The Art of Small Talk
About a month ago, I sat in on Jacob's 17th and last ever IEP. He's all set to graduate with a diploma this spring, and by all accounts, everything is on track. He’s showing up on time to all of his classes, he completes all of his homework on his own, he actively participates in classroom discussions, and he has a peer group to which he connects at school.. He’s volunteering in the library to complete his community service hours, and he just stared his third Workability job, a repeat of the same job he had last year at Best Buy organizing and stocking shelves. One area that I know Jacob still has difficulty is making initial connections to others. He has friends at school, but he has not made any meaningful relationships with his supervisor or the coworkers at his Best Buy job. Even though this may not seem like a big deal considering how well everything else is going, this is a very important skill that Jacob will need to develop in order to successfully...