(2-minute read)

How Social Pragmatic Communication

Disorder (SCD) Affects Social Skills

In this blog series, we’ve explored how ADHD, anxiety, and ODD can interfere with a child’s ability to form and maintain friendships. This week, we’ll take a look at Social Pragmatic Communication Disorder (SCD)—a lesser-known but very real challenge that can make socializing difficult and confusing for children.

Children with SCD struggle with the social use of language—that means they may speak just fine, but they don’t always know how to use words and body language in ways that fit the situation. These difficulties often go unnoticed at first, but they can have a big impact on how a child is perceived by others and how well they connect with peers.

How SCD Impacts Social Skills

Trouble with the “Back-and-Forth” of Conversation

• Children with SCD often struggle to take turns when speaking. They may interrupt, go off-topic, or not know how to keep a conversation going.

Difficulty with Social Language

• These children tend to take things very literally. Sarcasm, idioms, teasing, and jokes often go over their heads—or worse, leave them feeling hurt or confused. They might also say things in a way that sounds blunt or inappropriate, without realizing it or intending to be hurtful.

Weak Nonverbal Communication

• Children with SCD often miss or misuse nonverbal cues like facial expressions, body language, tone of voice, and personal space. They might not recognize when someone is joking, bored, or upset—or they might fail to show those cues themselves. For example, they might just walk away while someone is still speaking to them if they lose interest in the conversation.

Struggles with Adapting to the Social Setting

• They may speak to a teacher the same way they talk to a friend, or explain something in too much—or too little—detail depending on who they’re talking to. It may not even occur to them that different situations call for different communication styles.

Peer Rejection and Social Isolation

• Because of these ongoing challenges, children with SCD are often perceived as “awkward” or “weird.” They may desperately want friends but still get excluded or avoided, simply because their communication style feels off to other children.

The Good News

Children with SCD can learn the rules of social communication—but they need to be explicitly taught and given lots of opportunities to practice. For example, they benefit from being directly taught idioms, jokes, sarcasm, the authority ladder, conversation skills, and how to read facial expressions and body language.

With a lot of teaching, repetition, and encouragement, they can learn to fit in, relate to others, and build strong, meaningful relationships.