Abstract

The purpose of this study was to test the effect of perspective-oriented social skills training program on social perspective ability and social skills in schizophrenics. Three groups participated in the experiment, consisting of a total of 43 people with a control group of 14, a behavioral social skills group of 11, and a perspective-oriented social skills group of l8. All the subjects participated in a total of ten sessions twice a week. The perspective-oriented social skills training program is a combination of behavioral social skills training and social perspective training. Training for enhancing social perspective ability was composed of three activities. Behaviors of the subjects were assessed during the pre, post, and one month follow-up periods of the programs in order to verify the effect of the perspective-oriented social skills training. Assessment were made using the social skills scale and the social appropriateness scale as rated by two judges. The conclusions of this analysis are as follows: First, schizophrenics who had completed the program of perspective-oriented social skills training significantly improved in their perspective ability and its effects were maintained for more than one month. Second, the patients with perspective-oriented social skills training advanced themselves in verbal and nonverbal skills, and the effects of the training continued during the follow-up period. Specifically there were improvements in facial expression and self-confidence of posture in terms of nonverbal skills. Additionally speech content and speed of speech, voice volume, voice intonation, amount of speech, speech understanding, appropriateness of speech in terms of verbal skills were improved. The improvements were observed to continue beyond the one month follow-up periods. In conclusion perspective-oriented social skills training increased the patient's perspective ability and developed social skills through training.