time and any place.
They are an effective means of helping children improve their ability to assess a social situation, select the appropriate skill, and evaluate the skill's effectiveness. Because so many important individuals (i.e., teachers, parents, peers) in a child's life can perform autopsies in so many important settings (i.e., home, school, community), social skills autopsies effectively promote generalization of problem-solving and social skills....
