Social skills training for depressed, visually impaired older adults. A treatment manual.

The authors wrote a step-by-step manual for teaching assertive social skills to older adults who are both depressed and visually impaired. The manual gives you ready-made lessons, role-play scripts, and built-in tests to track progress. No new data were collected; the paper simply lays out the program so you can copy it.

Sessions cover eye contact, saying no, asking for help, and joining community groups. Each lesson follows the BST recipe: model the skill, have the client rehearse, give feedback, and repeat until fluent.

The paper does not report outcomes. It only describes the training package and the short quizzes you can use to check learning after each lesson.

Osnes et al. (1986) and Spealman et al. (1978) proved BST works for social and daily-living skills long before this manual arrived. The 1995 guide simply tailors those same steps to a new group—depressed seniors with vision loss.

Jimenez-Gomez et al. (2019) extends the idea by showing BST also trains staff quickly. Their techs mastered naturalistic play skills in hours, just as the manual promises older adults can master assertiveness.

Keene et al. (2026) later asked which BST part matters most when teaching data collection; modeling alone did the heavy lifting. That tip is useful here—start each social-skills lesson with a clear model before you ask the senior to rehearse.

If you serve older adults with vision loss, you no longer have to build a program from scratch. The manual gives you everything: session plans, role-play cards, and quick tests. Pull it off the shelf, add the Keene et al. shortcut—model first—and you can run an evidence-aligned social-skills group next week.