Social Skills Groups & Therapy

The Art of Friendship provided social skills groups and individual therapy for neurodiverse children with autism, ADHD, and learning differences since 2000. Regional leaders in treatment for neurodivergent individuals, we bring together small groups of children who meet weekly together to learn and practice critical social awareness and social skills. The ongoing format (not a 6-or 8-week seminar) facilitates ongoing gradual growth, which allows children to improve at their own pace, free from external pressure to ‘perform’.

Our philosophy is to match each child’s needs with an appropriate peer group, maximizing success. Social skills groups are based on chronological age and filtered by developmental level, self-regulation ability, degree of support required, gender, and social goals.

The Art of Friendship social skills therapists structure each group with a predictable beginning-middle-end sequence. This weekly familiar structure decreases anxiety and helps neurodivergent children relax and focus on social practice.

Children experience:

• our original, proprietary, & FUN Art of Friendship Social-Coping Curriculum, created by founder Mike Fogel and famously used at Camp Pegasus.

• reinforcement of positive/helpful social skills & behaviors

• compassionate social coaching for miscues & big feelings

• structured success-oriented social practice opportunities that are appropriate for each age and developmental level:

  • free play

  • group art-making or construction challenges

  • team building/ice breaker activities

  • game playing

  • Lego building

  • conversation & hanging-out practice

Successful social skills therapy always wraps around a child’s whole world: across the therapy office, home, school settings. Art of Friendship social skills therapists teach parents the weekly social skill lesson and caregivers leave each session with a photo of the poster as a reminder of the skill. We collaborate with teachers and school support staff to spread the social language across settings to ensure that your neurodiverse child can generalize the skill to their entire life.

Learning social skills to navigate the neurotypical world can be hard, and that’s why we make social skills FUN.