Social Skills Group Benefits: What Can Groups Offer Children?

Social skills group benefits extend beyond teaching children what to say or do in a social situation. A well-facilitated group gives children opportunities to communicate, collaborate and solve problems with other children in real time.

Individual therapy can be highly valuable. It gives a child private space to explore their experiences, understand emotions and develop personalised strategies with a psychologist.

However, some abilities are difficult to practise fully when only the child and therapist are present. When the goal involves participating with peers, navigating shared activities or building confidence in group settings, a social skills group can offer something different.

What Can a Group Offer That Individual Therapy Cannot?

In individual therapy, a psychologist can discuss friendship experiences, explain social concepts and practise situations through role-play.

However, interactions with peers are naturally less predictable.

Another child may:

• Have a different idea.
• Interpret instructions differently.
• Want the same object.
• Change their mind.
• Become excited or distracted.
• Need more time to communicate.
• Prefer a different way of completing the activity.

These everyday moments create opportunities for children to practise communicating their ideas, listening to another perspective, asking for clarification and finding a way forward together.

Importantly, the aim should not be to eliminate every misunderstanding. Small differences and moments of uncertainty can become useful learning experiences when children receive calm, respectful support.

Social Skills Group Benefits for Children

1. Practising With Other Children

Children can learn about communication in an individual session. In a group, they can apply that learning while interacting with peers. This may include practising how to:

• Join a shared activity.
• Explain an idea.
• Ask for help.
• Respond to another child’s suggestion.
• Negotiate different preferences.
• Communicate a boundary.
• Cope when a plan changes.
• Repair a minor misunderstanding.

Research into group and peer-based interventions suggests that these programs may support social learning for some autistic children and adolescents, although outcomes vary across participants and measures.  As such, the group’s design, facilitation and fit for the individual child remain important.

2. Receiving Support in the Moment

Children often discuss social situations with a psychologist after they have happened. By then, it can be difficult to remember exactly what each person said, thought or understood.

A group facilitator can observe an interaction as it unfolds. They can help children:

• Pause before frustration escalates.
• Identify where communication became unclear.
• Explain their intended meaning.
• Consider what another child may have understood.
• Try a different way of communicating.
• Return to the shared activity.

This immediate support can make abstract social concepts more concrete and relevant.

3. Learning That People Communicate Differently

A neurodiversity-affirming social skills group should not teach children that there is only one correct way to socialise.

Children differ in how they communicate, play, concentrate and participate. For example, one child may talk enthusiastically while building. Another may prefer to work quietly before sharing an idea. Some children communicate clearly through words, while others may demonstrate, gesture or use visual information.

The goal is not to require eye contact, suppress natural movement or teach children to hide their differences.

Instead, a group can help children understand that communication is shared. Everyone involved may need to clarify, listen, adapt and respect one another’s needs.

4. Learning From Peers

Children do not only learn from the facilitator. They also learn by observing one another.

A child might notice how another participant:

• Asks for a turn.
• Explains a building idea.
• Handles a mistake.
• Requests a break.
• Solves an unexpected problem.
• Invites someone else to contribute.

Children can also experience being the person who has knowledge, notices an important detail or helps the group progress. This creates opportunities to recognise their own strengths and make a meaningful contribution.

5. Building Confidence Through Shared Success

Social interaction can feel more manageable when it has a clear purpose.

Rather than being asked simply to “make conversation”, children can work together towards an engaging goal. Communication occurs because it helps the group plan, build, locate materials and solve problems.

When children complete something together, they can see the practical outcome of their collaboration. These experiences may help build confidence and create positive associations with participating alongside peers.

Why Use LEGO-Based Activities?

LEGO-based activities offer structure and predictability while still allowing for creativity.

Children can work towards a shared building goal while taking responsibility for different parts of the process. Depending on the activity, they may need to:

• Describe which pieces are required.
• Listen to building instructions.
• Exchange materials.
• Combine different ideas.
• Negotiate roles.
• Notice and correct mistakes.
• Adapt when a piece or plan does not work.
• Celebrate the completed design together.

The bricks are not the intervention by themselves. Their value comes from providing an interesting and concrete reason for children to communicate and collaborate.

Research into LEGO-based interventions has produced promising but mixed findings. Small studies have reported improvements in engagement and peer interaction, while a larger randomised trial found only a small, statistically non-significant benefit that was not maintained longer term. LEGO-based groups should therefore not be presented as a guaranteed treatment. Instead, they are one engaging format through which appropriately supported peer interaction can occur.

Is a Social Skills Group Better Than Individual Therapy?

Neither option is automatically “better.”

Individual therapy may be more suitable when a child:

• Needs privacy to discuss personal experiences.
• Would benefit from highly individualised emotional support.
• Is not yet comfortable or ready to participate in a group.
• Has goals that do not require direct peer practice.
• Becomes overwhelmed in the available group environment.

A social skills group may be particularly useful when a child is ready to practise communication, collaboration and shared problem-solving with other children.

Some children benefit from both. Individual therapy can provide space to explore experiences and develop personalised strategies. Meanwhile, a group can provide opportunities to apply those strategies with peers.

The most appropriate support depends on the child’s goals, preferences, interests and support needs.

Our LEGO Social Skills Group for 7–8-Year-Olds

aMAZEin’ Minds Psychology offers a LEGO-based social skills group for children at our Mount Waverley psychology clinic.

The group uses collaborative LEGO activities to support children to participate alongside peers in a small and facilitated environment.

Activities provide opportunities to practise:

• Sharing and explaining ideas.
• Collaborative problem-solving.
• Listening and responding to others.
• Navigating different preferences.
• Asking for help or clarification.
• Managing minor changes and frustrations.
• Communicating personal boundaries.
• Contributing to a shared goal.

Our approach is strengths-based and neurodiversity affirming. Children are not expected to perform scripted social behaviours, make eye contact or hide natural ways of communicating and regulating.

Instead, we aim to help children develop greater understanding of themselves and others, communicate their needs and experience the enjoyment of building something alongside peers.

LEGO Social Skills Groups in Mount Waverley

Our Mount Waverley clinic is accessible to families from Glen Waverley, Wheelers Hill, Burwood, Chadstone, Ashwood, Notting Hill, Oakleigh and surrounding areas across Melbourne’s eastern suburbs.

Group places are limited so that children can receive appropriate support and have meaningful opportunities to participate.

👉 Learn more about our LEGO social skills group for children.