Social Skills Groups
Connection. Communication. Confidence.
Impact A.B.A. Therapy is excited to offer 6-week Social Skills Groups for intermediate and advanced learners who would benefit from additional support developing meaningful, age-appropriate social interactions with peers.
Our groups are designed for children with varying developmental profiles, including neurodivergent and typically developing children who may need additional support strengthening social communication, confidence, friendship skills, and peer interactions.
A diagnosis is not required to participate.
Rather than providing a one-size-fits-all social skills curriculum, groups will be developed around the individual social-communication needs of the children within each cohort.
Intermediate Social Skills Group
Our Intermediate Social Skills Group is designed for children who have foundational communication and group-participation skills but would benefit from additional instruction and practice navigating social interactions with peers.
Program Length: 6 weeksFrequency: Once weeklySchedule: Determined based on cohort and family availability
Advanced Social Skills Group
Our Advanced Social Skills Group is designed for children who demonstrate more developed communication and social skills but continue to experience challenges with more complex social situations, relationships, communication, flexibility, or peer interactions.
Program Length: 6 weeksFrequency: Once weeklySchedule: Determined based on cohort and family availability
Anticipated Start: October 2026
Final group days and times will be determined after participant screenings are completed and family availability is reviewed.
This allows us to prioritize creating compatible cohorts first and then establish a schedule that works for the families within each group.
What Will We Work On?
Social skills goals will be selected based on the needs of the children participating in each cohort. Areas may include:
- Initiating and maintaining conversations
- Reciprocal communication
- Reading and responding to social cues
- Perspective taking
- Friendship skills
- Joining and participating in group activities
- Flexible thinking
- Self-advocacy
- Problem-solving and conflict resolution
- Understanding personal and social boundaries
- Navigating age-appropriate social situations
- Generalizing social skills beyond the therapeutic environment
Our goal is not simply to place children together and call it a social group. Sessions will provide intentional, structured opportunities to learn, practice, and strengthen meaningful social skills with peers.
Individualized & Data-Informed
Throughout the 6-week program, our clinical team will collect data and monitor each child's progress toward identified social goals.
The program includes:
- 6 weekly social skills group sessions
- Pre-group screening and appropriate group placement
- Individualized social goal selection
- Evidence-based social skills instruction
- Data collection and progress monitoring
- Parent feedback throughout the program
- End-of-group progress summary
Parents will receive feedback regarding their child's progress, strengths, participation, and continued opportunities for growth.
Who Is a Good Fit?
Our Intermediate and Advanced Social Skills Groups are designed for children who would benefit from structured, peer-based opportunities to strengthen social communication and interaction skills.
Potential participants should generally:
- Have functional communication skills
- Be able to communicate basic wants, needs, thoughts, and ideas
- Demonstrate a need for growth in one or more social-communication areas
- Be able to participate in a small-group environment
- Follow basic group instructions with reasonable support
- Engage in structured activities alongside peers
- Benefit from intermediate or advanced social-skills instruction
- Participate safely without requiring continuous 1:1 support
No diagnosis is required.
Placement is based on the child's individual skills, needs, group readiness, and compatibility with the available cohort, rather than diagnosis alone.
When Might a Group Setting Not Be Appropriate?
Because these are Intermediate and Advanced peer-based groups, a Social Skills Group may not currently be the most appropriate level of support for a child who:
- Requires continuous 1:1 support to participate safely
- Demonstrates behavior that presents a significant or ongoing safety risk to themselves or others in a group environment
- Is unable to tolerate a small-group environment for the duration of the session
- Requires foundational communication, attending, or group-readiness skills that should be established before peer-based social instruction
- Has clinical needs that cannot appropriately be addressed within the scope of the Social Skills Group
Not being appropriate for this particular group does not mean that a child cannot benefit from social-skills instruction.
It may simply mean that individualized intervention or a more foundational program would currently be a better fit. Our team is happy to help families understand the level of support that may be most appropriate.
Screening & Placement
Joining the interest waitlist does not guarantee placement in a group.
All potential participants will complete a screening process before enrollment. Screening will help our clinical team determine:
Group Readiness → Appropriate Level → Individual Social Needs → Cohort Compatibility
We will also collect family availability during this process.
Our goal is to create small groups in which children are appropriately matched so that peer interactions are meaningful and each participant has opportunities to learn and grow.
Program Investment
$550 for the Complete 6-Week Program
For families who prefer a payment option:
2 Payments of $275
The complete program investment includes the screening and placement process, all six weekly group sessions, individualized goal selection, evidence-based instruction, data collection and progress monitoring, ongoing parent feedback, and an end-of-group progress summary.
Join Our October Interest Waitlist
We are currently building our interest waitlist for an anticipated October 2026 start.
Group sizes will be intentionally limited to support individualized attention, meaningful peer interaction, appropriate cohort matching, and intentional data collection.
To express interest, contact:
Impact A.B.A. Therapy
Email: t.barnes@impactabatherapy.com
Location: Wayne County, North Carolina
Please use the following email subject line:
SOCIAL SKILLS GROUP INTEREST
Strong Skills. Strong Connections. Brighter Futures.
Helping children build skills that extend beyond the therapy room.