Emotional Intelligence: What is it & How it Applies to Us

There has been a lot of talk recently about “Emotional Intelligence,” or EQ.
So…what is the definition of EQ?
“Your EQ is the level of your ability to understand other people, what motivates them and how to work cooperatively with them,” says Howard Gardner, a Harvard theorist.

According to Psych Central, Emotional intelligence is made up of several parts.

1. Self-awareness. This requires an ability to evaluate our emotions and then manage them.

2. Self-regulation. There are times when we all have very little control of our emotions. When my husband forgot to bring home eggs that I needed for dinner, I can’t help feeling a little irritated. However, self-control, conscientiousness and adaptability (ability to be flexible) encourages self-regulation.

3. Motivation. People require clear goals and a positive attitude to motivate themselves.

4. Empathy. This is the ability to put yourself in another’s shoes and can be a very hard skill to learn for some people, especially children and teens.

5. Social skills. The ability to interact and communicate with others.

Do any of these sound familiar to us? I work on these skills All. The. Time. with my kiddos having autism or belonging in one of my social groups, as I’m sure you do as well.

So…why are these skills so important to teach? According to a recent article in Forbes, employers are starting to evaluate prospective employees on their EQ, valuing it at least as much or, many times even more so than their IQ.

Listen to this very sad statistic: According to autismspeaks.org, “For adults with autism, Autism Speaks has found that 9 out of 10 either are unemployed or underemployed, regardless of their IQ or education level.” Did you catch that? REGARDLESS OF THEIR IQ OR EDUCATIONAL LEVEL!
Forgive me for yelling (that wasn’t a very good demonstration of “self-regulation” :-)) but I become so frustrated when the “educational powers that be” decide that it’s better to push for high achievement scores and place students into Algebra 2 and Geometry courses but deem social skill groups and functional life classes “unnecessary.” Please understand, I am in no way undermining the importance of educational level. However, if our students with autism are not being denied jobs based on IQ or educational level, what does that leave us with? EQ, or a lack of.

Here are two examples of students. Pretend you are the employer interviewing them. Which would you choose?

Student #1	Student #2
Diagnosed with autism	Diagnosed with autism
Proficient with math and reading. Does not require the use of a calculator or spell-checker.	Proficient with math and reading when given a calculator and spell-checker.
Scored high on achievement tests.	Scored low-average to average on achievement tests.
Has difficulty relating to others.	Is able to determine emotions from verbal and nonverbal cues.
Becomes very angry when a problem is difficult.	Is able to ask questions when directions are unclear.
Has difficulty interacting with others.	Can carry on a conversation and demonstrates good manners.

As an employer, who would you hire?

In general, speech therapists are one of the best professionals at teaching EQ (in my humble opinion, of course). However, based on the autismspeaks statistic, we are still sadly failing. So…what can we do? Here are some ideas:
1. Hold an in-service at your school, educating teachers and administrators on the importance of EQ. Educate them on what it is and how it influences many of our students. Remind some of them that our ultimate goal is to get our students gainfully employed and that EQ is a top priority now for many employers.
2. Speak to parents about the importance of these skills and educate them on how to teach them at home.
3. Start early. Hold social groups even at the kindergarten level and teach skills such as: turn-taking, identifying emotions, making good choices, and sharing.
4. Include job skills in your social groups with middle and high school students. Practice interviewing, role-play and the communication used for job applications.
5. Find out about your state rehabilitation organization. This organization finds and matches jobs to people having disabilities.

Whew! I know we have sooo much on our plates already. However, you could will be changing lives by working on improving Emotional Intelligence.

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Comments

Heather Marchuck says
July 31, 2013 at 3:31 pm

Hi Nicole,

This is so true. Several of my students are so bright academically but require a great deal of direct instruction to grasp those ever important social-emotional skills. Last year, I began a Peer-to-Peer support program with our school social worker in order to train age-matched peers to model and teach these skills to our students with ASD and other social impairments. It was very successful and rewarding for our upper-el students. This year, I plan to expand to our preschool and kdg populations to work on interactive play skills as well. Thanks so much for the info:)

Heather Marchuck
Quart Size Communicators

- Nicole Allison says
  August 1, 2013 at 1:37 am
  
  Thanks Heather! I absolutely love your idea of a peer-to-peer support system. This is something I’ve wanted to start for years, especially with middle school students! Did you start this program at your district yourself or do you co-manage it with another teacher?
  
Lauren LaCour says
July 31, 2013 at 3:42 pm

This is great information Nicole! Definitely an area that I need to get better at understanding and implementing. Thanks so much for sharing!

Lauren
Busy Bee Speech

- Nicole Allison says
  August 1, 2013 at 1:38 am
  
  Thanks Lauren! I see so many of my kiddos struggling with this.
  
Kari- Rock Chalk Speech Talk says
July 31, 2013 at 11:15 pm

Great info! I love reading posts that give me more insight into this area. I’m an early childhood SLP but started incorporating social skills into my groups last school year! I had to make a schedule change, and decided to give it a shot with putting two of my older Aspergers kids together in a group to see how it went. It ended up being my favorite group!!

While working on their other language targets, we would play reinforcer games that involved turn taking (Jumpin Monkeys was a favorite!). I’d have them practice making comments to encourage one another if they had a good turn or to encourage them to try again (ie “Good try!”). Asking each other questions and making eye contact were other biggies we worked on (ie If we were going to read a book or do an activity involving animals, I’d ask if they had pets at home. When one said yes, I’d try to cue the other with something like “Bobby said he has pets at home. What’s 1 thing you could ask him about his pets?” A lot of cueing and a lot of basics as foundational skills… Our prek teachers work on social language skills all the time, too!

- Nicole Allison says
  August 1, 2013 at 1:41 am
  
  Sounds like you’re doing an awesome job of incorporating these skills when they’re young, Kari! I absolutely love my young social groups as well! It’s so interesting to me how you can have two students with the same diagnosis of autism but so totally different with different needs. Love how you encourage the questioning-this is a tough one for some of our kids but sooo important!
  
Communication Station: Speech Therapy, PLLC says
August 1, 2013 at 1:23 am

Girl you are PREACHING TO THE CHOIR with this blog!!! I usually see kiddos on the ASD spectrum right at the beginning of their diagnosis…so they are almost always non-verbal and completely isolated within their own world of stimulatory behaviors BUT my goal is ALWAYS to help them become functional members of society. That’s what parents goals are too…they want their children to have jobs, get marry, and have kids…FUNCTIONAL!!! (sorry for yelling I guess I too have poor self-control on this very passionate topic…Ha!!!) And you are absolutely right..education, education, education for administrators, teachers, parents etc. It’s not about standardized tests its about independence! Great post! All I have to say is AMEN, SISTER!!!!

- Nicole Allison says
  August 1, 2013 at 1:45 am
  
  lol! I actually almost used the words “Preaching to the choir” in my post! I think most of us out there generally are doing a fantastic job in this area, we just need our administrators to jump on board! I’m blessed to have an amazing administrator who understands the importance of social skills but many do not. Keep up the good work and keep working on those very important functional skills!
  
Speech2U says
August 3, 2013 at 1:21 pm

Great post-these foundational skills are so important to teach our students diagnosed with ASD. Often I see IEPS or treatment plans that are focusing on syntax, vocabulary or other skills without addressing at least some of these issues. Not functional. I do think it’s important to help our students excel in the areas that they are good in too-(higher programming in math/science if they can do it) feelings of success can breed more success. I can’t believe that admin is dropping social/life skills classes in your area.