Helping Your Child Navigate Through Today's Social World: Social Thinking Workshop Customized for Parents 

Strategies for Home and School

Social Thinking Workshop Customized for Parents l

Strategies for Home and School

Knowing Knowing what and what and

how to say how to say it..well it..well that’s that’s

another another story....M.story....M.

G.WG.W

Talking is Talking is the easy the easy

part!!part!!

Who is Michelle Garcia Winner?

• Specializes in the treatment of individuals with social cognitive deficits.

• She began teaching “social thinking” in 1995 as a speech language pathologist and entered private practice in 1998. Internationally recognized, Congressional Award

• Journal of Autism and Developmental Disorders published research supporting her methods for the treatment of students with Asperger syndrome and high-functioning autism.

• Social thinking was born out of a necessity as a way to reach those “bright buy socially clueless students”

M.G.W.

• Began company called “Think Social Publishing, Inc.” to handle growing demands of speaking internationally as well as self-publishing her own and now other’s books.

• www.socialthinking.com Check it out!!!

• The heart of her work is illuminating the often elusive and intangible world of social thinking, and developing practical strategies that can be easily used by parents, educators and services providers, across different environments to teach social thinking.

Observations.....

Lack of generalization into the classroom and other settings....

Lots of superficial skills, but no understanding of how and why...

Over dependent on prompts, adult directed...

Assumption that social thinking only affects lunch, recess, and play.....

Academic problems increasing in upper grades

Social Thinking vs. Social Skills

• Social thinking is the why and how

• Social skills rule taught, scripting. It is a subset of social thinking.

• examples: compliments, topics,eye contact vs reading eyes and gaze

Social Thinking: An Intelligence?

• The social component of our intelligence is important at home and school.

• There are not standardized test that measure it fully, We need to become better observers.

• Social communication issues impact academics and often become more evident in the upper grades.

SOCIAL THINKING SKILLS ARE...

• Deeper than just conversation rules.Such rules are related, but not the sole focus.

• ‘’Social thinking knowledge is NOT just the delivery of isolated or rote learned sentences that have been drilled without context. It is not a performance.” MGW

• It is the ‘how’ and ‘why’ skills are important rather than just teaching rules and scripts.

• It has vocabulary that can be shared with parents, teachers, vocational and independent living coaches.

Social Thinking Across Settings

• Social thinking plays into our academic world, requiring us to think about the motives and intentions of people we read about in literature and history. It enables problem solving and planning. Critical thinking and analysis calls upon Social Thinking.

• Social thinking affects us in adulthood. To hold a job, most of us have to adapt our own social behavior based on the perceived thoughts of the people we work and live with.

CENTRAL COHERENCE

CENTRAL COHERENCE (Firth,1989)-child with ASD have difficulty conceptualizing the whole picture. They tend to think in parts and do not easily see connections, patterns of thought such as the main, interpretation of communication, environment information,analysis, summarizing,written expression. Can over focus on details.

Executive Function Theory

( McEvoy,Rogers, Pennington 1993) - students with socialcognitive deficits have challenges planning, creating organizational structure, being flexible, prioritizing, solving problems

THEORY OF MIND

• Ability to intuitively track what others are know and think during personal interactions

• Ability to use this information to understand and monitor our own responses-verbal and non-verbal-in the presence of others.

• It is PERSPECTIVE TAKING

• Reading and Sally-Anne

• MGW - “deficits in Perspective Taking skills accounts for the most significant challenge faced by students with social cognition deficits”

• every form of interpersonal interaction

• understanding literature

• understanding socially based themes in history,texts, movies

• writing ( analysis,point of view, persuasive etc)

• problem solving, hidden curriculum of motives, intentions)

• Coping with problems, differences, changes

• Intiation- not just starting a conversation, communicating out side of the routine, self-advocating, joining groups.

• Listening with Eyes and Brain- listening is more than hearing, whole body helps us focus, watch non-verbal cues. Often kids are highly technically visual, but not highly social visual.

• Abstract-Inferential Language- Communication is often indirect. Understanding of idiomatic and elaborate language. Vocabulary connotations, inferences. Inferences are taking what you know and you making a guess. Missing subtle meanings can lead to anxiety.

• Understanding Perspective- awareness of other peoples thoughts and knowledge, points of view, regulate behavior and language accordingly. Empathy, misinterpreting intentions. Writing and reading.

• Gestalt-Getting the Big Picture- Random comments, over focus on detail affects pulling together information parts to get the main idea. organization steps, communication is the ‘whole’ of many rules/parts.

• Humor- has a time and place, teasing vs being mean, subtleties.

I Laugh Model-- Not starting therapy based on the symptom, but

looking at the deeper skills needed for communication and problem solving across settings.

WHAT ARE “GOOD” SOCIAL SKILLS?

•The ability to adapt effectively across all contexts, regardless of whether the person is engaged in social interaction.

•Sharing physical space with other effectively

•Following the unwritten social rules

•More than direct language based interactions

What are ‘‘good” social skills? con’t

•Thinking about others in your environment

•Regulating your behavior in response to other peoples thoughts and behavior

•Being a flexible thinker

•Knowing the expected behavior

•Conversation skills are just part of it.

•Successful social thinkers consider the points of view, emotions, thoughts, beliefs, prior knowledge and intentions of others.•We can determine the meanings behind the messages communicated by others and how to respond to them within milliseconds to three seconds!•The approach requires students to learn to think about thinking in their play, classrooms, social relationships, work settings, community, etc.

Joint Attention in Young Children

May emerge in some infants at 6 monthsMay emerge in some infants at 6 months

Reliably established between 9 and 12 monthsReliably established between 9 and 12 months

Using pointing to direct gaze or following others’ gaze are Using pointing to direct gaze or following others’ gaze are examples of joint attentionexamples of joint attention

It is more than two people looking at the same object at the It is more than two people looking at the same object at the same time.same time.

Each has to be aware of, and monitoring, the attention of the Each has to be aware of, and monitoring, the attention of the other.other.

Teaching young children with ASD to engage in joint attention shown to lead to increases in other non

targeted behaviors e.g. play, imitation, language, social initiations and empathy (Whalen, Schreibman and

Ingersoll, 2006)

Areas affected by social thinking

Perspective taking / Theory of MindSocial Communication/Problem

SolvingConversation Emotional Regulation/ Sensory Issues leading to

inflexibilty, frustration, outburst.Generalized anxiety

The Four Steps to Communication

#1-THINKING ABOUT PEOPLE: KEEP YOUR THOUGHTS ON YOUR COMMUNICATIVE PARTNER

•Be aware of those around you

•What are they interested in?

•What do they feel about what you are

saying?

•What are you doing to show you are

interested in them when they are talking?

#2 - BE AWARE OF YOUR PHYSICAL PRESENCE AS WELL AS

THE PHYSICAL PRESENCE OF OTHERS

• Your body position shows whether you want to talk or not to talk

• Your body movements show what you plan to do next. Your body movements communicate messages to people even when you are not trying to communicate

• Your body language and facial expressions tell people about how you feel about things or people around you

#3- USE YOUR EYES TO THINK ABOUT OTHERS AND WATCH WHAT THEY ARE THINKING ABOUT..............

• The direction of your eyes and other peoples eyes lets people see what other people might be thinking about.

• We use our eyes to help figure out how people feel, what they are thinking and if they are interested in the other people that they are with.

#4-USE YOUR LANGUAGE TO RELATE TO OTHERS

•Talk about things that are interesting to others.

•Ask questions to find out about people.

•Make comments to show you are interested.

• Listen with eyes and ears to determine what people are really trying to say.

•Add your own thoughts to connect your experiences to other peoples experiences.

Four Immediate Steps to Perspective Taking

•I think about you.

•I think about WHY you are near me. What is your intent?

•You think about what I am thinking about you.

•I monitor you and modify my behavior to keep you thinking about me the way I want you to think about me.

TEACH INTENTIONS

Teach that ALL communication has a purpose, therefore speakers have intentions ( characters, historical figures, scientists, writers etc) . Non-verbal messages ( actions, body language) also show intention.

Social thinking includes constantly being aware of others INTENTIONS

Students must first be able to read people’s physical plans by watching ( e.g. getting ready to go out, reaching for door handle)

SOCIAL THINKING VOCABULARY

•Concepts and terms that can consistently be used across environments

•Home,schoolincluding academics, play, social experiences

•The idea is to generalize the concepts and help the student see connections.

EXPECTED AND UNEXPECTED BEHAVIORS

"HIDDEN CURRICULUM" is a term to used to describe the unwritten social rules and expectations of behavior that we all seem to know, but were never taught (Bieber, 1994).

Examples, hygiene, different teachers have different rules, don’t point out mistakes, don’t bring egg salad to lunch.

Unawareness causes anxiety, behavior issues, and vulnerability to teasing and bullying.

Be aware of the........... Hidden Curriculum

Big problem/Little problem ?

• Scale 1-10 or 1-5 visual

• List what type of problem is 10, 5, 1

• Discuss descriptions of problems and determine where they fit on scale

• Define what makes a problem big or small

• What types of emotions are associated with different levels of problems?

• Discuss how different problem levels impact a situation over time.

• Discuss how to sort out and analyze that little problem

• Discuss own emotions

‘THINKING WITH YOUR EYES’

THINKING WITH YOUR EYES - Your eyes are ‘tools’ that help you figure out your environment and what other people might be thinking about. It puts the emphasis on the students becoming good observers and to use the clues to make smart guesses about what other people might be thinking about. They are encouraged to use this information to adapt their thinking, words, and behavior. If you use your eyes to look at a person, it makes them feel that you are thinking about what they are saying or doing.

•WHOLE BODY LISTENING

•SELF MONITORING

•BODY AND BRAIN IN GROUP

•THINKING OF YOU VS. THINKING OF ME

•GOOD THOUGHTS - WEIRD THOUGHTS

GUESSING

SMART GUESSES- This is when we use all of our tools to figure things out and then make guesses based on what we know about the world.

WACKY GUESSES- If we forget and don’t think about what we know and see,then we just make a random guess without having any information.. As we learn in school, our teachers do not expect us to make wacky guesses.

missed cues

THESE STUDENTS NEED TO HAVE LANGUAGE NUANCES TAUGHT MORE EXPLICITLY

LITERAL LANGUAGE -is like cement and concrete. It stays the same all the time.

FIGURATIVE LANGUAGE - your brain has to figure it out. It does NOT mean exactly what it says. You must make a “SMART GUESS” based on the person or situation.

**Use commonly idioms and explain them. Use them repeatedly in your talking with your child.

SOCIAL CURIOSITY

•TEACH IMAGINATION AND WONDER OF OTHERS AND THE WORLD

PEOPLE FILES- CREATE A SOCIAL MEMORY

•These are visual ways to help kids with social thinking deficits understand that we all continue to learn information about others and file it in an organized way in our brains; we recall this information later when we see that person again. We create people files when we see or meet someone for the first time. We create people files for literary characters which helps us understand their feelings, motivations, and behaviors.

‘THe Boring moment’

“This is boring!”

The world does get boring at times. Learn how to put up with it. ( They will need it to hold a job later) “There will probably be a boring moment in our schedule today. Your job will be to try and listen and not distract the others when it happens”.

Announce “there will be a boring moment during our visit”

“THE FAKE”

•Don’t be appalled, we all do this!

•The intuitive ability of persons with good social skills to appear to be interested in another person’s words, when actually they are not that interested.

LESSON CORE BELIEFS

•Don’t just teach lessons from a training manual. Add real life -spontaneity. Use the students in your group/class/home- get them to explore a new approach/concept .

•Showing them a picture and role-playing is not enough. Look for carry-over opportunities.

•Social Thinking groups are not “Friendship Groups”. Help them decide for themselves who their friends are- the How and Why.

SOCIAL THINKING TEACHING .....

• USE HUMOR!!!!

• Exaggerate, draw attention to what you are teaching.

• Make mistakes ( perfectionism can create anxiety and get in the way of flexible thinking)

• Use you personal experiences.

• Let them hear your thinking! (perspective, background knowledge, reading others etc)

Introducing Social Thinking Conceptsincludes basic vocabulary...

Comic Strip ConversationsUse quick drawings with thought

bubbles and word blocks.Show how the thoughts are

affected by words, actions of others etc.

•Build in flexibility early!!

•Schedules should not be rigid- teach the student that real life has road bumps so build them into you day - remember rigid thinking can become an obstacle to learning and relationships.

•Teach the “BORING MOMENT”

•Teach “THE FAKE INTEREST” we all do it because we know it makes others feel better.

Let’s Talk Flexibility!!! MGW

Superflex Curriculum Lessons A progression of lessons which:

Lessons 1-5: Explore and increase the student’s understanding of flexible thinking and other related skills

Lessons 6-9: Introduce the Unthinkable characters and explore the child’s own social weaknesses

Lessons 10-13: Students develop and utilize Superflexible strategies to “defeat” their own Team Of Unthinkables

Early childhood and elementary:When reading books..

• Take advantage of picture books!!!

• Point out facial expressions, body language, and the direction of the characters eyes, and clues that show what the character is planning to do.

• Point out why the characters believe something. What do they know? Are they making a smart guess?

• Are character hiding their feelings?

• Hidden agenda- motives, intentions

• See book list handout

PROMOTE EARLY CHILDHOOD SOCIAL THINKING

• Get face to face

• Do the ‘unexpected’

• Give things to your child bit by bit and wait....

• Let things go silly, wrong and wait...

• You don’t have to say a lot of words...

• Get your child to follow your eyes

• Play ‘eye games” I Spy, Hide objects and give clues with your eyes

• Make use of routines- use real life situations

• PLAY ( THINK, KNOW, GUESS)

• THINKING ABOUT YOU GAMES

• WHOLE BODY LISTENING

• SMART GUESSES -SEEING CLUES, INFERENCES PUTTING IT ALL TOGETHER

• LITERATURE- PICTURE AND CHAPTER BOOKS,TEXT

• UNDERSTANDING HOW THEIR BEHAVIOR AND WORDS AFFECT OTHERS

• USE PERSONAL MEMORIES OF OTHERS TO MAKE GUESSES ABOUT THEM AND DEVELOP RELATIONSHIPS.

HOW DO YOU DEVELOP PERSPECTIVE TAKING?

HOW DO YOU DEVELOP PERSPECTIVE TAKING? (con’t)

• ALL PEOPLE HAVE THOUGHTS NOT JUST YOU!

• TEAM WORK ACTIVITIES

• COMIC STRIP CONVERSATIONS (GRAY)

• FILES IN YOUR BRAIN ( SOCIAL MEMORY)

• EMPATHY- SHARING THE EMOTIONAL STATES OF OTHERS

• SOCIAL EXPECTATIONS CHANGE WITH AGE

• TEACH HIDDEN AGENDA AWARENESS

• AND MORE!!

MIDDLE SCHOOL HIGH SCHOOL

• What is a friend? Qualities and the progression of friendship.

• How do you ‘hang out”? conversation skills and topics, sharing space, keeping connected.

• Dealing with change: schedules, assignments, groups, classmates

• Figuring out people’s motives: friend or bully? Recognizing manipulation, facebook , texting

• Problem solving: Is your reaction equal to the size of the problem.

• Not talking sends messages: communication is a two way street

• Self -advocacy and Independence

• Abstract academics place higher demands on perspective taking.

Resources

•www.socialthinking.com- see Michelle’s blog, books, and workshops

•Booklist

•Handouts