SOCIAL SKILLS COACHING FOR AUTISTIC TEENS & YOUNG ADULTS
Every parent wants the best for their kids—regardless of age. As your autistic or neurodivergent child ages out of middle school and into high school or college, the social supports available often fade away or end abruptly. Just when they need extra support for navigating the complexities of dating, intimacy, work, and other adult relationships.
The basic social skills, sex ed, and dating etiquette exposure they had as freshmen may not be specialized enough to help neurodivergent teens and young adults establish and maintain successful relationships.
Because neurodivergent people of all ages think and process information differently, they need focused help learning skills that can make social interactions safer, healthier, more comfortable, and more constructive throughout their life.
IRL Social Skills provides the education and coaching to support your autistic or socially struggling teen or young adult’s life through improved social, romantic, and work relationships.
Our unique approach to coaching social skills is empirically proven to be highly effective*. Our neurodiverse team of coaches, direct support workers, counselors, advocates, and educators offers a safe, welcoming, identity and neurodiversity-affirming place where young people can learn and master these skills.
MARA McLOUGHLIN, MS, CCC-SLP
FOUNDER & LEAD FACILITATOR
SCHEDULE A FREE 15-MINUTE CONSULT
Discover how IRL Social Skills can help your anxious or socially challenged teen, young adult, or adult child transform their friendships, romantic relationships, and college and work relationships. Schedule a 15-minute admissions consult to get all your questions answered.
How IRL Skills Courses Work
Classes meet weekly via Zoom for 16 weeks (4 months), allowing for ongoing contact with coaches, instructors, and peers. Breakout rooms provide in-depth practice time.
A parent or caregiver also attends weekly sessions to learn how to better support their child during the course and afterward. In this way, everyone learns how to best relate and respond to others in the primary social setting — home — the setting that has the most influence.
YOUR TEEN OR YOUNG ADULT WILL LEARN
How to effectively and safely engage in digital communication
How to start, enter and exit conversations between peers
Making friends based on common interests (e.g. games, art, music)
How to organize successful get-togethers with friends
Dating etiquette and ways of developing a healthy romantic relationship
How to self-advocate with authority figures, teachers, etc.
Emotional self-regulation skills
PARENTS WILL LEARN
Parental skill building to better support their teen or young adult
Executive functioning support
Effective co-regulation techniques
Our courses are geared toward the autistic neurotype but people of all neurotypes have found our courses and workshops to be beneficial. Many of our past grads (and their parents) tell us what they learned and practiced in our courses has changed their life.
COST
The cost for our 16-week Social Skills Programs is $3999. That all-inclusive price covers:
16-weeks of specialized neurodivergence-affirming support for both students AND parents
PEERS® curriculum—the only scientifically validated, proven-effective curriculum developed at UCLA
Three-and-a-half hours of coaching (1.75hrs for students, 1.75 hours for parents/social coaches)
Small groups, typically 8-12 families per class, allowing for maximum benefit and personalization
Expert educators, therapists and clinicians with over 50 years combined expertise working with autistic and neurodivergent populations
Two coaches for each breakout room (four coaches per class)
All class materials, handouts, videos and reference materials
Support outside the classroom
We are private pay and do not accept insurance. However, we can provide a sample superbill and share with you effective strategies to seek partial or full reimbursement from your insurance provider. Many states are now legally required to pay for services such as ours, but many families are not yet aware of the new laws.
Payment plans may also be available.
LEARN NEW WAYS OF INTERACTING SOCIALLY
“The IRL Social Skills course feels like a family-focused and centered class. Since I’ve attended this class, I’ve learned new ways of interacting socially and feeling more confident in my communication. I believe any family or individual can benefit from this class—even if you’re not neurodivergent. Overall, this is an experience you definitely don’t want to miss; sign up and start practicing and creating new friendship skills!”
LEO S – TEEN PARTICIPANT
Support for your child. Support for you.
Our program is unique and holistic—integrating mindfulness practices, self-advocacy, and self-regulation. We also add brain education, specifically about the autistic neurotype and teach students how to tune in to their feelings in the body and know what they mean (interoception).
Our team of skilled coaches teaches social skills based on the The Program for the Education and Enrichment of Relational Skills (PEERS®) program*. PEERS is a highly effective, clinically proven social skills curriculum.
Over the 16-week course, students form connections with peers who go on to become supports long after the curriculum has ended. Friendships are made with people who share a neurotype—people who “get” each other.
Our parent-assisted approach helps parents become better advocates and coaches for their children during the curriculum, and afterward. You participate in your child’s learning. Many parents tell us their own communication skills improve from assisting their loved one throughout the course.
GAME-CHANGING SUPPORT FOR PARENTS, FANTASTIC SKILLS FOR KIDS
My kiddo and I took this class for 15 weeks. It was a total game changer. Within three weeks there were noticable changes with social skills. It's hard to watch your child struggle with making friends; in fact it was heart breaking for me as the parent. I was lost on how to help because I too am an introvert. This class tackles the whole issue. It gives the parents tools to help and the kids learn skills to go out there and make friends. I wish there would have been something out there like this program when my oldest was younger.
—LELAH B, PARENT PARTICIPANT
*PROVEN EFFECTIVE
The Program for the Evaluation of the Enrichment of Relational Skills (PEERS) was developed by UCLA's acclaimed Semel Institute for Neuroscience and Human Behavior. PEERS is critically acclaimed for providing evidence-based social skills treatment to youth and adults with autism spectrum disorder (ASD), attention deficit/hyperactivity disorder (ADHD), anxiety, depression, and other socio-emotional problems. The program has been peer-reviewed by the psychiatric community many dozens of times, and confirms the efficacy of the program.
SOURCE: National Institute of Health, National Library of Medicine. American Psychiatric Association. Diagnostic and statistical manual of mental disorders
