The Talkabout hierarchy
Talkabout was first developed in the early 1990s when Alex Kelly was working as a speech and language therapist in London, UK. Over a period of four years, she assessed the effectiveness of her social skills interventions and discovered that success of intervention increased if self-awareness was taught first, and then nonverbal behaviours were taught prior to verbal behaviours, and assertiveness was taught last (Kelly, 1996). This original hierarchy then formed the basis of the first Talkabout book.
In the following years, she became interested in the impact that self-esteem has on social skills and then also the relationship between social skills and friendship skills, and the hierarchy was updated in 2000 to include these two additional areas.
The hierarchy of social skills
Original (1996) and updated in 2000 to include self-esteem and friendship skills
The Talkabout hierarchy therefore has been developed and extended over the years to reflect increasing knowledge and understanding of the link between self-awareness, self-esteem and social skills, as well as the introduction of friendship skills into the hierarchy. Self-esteem, in particular, is linked to social skills. Firstly, social skills difficulties or differences can be caused by many factors, such as a diagnosis, or social background, but can also be caused by ‘heightened emotions, other people’s behaviour, not knowing the rules, previous experience, a lack of information, illness… and a lack of self-confidence or low self-esteem’ (Kelly, 2019). If a person has low self-esteem, then it is likely that their social skills will be impacted at some level; and increasing self-esteem can therefore have a positive impact on social communication. Secondly, self-esteem can have a direct impact on our ability to have successful and meaningful relationships.
‘I feel very lucky to work in a school where our pupils get the opportunity to utilise Talkabout resources and to see the benefit that this has made to them and their peers. You are making a difference!’
– Nicole Thomas, Teacher, 2017