The Conversations That Led Me Here

Why I opened my Social Skills Groups Peer Program

By Dr. Sarah Heller, Ed.D., BCBA, IBA, LBA-NY · Meaningful Metrics

For years, there is a theme of conversations that has always followed me home. A parent tells me, often quietly and sometimes through tears, that their child has every therapy and every service written into the week, and still spends Saturdays alone in their room. A teacher stops me in the hallway to describe a student who follows every classroom routine without missing a beat, who lines up and transitions and finishes their work, and still eats lunch alone at the same table every day. A clinician tells me, almost like a confession, that they can teach a skill beautifully inside the four walls of a session room, and then watch it disappear the moment their client steps into a hallway full of real kids doing real, unscripted things.

Each of these moments unfolds in a different room, spoken in a different voice, across a completely different year. The story underneath is always the same, and it is a story about belonging. A child can hold every skill in the world and still long for a place where connection feels natural instead of practiced, where they are welcomed exactly as they are instead of measured against how well they fit.

Belonging has to be built one relationship at a time.

I have spent more than twenty years in this field, working inside public school classrooms, early intervention programs, clinics, and agencies. I have sat on both sides of the table more times than I can count, the coffee table where a parent tells me what keeps them up at night, and the CSE table where a room full of professionals decides what happens next for that same child. Across those twenty years, the same longing kept surfacing everywhere I looked. Parents wanted their children to have friends, real ones, beyond a list of goals that had been met. Further, teachers wanted their students to feel like true members of the classroom community, beyond simply following its rules. And of course, clinicians wanted to watch the skills they built in session carry into real, living relationships beyond the walls of a session room.

None of this works without first helping a child learn to know and name what they need. Self-advocacy is the foundation every group is built on, present from the very first session. A child who has spent years being told, in ways loud or quiet, that the way they play or talk or move through a room needs fixing deserves the chance to learn something different, that their way of being is simply their way of being, worth understanding, worth sharing, and worth feeling proud of. Across every neurotype, that affirmation looks different and matters equally. Before a child in one of my groups ever practices a new social skill, they practice something quieter, learning to notice what kind of play actually feels good to them, finding the words or the AAC device or the gesture to say so, and trusting that their answer will be respected rather than corrected. That confidence becomes the compass that helps a child find their tribe, the peers who do not need an explanation for who they are because they already understand it.

Building toward that match takes real listening on my part as well, long before any two children ever share a room. I want to know how a child communicates, what lights them up, what has felt hard socially in the past, and what kind of peer might actually meet them there. A shared, intense love of a preferred topic might be enough to spark real connection between two children. It might also mean making sure a fellow AAC user is in the room, so that communicating that way never has to be explained or defended. That same care is the reason we ask for no diagnosis and no referral, and the reason we have built groups that meet online as well as in person. Belonging should never come with a waiting list of qualifications. It should simply be an open door.

My hope for every child who comes through these groups reaches beyond the hour we spend together each week. I want them to leave with a memory, a friend, an inside joke, a feeling of being genuinely wanted in a room. I want the confidence they build here to walk out the door with them and show up on a playground, at a birthday party, or during a group project at school. Skill building matters, and it is where every group begins. Belonging is what allows a child to actually thrive, carrying connection into every part of their daily life long after the session ends.

I am so full of excitement to bring this into the world, and I am even more moved by the conversations it has already started. If you are a parent who has felt this gap, a teacher who has watched a student search for connection, or a clinician who has wondered what happens after the session ends, I would love to talk with you. Reach out and tell me what you are noticing in the children and families you care about.

Learn more and sign up for a group at drsarahheller.com.