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Perfect for clinic, classroom, or home use, this 18” x 24” durable, dry-erase poster is a companion product to the The Zones of Regulation curriculum by Leah Kuypers, and aligns with Lesson 9 "Caution! Triggers Ahead.” This visual tool helps students identify the situations—or triggers—that push them into the Yellow or Red Zones and prepare themselves for something nonroutine. Kids write their triggers on the caution sign to remind themselves to use their metacognitive problem-solving strategies to regulate in those situations. This poster is also sold in The Zones of Regulation 4-Poster Set.

You have to reach kids before you can teach them! Save 10% with this bundle of eight products, including two fun & kid-friendly Social Thinking® SEL curricula, a popular social learning card game, and innovative teaching ideas that engage children ages 5-12 in social emotional learning that feels relevant to their lives and taps into activities they love. Use these products to motivate and inspire kids to learn how the social world works so they can work toward meeting their own social and academic goals.

School administrators and principals understand the importance of establishing a forward-thinking vision for their schools and districts to support cultural, linguistic, and neurological diversity—the foundation for developing lifelong learning for all children. This bundle provides four unique, complementary approaches to understanding and supporting the diverse social learning needs of students ages 5-18+ to help education leaders create a successful learning environment where self-awareness, inclusion, and prosocial behaviors can thrive.

Welcome to the Superflex® Universe where students learn to become their own social superheroes—observing situations, interpreting clues, taking perspective, social problem solving, and using metacognitive strategies to self-regulate to meet their social and academic goals. Get the entire Superflex Series collection, featuring all sorts of teaching tools from our Dynamic Duo (Social Detective and Superflex). This collection has 2 curriculum and teaching guides, six supplementary storybooks, two teaching card decks, stickers, and one educational game. Social Detective and Superflex lessons make learning about social attention, social problem solving, and self-regulation fun. The entire Superflex Series is designed to empower all neurotypes to boost their own inner “Superflex powers.” A good choice for both schools and clinics.

Introduce the Superflex Series with these six super engaging cornerstone products that teach children the basics of social observation, social & self-awareness, and self-regulation while making social learning fun! Begin with You Are a Social Detective! 2nd Edition storybook and the You Are a Social Detective! Teaching Curriculum & Support Guide, which teaches kids self-awareness, as well as how to observe the social world. It also introduces a handful of our core Social Thinking Vocabulary. Next, move on to the new updated & expanded Superflex® 2nd Edition Kit and learn how to help kids activate their own personal Superflex superhero with the help of the team of 14 Thinkables®. Thinkables are proactive strategies that help manage the 14 pesky UnthinkaBots®. UnthinkaBots are imaginary characters that represent characteristics that get in the way of us meeting our social goals. Educators and therapists will find the Thinkables & UnthinkaBots Double Deck, 3rd Ed. to be a helpful supplementary teaching visual when using the Superflex curriculum, and kids love the instructional Superflex Bingo game and Superflex Super Sticker Collection.

This updated durable, dry-erase poster supports the decision making that goes into regulation while also addressing problem solving and group conflict resolution. STOP, OPT & GO is a strategy that is taught as part of the Zones of Regulation curriculum. It aligns with Lesson 17 in the original curriculum book and is explored as part of Concept 7 in the Digital Curriculum. STOP, OPT and GO gives students an easy-to-remember metacognitive phrase and visual to help them before they act on an impulse. Perfect for the clinic, classroom, or home, this poster (18” x 24”) is also sold in The Zones of Regulation Digital Curriculum 5-poster Set.

Motivate kids to talk about how these 14 sneaky characters use their powers to get in the way of our flexible thinking and doing. The imaginary characters on this poster represent the most common challenges in thinking and doing that we ALL experience. For example, Worry Wall shows the common feeling of worry. Body Drifter represents how when we get distracted or don’t notice the group plan, our bodies can drift from the group, leaving others confused! These UnthinkaBots can work together to sabotage our flexible thinking and doing. It’s up to us to notice and then manage them!

The updated, fully-colored, 24” x 18” Zones of Regulation Tools poster reinforces the use of the four Zones. This durable teaching visual helps learners recognize common feelings and body signals associated with each one and includes a space to add strategies or tools to support regulation of each Zone. The poster has updated content, a refreshed design, and new feeling illustrations that match artwork from the digital curriculum. A new “Possible Body Signals” reference is included in each Zone with lines for learners to write in possible tools for each Zone are still included.

Superflex Takes on Brain Eater and the Team of UnthinkaBots, 2nd Edition introduces readers to the UnthinkaBot Brain Eater who uses attention-grabbing powers (DistractoBots) to distract Social Town citizens’ brains from focusing. Brain Eater can pull our attention away from what we are supposed to be doing, what others are talking about, or using our brains to focus on things at school or home. In this storybook, Aiden is a boy who sees his classmates having trouble focusing on getting ready for school learning in class. Aiden transforms himself into Superflex Aiden and joins readers on a journey to the Superflex Academy. This storybook is part of our Superflex Series, which is designed to help children learn about their own strategies for self-awareness and self-regulation across a variety of situations.

Bring the entire core cast of Superflex® characters into your classroom, clinic, or home with these two laminated posters (18" x 24" each)! The 14 core Thinkables® represent flexible thinking, problem solving, and other practical strategies for managing the UnthinkaBots. This poster also shows a diverse set of Superflex superheroes, the14 Thinkables, their names, and the UnthinkaBot each Thinkable character helps to manage. Use the UnthinkaBots poster to spark conversations about how these 14 sneaky characters use their powers to get in the way of our flexible thinking. Posters also sold separately.

Grab your magnifying glasses, fasten your capes, and take off with the Dynamic Duo—our Superflex social learning series for K–5 Tier 1 classrooms and Tier 2 instructional settings. Save 10% on these two complementary curriculum kits, where you’ll find a total of 35 fun, interactive print & digital lessons and step-by-step teaching support guides with BONUS digital content—downloadable Thinksheets, activity lessons, and teaching PowerPoints to help bring social learning and problem solving to life in ways that motivate and empower kids and are fun to teach.

With fresh designs and updated concepts, this all-new 5-Poster Set is a companion product to The Zones of Regulation Digital Curriculum and Getting Into The Zones of Regulation. Set includes: The all-new Zones Check-In dry-erase poster (18” x 24”), the all-new Zones of Regulation Pathway poster (24” x 18”), the updated Zones of Regulation dry-erase poster (24” x 18”), the updated Zones STOP, OPT and GO dry-erase poster (18” x 24”), and the updated Zones Triggers & Sparks dry-erase poster (24” x 18”). Individual posters are also sold separately.

New! Updated & Expanded. Empower your students to activate their superpowers of flexibility, self-awareness, executive functions, self-regulation, and more with the new Superflex® 2nd Edition Kit: Curriculum, Storybook, and Visuals. This eagerly awaited new edition of the bestselling Superflex® Curriculum package has undergone extensive updates and changes to now feature inclusive images, neurodiversity-friendly language, new Superflexes, revised Thinkable & UnthinkaBot characters, Bot powers, visual supports, and much more. The revised curriculum provides a structured teaching approach with 25 evidence-informed, interactive quests (lessons) and a step-by-step guide for how to introduce each lesson, ideas for what to say and do, visual supports & downloadable resources. Quests include a teaching PowerPoint presentation to bring the characters and concepts to life and increase student engagement and participation.

This new 24” x 18” Zones Check-in poster captures one of the core practices found in the Zones of Regulation curriculum. This dry-erase poster is a structured and visual bridge for helping learners understand what is happening in their bodies and emotions as they transition within and across activities. Designed to encourage students to mindfully pause to check-in with their body signals, emotions, and Zones. Consistent check-ins build tools for talking about or sharing their feelings with others. This supports both self-regulation and co-regulation. This dry-erase visual tool is perfect for use in the clinic, classroom, or home.

Use this engaging poster to empower kids to talk about the proactive powers and strategies of the 14 core Thinkables! The whimsical imaginary characters on this poster represent flexible thinking, problem solving, and other practical strategies for managing the UnthinkaBots. For example, Worry WiseWorm provides strategies for taking on worry (or Worry Wall). T-Flex gives kids tools for flexing their thinking and doing and helps to manage Rock Brain. This fun poster also shows a diverse set of Superflex superheroes, the 14 Thinkables, their names, and the UnthinkaBot each Thinkable character helps to manage.

The new Zones Pathway poster encapsulates the learning in the Zones curriculum, creating easy-to-follow actionable steps to support learners through the regulation process. Use this sturdy 24” x 18” poster as a visual tool in the clinic, classroom, or home to queue learners in real time about the 5 concrete steps that learners and their co-regulators can follow: 1) Notice 2) Check-In 3) Decide 4) Regulate 5) Reflect.

For those who like a book as their “go to” for an organized, easy-to-access, comprehensive reference, the all new Getting Into The Zones of Regulation is the must-have print companion to The Zones of Regulation® Digital Curriculum. This comprehensive companion guide provides all the foundational knowledge and implementation guidance needed for educators, therapists, or caregivers to teach The Zones with fidelity. Included in the print guide is 6 months of FREE ACCESS to CONCEPT 1 of the Digital Curriculum.

Save 10% when you purchase this early learner starter bundle that includes our two award-winning social emotional learning curricula for early learners and two illustrated children’s books on understanding and managing their anxiety. Get started teaching children ages 4-7 why and how we use our social minds to foster social and emotional awareness and self-monitoring to help them develop deeper insights and foundational social competencies that follow them throughout their lives.

New edition with UnthinkaBot characters and important updates! The UnthinkaBot Glassman (aka Glassy) can be found in the brains of many Social Town citizens, both kids and adults alike. Glassman confuses people’s understanding that problems can come in different sizes for all of us. In this new edition of this popular illustrated storybook, readers follow Superflex Aiden as he takes on Glassman and the ExplodaBots. Readers get a taste of lessons at the Superflex Academy and learn strategies that give them tools for understanding their emotions and strategies to help self-regulate.

New Edition! Super Updates, Changes & Additions. Support learning and generalization of core concepts found in the Superflex Curriculum lessons by using these visual supports. These two decks include 52 cards that show the colorful and whimsical UnthinkaBot and Thinkable characters, their images, names, and powers. Cards showing the Social Detective and Superflex characters are also included. Some lessons found in the Superflex Curriculum give suggestions for how to embed the cards into lessons or imagine other ways that you would use these cards as reminders and praise. The sky’s the limit!

This award-winning book unpacks the power of our social cognition. It’s written for both neurotypical and Neurodivergent teen and adult readers to better understand the powerful ways in which we “read” not only what people mean by what they say, but also how others perceive how we emotionally relate. This book is also a good primer for neurotypical employers/employees or HR departments to read about the experiences and perspectives of Neurodivergent coworkers and perhaps develop empathy for the complexity of the bi-directional social learning process. Provides practical strategies for how to effectively work in a group, understand the hidden rules of the social world—including workplace etiquette and politics—and build relationships.

Get started teaching core Social Thinking Vocabulary and concepts to kids ages 5-12 and save 10%! This budget-saving starter bundle includes two fun and kid-friendly Social Thinking® curricula for different developmental ages, a popular social learning card game, and an innovative resource that teaches reading comprehension through learning foundational social emotional concepts. Engage your elementary students in learning about social and self-awareness, observation, social situations, perspective taking, flexible thinking, problem solving & more to develop the social competencies that can help them meet their own social and academic goals.

What’s going on around us influences our thoughts, feelings, and choices. Social Situation Mapping (formerly Social Behavior Mapping) teaches learners how to use social observation to figure out what to do or say (or not do and say) based on the situation. Revised, updated, and retitled, this hands-on book includes 80+ completed Social Situation Maps to explore 40+ common situations at school, home, and in the community. The maps outline the Social Emotional Chain Reaction, which shows how we all impact one another when sharing space, and provide multiple options for choices and their consequences through the learner’s perspective.

It seems increasingly common these days that children are overwhelmed by worries and anxiety. This budget-saving bundle includes four compassionate books that support children in understanding their anxiety and where it comes from—and then in learning how to manage it themselves. With child-friendly language, engaging illustrations, lessons, and activities these books empower children through a variety of ways to explore their thoughts and feelings and use self-calming strategies and exercises to relax, focus, and rely on their positive feelings, thoughts, and responses.

Support tweens & teens in managing their own anxiety with this budget-saving bundle of three books and a popular social learning card game created specifically for this age group. Hands-on and tween & teen-friendly, these products are packed with practical tips, fun activities and skill-building exercises, relatable real-life stories, and relevant situations that motivate and empower kids to understand and manage their anxiety, along with building confidence in their own strengths to meet challenges head on.

Piloted and tested over years in large school districts, this teaching curriculum is a companion to the award-winning storybook. Help your students become Social Detectives with a step-by-step series of 10 structured lesson plans, downloadable Thinksheets, and instruction for hands-on activities. BONUS digital content: Each lesson has an accompanying teaching PowerPoint to support building students’ social attention, social interpretation, and self-awareness—the foundation for social, emotional & academic learning.

Bring social, emotional, and academic learning for children ages 5-10+ into your classroom—and save 10%! This bundle includes the award-winning storybook, You Are a Social Detective! 2nd Edition and its new companion Teaching Curriculum & Support Guide, an easy-to-use curriculum that fits into your current teaching day. The storybook introduces students to core social emotional learning (SEL) concepts, and the curriculum provides 10 fun, structured lesson plans and visual tools to support building students’ social attention, social interpretation, and self-awareness—the foundation for social emotional learning for everyone.

Get in the zone! This bundle provides all the books and games developed to support and extend teaching students ages 5-18+ The Zones of Regulation curriculum with fidelity. It includes the all new Getting Into The Zones of Regulation, the award-winning 2-Storybook Set, two award-winning Tools to Try card decks for different age groups, the Navigating The Zones game, and its supplemental Advanced Pack. Save 10% with this bundle and have the flexibility and developmental tools to engage youngsters, tweens, and teens.

This wonderfully illustrated children's book not only introduces young readers to the concept of thought but also to the amazing power of their own thoughts and feelings. Through a rhyming poem, the authors communicate a simple yet profound message: our thoughts create our feelings and behavior, and when our minds are calm, we have access to mindful, healthy feelings and responses. A perfect read-aloud for parents and an important book for all early primary school teachers to share in their mainstream classes. Use this book as a powerful metacognitive teaching tool.

Teaching award-winning The Zones of Regulation curriculum to children ages 5-11? This bundle provides two ways to supplement and extend curriculum lessons with fidelity. The set contains two storybooks with characters, social scenarios, and metacognitive strategies that bring regulation lessons to life. Award-winning Tools to Try Cards for Kids is a strategy card deck that introduces children to over 50 multisensory regulation tools demonstrated characters from the second storybook.

A multiple award winner! Two award-winning storybooks engage children ages 5-11 in learning The Zones of Regulation framework and curriculum. The first, The Road to Regulation, describes and explains four different emotional zones and how we feel in each of them. Through an imaginary adventure to “The Regulation Station,” the second storybook introduces the use of “tools” (strategies) to help students identify ways they can manage their different feelings at school and home.

Learning how to interpret social situations, figure out the social expectations for those situations, and evaluate our feelings is complex and important social emotional learning. Help make that learning fun, safe, and consequence-free for ages 8-18 with our All-in-One Should I? or Shouldn’t I? Games & Expansion Packs Bundle—and save 10%! In this bundle you’ll find the elementary school version and the teen version of the popular Should I? or Shouldn’t I? card game. Also included are the add-on expansion packs of 300 additional situation cards for each version to keep the learning fresh and stimulating.

New edition! All-new language, content, and book cover design featuring artwork by a Neurodivergent artist! Teen and young adult readers give rave reviews of this award-winning “get real” guidebook with anime illustrations that helps social learners sail the stormy seas of dating, texting, lies, and everyday relationships. Targeted social emotional strategies encourage readers to better navigate their social worlds, develop stronger social competencies, and manage social anxiety. Interventionists (parents, caregivers, and professionals) appreciate how it better equips them to explain the Social Thinking® process, helping young adults learn to use metacognitive strategies to navigate to self-regulate within social situations. Use the free Socially Curious Thinking and Reading Guide with the book to enrich the social learning and conversation.

Ready to start teaching The Zones of Regulation to children at developmental ages 5-11? This award-winning bundle includes 4 easy-to-use products to get started: all new Getting Into The Zones of Regulation, a companion book to The Zones of Regulation Digital curriculum, two storybooks that bring curriculum lessons to life, and a multisensory regulation strategy card deck, which includes over 50 direct instruction tool cards. Use all products together to maximize social learning at home and school.

Expand your teaching of The Zones of Regulation curriculum for students ages 5-18 with these two award-winning Tools to Try strategy card decks. These two decks provide a combined choice of 79 different multisensory tools for students to learn and practice as they develop regulation and emotional strategies in all settings.

Save 10% with this bundle of the popular, fun social learning game Should I? or Shouldn’t I? Revised Edition for Teens and its add-on Expansion Pack of 300 additional cards. Revised and updated with the all-new Social Interpretation Scale, this game stimulates authentic peer-based discussions on a wide range of teen-friendly and relevant social situations that engage them in thinking and talking about social problem solving for responsible decision making. Shift students’ focus from discussing how someone behaved to instead learning about the power of their own social interpretation within a fun, safe, and consequence-free setting.

This powerhouse bundle includes the all new Getting Into The Zones of Regulation, the companion print guide to The Zones of Regulation Digital Curriculum (available separately through the Zones of Regulation website), the Navigating The Zones board game and its extended play Advanced Pack, and our award-winning Tools to Try Cards for Tweens & Teens. Discover visual supports, strategies, and activities to enrich teaching of core curriculum ideas. Together these products help foster students’ learning and practice of regulation strategies for the social emotional scenarios within the game and their everyday lives.

Revised and updated, this popular social learning card game provides the all-new Social Interpretation Scale to motivate teens to explore how they perceive, interpret, and emotionally respond to others’ actions and reactions and discuss group expectations across a wide variety of social situations. The new Teaching Guide and Instructions help interventionists shift students’ focus from discussing how someone behaved to instead learning about the power of one’s own social interpretation within a fun, safe, and consequence-free setting. This revised edition extends teaching the concept of the Social Emotional Chain Reaction (SECR), a Social Thinking® Methodology framework.

The award-winning Tools to Try Cards for Tweens & Teens is a multisensory strategy card deck that helps students explore, choose, and practice 50 regulation tools at home, in school, or in therapeutic and community settings. The 2-sided cards are divided into 5 categories that describe strategies to focus, calm, think, move, breathe, and connect. This hands-on metacognitive supplement to The Zones of Regulation curriculum pairs well with Navigating The Zones game and its supplemental Advanced Pack for additional levels of play.

Core Practical Treatment Frameworks Set 1 serves two purposes: 1. provides interventionists with information to assess the needs of their social learners through 7 conceptual frameworks and 2 provides 6 treatment frameworks for use with social emotional learners. Each one of these ready-to-use visual scaffolds displays an important social concept through a user-friendly graphic on one side and step-by-step instructions and resource recommendations on the back.

A choice rich, portable strategy card deck to help kids ages 5-10 metacognitively explore and practice over 50 regulation tools at home, in school, or in therapeutic and community settings. The award-winning 4" x 6" two-sided strategy cards are divided into 5 categories that describe strategies to focus, calm, think, move, breathe, and connect developed from lessons in the original The Zones of Regulation book and the Digital Curriculum.

Who doesn’t love a sticker? Kids have been asking for these for years, so we finally developed over 500 colorful stickers showing the UnthinkaBots and Thinkables. Ideas for using the stickers as supplemental teaching supports can be found in the Superflex Curriculum, or just let your students have fun finding these characters in literature, writing about them, drawing adventures about them, or just decorating their water bottles!

We’ve got 26 powerful visual tools to help you and your social learners crack open the social emotional world—all in one collection. We’ve distilled 25 years of our core learning and teaching into hands-on, ready-to-use , 8.5” x 11” scaffolds to help both interventionists and social learners organize, talk about, understand, and navigate diverse social landscapes.

With Set 2 of this collection, help students build social competencies with 13 more of our most popular and important teaching frameworks to promote social emotional learning and self-regulation at home, in clinic and school settings, and during individual or group teaching. Each teaching framework presents a specific, visually scaffolded graphic to introduce core social thinking concepts.

Adapted from the colorful layout in The Regulation Station storybook, this 24” x 18” poster is a flexible, real-time reminder of the four steps needed to (1) recognize your feelings, (2) identify your Zone, (3) choose a tool, and (4) use the tool to help regulate your feelings experienced across different situations. Use it at home, school, or clinic to review information with children while reading the 2-Storybook Set and to support lessons from The Zones of Regulation curriculum.

Using The Zones of Regulation curriculum? Try this game and its Advanced Pack to help tweens (10+), teens, and young adults develop social emotional awareness, regulation, and problem solving skills. Plus—save $10 when you purchase the bundle. Navigating The Zones is a cooperative game that expands The Zones of Regulation curriculum. It introduces the concept of “The Zones Pathway” via an interactive board and a variety of card decks to explore social situations, emotions, and related regulation tools. The Advanced Pack offers 495 additional cards to enable older, more sophisticated social learners to continue building their regulation skills through increasingly complex competitive play.

These colorful visual supports (8.5” x 11”) promote the active use of 10 Social Thinking® Vocabulary concepts that lay the foundation for social emotional learning using the Social Thinking® Methodology. They are a visual way to show abstract elements of the social world in a concrete manner. As you introduce each of the 10 concepts, display the corresponding visual support (mini-poster) as a reminder to think about the concept. Set of 10; not sold individually.

New language & character updates! A fun and flexible game developed for children (ages 7–10+) who have been actively working with You Are a Social Detective! and the Superflex Curriculum and are familiar with core Social Thinking Vocabulary. Unlike the “matching” format of traditional bingo games, Superflex Bingo engages players in “thinking through the Bingo Board” to expand their social emotional learning. Players listen to and think through hundreds of different social situations to identify when their own Superflex powers are engaged, which of the 14 UnthinkaBots are causing havoc, or which Social Thinking Vocabulary concept is being discussed. Includes 12 different themed card packs. Perfect for use in the classroom, clinic, or home.

Problems come in all sizes and the Thinkable® Kool Q. Cumber (a laid back, sunglasses-wearing cucumber with arms and legs) is one way to teach kids strategies to stay cool and calm when problems arise. In this companion storybook, Kool helps us learn about activating our own Thinkable powers like the “Cooling Cap” and the legendary “Prob-u-lator.” Both strategies are designed to keep the UnthinkaBot Glassman (aka Glassy) at bay. This Thinkable companion book to Superflex Takes on Glassman helps us learn to compare and contrast problems, their size, our response to those problems, and what to do next.

Help social learners keep their cool and take a deeper dive into the much-adored Superflex® curriculum. This two-book set, featuring the UnthinkaBot Glassman and the Thinkable Kool Q. Cumber, teaches physical and cognitive strategies for self-regulation to avoid big negative reactions to small problems. Glassman investigates how being unable to match one’s reaction to the size of the problem is an unexpected behavior that causes others to have confused thoughts and disrupts learning. Kool Q. Cumber shows how to stay calm when problems happen, think flexibly, and use Kool’s Prob-u-lator to determine the size of a problem and the expected reaction size.

This unique and fun cooperative game expands the teachings of The Zones of Regulation curriculum. It introduces the concept of “The Zones Pathway” via a board game that encourages interaction by using a variety of card decks to explore social situations, emotions, and related regulation tools. This flexible teaching tool is non-competitive by design. Social learners collaborate as they practice problem solving how to navigate different social situations, a process required for emotional regulation. Note: Both interventionists and social learners should already be familiar with The Zones of Regulation concepts and vocabulary before playing this game. It is not designed to be a stand-alone social emotional teaching tool.

Meet Focus Tron, a Thinkable who teaches kids how to activate their Focus Pocus Powers to decide which strategy works best for them to build up their focus in different situations (e.g., fidget, distracter shields, self-talk). Focus Tron celebrates the positive power of redirecting one’s focus and attention—including the downloadable, printable Distracter Shield “to block” attention-grabbing items in the classroom or at home.

Defeat distractibility! You’ve worked through the Superflex® curriculum with your social learners and now you’re ready to dive deeper into self-regulation strategies. This two-book set featuring the UnthinkaBot Brain Eater and the Thinkable Focus Tron presents two perspectives for overcoming distraction. Brain Eater explores the power of distractibility and how it prevents students from focusing or doing what they need to do. Focus Tron celebrates the positive power of redirecting one’s focus and using specific strategies to maintain focus and attention. Books include student tip sheets and strategies and quizzes to support learning.

If you’ve been using the game Navigating The Zones, add this companion Advanced Pack to help more sophisticated social learners (age 10+) further practice and develop their social emotional problem solving and regulation skills by introducing three additional levels of play, each advancing in complexity. The Advanced Pack provides 400 more complex and nuanced Situation and Feeling Cards to foster imagination, perspective taking, and social problem solving. It introduces Wild Cards and Trade-A-Cards to encourage more flexible, strategic thinking as players move from cooperative to competitive game play. IMPORTANT! This product requires the use of Navigating The Zones, sold separately.

Children bring different levels of social competencies into peer-based group collaboration and play. Assessing these in children ages 4-7 is important for understanding students’ social emotional strengths and weaknesses and designing relevant treatment programs. GPS is a qualitative, observation-based assessment tool to help professionals evaluate the peer-based play abilities of children as part of their dynamic social assessment. Useful to IEP teams (parents too) in generating definable social learning goals and objectives, GPS is also a tool for researchers.

Triple your students’ fun and social emotional learning with this expansion pack featuring 200 new prompt cards and 100 new challenge cards that extend play with fresh, age-specific situations and topics. This product is an add-on to the original game Should I or Shouldn’t I? Elementary School Edition for kids ages 8-11. (Game sold separately.) Students love playing this game so much they requested more cards—and we listened!

Now for the first time in one great-value bundle! Multiple award-winning We Thinkers! is our premier social emotional learning series for helping social learners ages 4–7 develop foundational social competencies. These practice-proven, evidence-based materials are designed for both neurotypically developing children and those with social learning differences and/or challenges to strengthen social perspective taking, self-awareness, executive functioning, social problem solving, and so much more.

Double your teens’ fun and social learning with this expansion pack featuring 200 new prompt cards and 100 new challenge cards that extend play with fresh, age-specific social situations and topics—and are useful for play with savvy social learners who have memorized responses to the original cards in the game! This product is an add-on to the original game Should I? or Shouldn’t I? What Would Others Think? Revised Edition for Teens for players ages 12—18. (Game sold separately.) Social learners love playing this game so much they requested more cards—and we listened!

The social world is complicated—and so are tweens and teens. They typically don’t want to be told what to do, yet still struggle to solve their problems independently. As social learners, they need guidance and support in a way that feels right and makes sense to them. Save 10% with this bundle of six books, a two-set collection of 26 teaching frameworks, and card game that speak directly to a variety of social emotional learning needs of tweens and teens—frankly, sometimes with humor, but always encouraging them to learn how the social world works so they can logically learn new social competencies to help them meet their own goals. This collection provides a range of information, visual supports, scaffolded teaching frameworks, strategies, and tools to best meet their needs and developmental ages.

Grammy-winning songwriters Michael and Patty Silversher combine with lead singer, Nick Guzman, a Neurodivergent adult whose pitch perfect voice is featured on many of the tracks. Other talented performers bring these 13 upbeat social emotional learning songs alive. Kids light up listening to—and singing!—fun, catchy songs about the entertaining and empowering world of Superflex. Whether it’s training at the Superflex Academy, living in Social Town, developing “my hero inside,” or overcoming the Destroyer of Fun, listeners are sure to find their inner superhero through these great songs! Also available on Amazon and Apple Music. Preview the music and download the lyrics to help develop lesson plans to use with the music!

Use this updated dry-erase poster (18” x 24”) as you teach social learners ages 8+ Social Situation Mapping (also referred to as Social Behavior Mapping), a powerful, versatile tool for fostering social awareness and self-regulation in diverse social situations throughout the day. The poster outlines the 10-step teaching sequence to deepen social emotional learning and ensure fidelity. It also features a new “People” field to identify who is involved in the practice situation, a handy “Tip” section to inspire ideas when brainstorming expected and unexpected behaviors, and a “Sum It Up” prompt as the final step to drive home the social concepts.

This best-selling book provides 175+ ready-to-use mini thinking-based lesson plans and activities (i.e., Thinksheets) to break down, discuss, and then teach Social Thinking® concepts for teaching social learners ages 8-18+. Derived from years of direct work with neurodiverse students—including individuals with social (pragmatic) communication differences or challenges, ADHD, and autism spectrum levels 1 or 2, —these versatile thinksheets can be used at home or school, one-on-one, or in larger group sessions. Age-coded, the thinksheets are organized into categories that include friendship, perspective taking, self-monitoring, effective communication, problem solving, and more. These concepts can be readily adapted by educators for a variety of activities.

Make the We Thinkers! concepts come alive for kids with 12 songs by award-winning artists. Get students up and moving, singing along, and actively participating with others as they integrate Social Thinking Vocabulary into everyday life. The We Thinkers! series curricula include activities to teach with the songs, too! Preview the songs and download the packet of lyrics to use in your teaching.

Purchase or stream all songs on Amazon Music or Apple Music. (We no longer sell the CD.)

Motivate students ages 8-11 to explore social expectations and consider how they perceive, interpret, and emotionally respond to others’ actions and reactions. Use the cards to explore and discuss group expectations across a wide variety of social situations. Teachers, clinicians, and parents can gain information about which social concepts might need deeper teaching. This game leads to greater self-awareness and builds upon social competencies when players talk to each other about their shared social expectations! It also makes thinking and talking about social situations fun and allows kids to explore their own thoughts, perspectives, and behavior choices within a safe and consequences-free environment.

Our premier social emotional learning package for children ages 4–7 helps develop foundational social competencies. The multiple award-winning We Thinkers! Volume 1: Social Explorers includes five storybooks and a thorough unit-by-unit curriculum. The storybooks correspond to and support detailed lessons for teaching five evidence-based concepts that establish a common social vocabulary for early learners and are fundamental to all social experiences. These practice-proven materials are designed for both neurotypically developing children and those with social learning differences and/or challenges to strengthen perspective taking, self-awareness, and so much more. The We Thinkers! series is loved around the world by kids, parents, and professionals alike!

Make thinking, talking, and learning about the social world fun! Save 10% with this bundle that includes the original game and its 300-card expansion pack. Should I? or Shouldn't I? Revised Elementary School Edition is designed to give children a fun and motivating way to discuss age-relevant issues and their own thoughts, perspectives & choices in a nonjudgmental and safe setting. Players explore how their social interpretations might impact their own actions and reactions, using social situations that elementary-aged students may encounter daily. The Expansion Pack provides 300 additional prompt and challenge cards to keep the play stimulating and prompt deep discussion and learning on perspective taking, self-awareness, and executive functioning.

Watch movies and YouTube video clips as a strategy to explore and teach complex social interactions, the range and depth of emotions, and social communication. This innovative guide shows educators and clinicians how to scaffold three levels of teaching for three types of social learning styles. Each lesson plan identifies the video clips to use and then presents ideas and tips for teaching and tailoring Spy Eye (context, feelings, thoughts, and plan), Detective Head (perspective taking), and Me Too! (personal connections) tasks to each of the learner categories. Lesson plans and ready-to-print instruction materials available via a download link included in the book.

Award winning and kid friendly, this graphic novel-style book uses comic strip scenarios to teach about common social and emotional chain reactions. Co-developed, critiqued, and inspired by Neurodivergent tweens and teens, this book represents the 10 social scenarios they most often encountered.  Readers will get to see the choices of three characters and the outcome of those choices (social fortune or social fate). Designed to show “both sides of the [choices] coin,” the book allows students to read the book forward or backwards. Readers also get to see how protagonists’ choices are tied to their own thoughts, their actions or reactions, which ultimately impact how they feel.  Each scenario includes either an analysis and strategy codes to decipher the characters’ choices or an “autopsy” for a better understanding of what happened and why.

New updated content and language! Find 130+ pages of practical, kid-friendly ideas and tools for the direct instruction of tweens and teens as they learn to navigate the complex social world. The thinksheets are mini-lessons that progress from basic to advanced social emotional concepts, such as considering others’ perspectives, reading hidden social expectations and body language, dealing with bullies, understanding friendship, and many more. Thinksheets extends the teaching of our books for teens, including award-winning Social Fortune or Social Fate and Socially Curious and Curiously Social. Whether for individual or group instruction, interventionists (professionals and parents) can adapt lessons to benefit virtually all social learners.

Think Social! is a comprehensive curriculum that includes over 69 Social Thinking® evidenced-informed concepts, frameworks, and strategies. A valuable resource for any professional or parent teaching social emotional concepts to school-age students—including both neurotypicals and Neurodivergents with social learning differences and/or challenges. The curriculum has basic suggestions for linking lessons to academic standards.

Our informative and accessible bestseller is ground zero for understanding and applying core components of the Social Thinking Methodology. It explores the social learning process and weaves together research with ways to teach specific social competencies. Introduces core treatment frameworks and related strategies and presents the Social Thinking Dynamic Assessment Protocol. Foundational reading for professionals and family members.

Students enjoy squeezing the small, blue foam brains, and the brains encourage them to think more flexibly as part of social emotional learning explored through our Social Thinking® Methodology. When used in lessons that encourage flexible thinking, including those in the Superflex® Curriculum and Thinking About YOU Thinking About ME, the Social Thinking brains offer a fun way to inspire our social learners to think about their social thinking and related skills. "Flexible Thinking is Social Thinking" is printed on the brain to bolster lessons. These foam brains can also be used as fidgets.

Social emotional learning is lifelong learning! Save 10% with this bundle of relevant and explicit social thinking concepts and strategies created specifically for adult social learners of all ages. These three books provide practical guidance, tools, and humor to make sense of evolving expectations within the adult social world so learners ages 18-80 can gradually develop social competencies that help them, step by step, achieve their own social, academic, and career goals.

Friendship is complicated for most kids—and their biggest emotions often come up about friends and other kids. Save 10% with this bundle of two hands-on, kid-friendly guides that can help them understand, manage, and communicate their feelings & emotions in healthy ways and learn strategies to build and maintain caring friendships. In these two books, the authors deftly combine humor, cartoons, and accessible strategies to support children in serious learning about what’s most important to them now—knowledge that can help guide them in friendships throughout their lives.

Our brains are amazing! Learning about the power of our brains, how they work, and how to develop them can bring about powerful positive change and foster strengths, independence, and motivation to set and meet our goals in all areas of our lives. Help kids understand the mechanics of how different parts of our brains influence different parts of our social emotional learning. Save 10% on this bundle of kid-friendly books that provide concepts, tools, and strategies to help kids develop the power of their brains to take charge and better manage their thoughts and feelings instead of their thoughts and feelings determining how they feel, act, and react in social situations throughout the day.

Learning how to organize & prioritize thinking starts at home and gives children a big boost when they enter school. It also plays a huge role in developing other social strengths, such as understanding their own and others’ thoughts, emotions, actions & reactions, developing healthy relationships, and fostering positive self-esteem. This budget-saving bundle includes 4 books that explore how the brain works and how you can support organized thinking and the development of social learning in children with practical metacognitive strategies and age-specific exercises and activities.

The Power Card Strategy is a game-changer, harnessing the magic of a child's interests and passions to inspire them to tackle the complexities of social interaction and problem-solving with newfound confidence. This invaluable resource is designed for dedicated teachers and caring parents seeking effective strategies to empower children and adolescents who grapple with social misunderstandings and emotional regulation challenges.

Children’s biggest emotions often come up about friends and other kids. This entertaining and empowering book addresses a wide range of feelings children have about friends and other kids, including worry, guilt, jealousy, compassion, and gratitude. Through relatable cartoon stories, practical, research-based coping strategies, plus silly commentary from a cat and dog who have their own (questionable) ideas about what might help, kids get a hands-on approach that they can put into practice.

The thought of "losing control" can cause major problems for children who live with anxiety. Now, parents, teachers, and students have a helpful tool that provides young children with the opportunity to explore their own feelings with parents or teachers as they experience and react to events in their daily lives. Engaging and easy to read, this award-winning and illustrated children's book is filled with opportunities for children to participate in developing their own self-calming strategies to feel relaxed and ready to focus on work—or play.

As a parent, you want to protect your child from life's difficulties. But this isn't always possible. In order to face the uncertainty and inevitable setbacks of life with confidence, children need the right tools. The good news is that you can give them these tools. Designed for kids ages 7 to 12, The Resilience Workbook for Kids provides actionable techniques to help kids cope with stress, manage powerful emotions, and grow through life's challenges.

Building on the popular The Incredible 5-Point Scale, this book focuses on how to help adolescents and young adults with social emotional learning differences and/or challenges develop awareness of their role in society and functional self-regulation strategies. Using many examples and hands-on activities, individuals can learn about developing better social boundaries, the transition to adulthood, how to cope with anxiety before it escalates, and more—because social expectations become less forgiving with age!

Like all beautiful, strong, important things, brains take time to build. Along the way, children have an enormous capacity to influence the brain–building process in profound and enduring ways. First though, they need information that will help them perform their magic. This book will help children discover more about the brain – how it works, what it needs, and how to love it big so it can love it back bigger.

A practical guide from respected therapist and popular YouTube star Dr. Tracey Marks that will help readers recognize the common signs and symptoms of anxiety and anxiety-related mood disorders, and then help them develop coping skills using self-guided solutions or help them decide on other treatment options.

This must-have resource teaches social learners about emotional self-regulation using easy-to-read scales and charts, refined through 20 years of implementation within homes, clinics, and classrooms around the world. The cognitive behavioral 5-point scale provides a visual reference for helping students better understand how they are feeling and their subsequent emotional reactions to develop better emotional control and problem-solving strategies. This revised edition includes a list of goals and objectives related to incorporating scales in students' IEPs, plus a link to free downloadable, printable blank scales, small portable scales, and worksheets. The 5-point scale dovetails effectively with many Social Thinking® concepts, such as Social Situation Mapping.

Tenacity in Children provides a solid foundation to prepare children for a resilient and happy future. It offers well-defined guideposts for adults committed to providing every child with the opportunity to access, strengthen, and employ these instincts as they negotiate childhood and passage into adult life.

With respect, empathy, and wacky humor, Slaying Digital Dragons empowers teens to explore their screen scene; join the resistance against Big Tech’s manipulations and addictive algorithms; protect their body, brain, psyche, reputation, and relationships from the Digital Dark Side; and conduct a self-intervention (called an “App-endectomy”) to reset and optimize their digital lives.

A multiple award winner! This first storybook in the Superflex Series introduces the foundational concepts of social observation from the child’s perspective. It encourages kids to become “social detectives” to observe the social world and learn a few of the unique Social Thinking Vocabulary to help them figure out what is happening across different contexts. You Are a Social Detective! 2nd Edition is an award-winning storybook that should be taught over an extended period and revisited often to encourage social learning in all contexts.

Parents and teachers! Here are 185+ user-friendly, adaptable activities, demonstrations, and rehearsal opportunities to support social emotional learning in early learners in diverse social settings—from the dinner table, to the school setting, to the greater community. Using contributions from numerous social learning experts, this handbook helps build social emotional competencies with a focus on consistency, modeling, play, and practice. By making a "social learning diet" part of everyday life, social learners develop verbal and nonverbal language, listening skills, understanding of hidden rules, perspective taking, emotional self-regulation, and more.

Is social media stressing you out? Written by a millennial psychologist and media expert, this workbook offers practical skills to help you reduce anxiety, balance screen time, deal with cyberbullies, and take charge of your life. Social media has drastically changed how we communicate with one another. In many ways this is a good thing. For example, it’s easier than ever to stay connected to family and friends who live far away. But social media can also become addictive, stressful, and even alienating. If you’re like many teens, you probably check your smartphone several times throughout the day to stay up to date on the news from friends.

Frustrated parents who are tired of chaos will find concrete, actionable guidance for raising an independent, self-assured, and organized child. Dr Korb defines the neurodevelopmental abilities that are critical for organization and shows parents how to develop their children’s organized thinking skills.

Hey Awesome explains how the same brain that can make a child feel anxious sometimes, also comes with amazing strengths. This book also includes powerful tips for children on how they can manage their anxiety. First, we let them know how awesome they are, then we give them what they need to feel it for themselves.

If kids with anxiety could see themselves the way we see them, they would feel so much bigger than their anxiety. They would feel so much bigger than everything. Hey Awesome explains how the same brain that can make them feel anxious sometimes, also comes with amazing strengths. It also includes powerful tips for children on how they can manage their anxiety. First, we let them know how awesome they are, then we give them what they need to feel it for themselves.

When the going gets tough, it’s time to get gritty. Written by a clinical-child and school psychologist and based in the latest research, The Grit Guide for Teens will help you build perseverance, resilience, self-control, and stamina.

Friendship is complicated for kids. Children everywhere want to be liked, fit in with a group, and be good at sports—but most kids struggle at times. This practical, research-based friendship guide has plenty of true-to-life examples presented through more than 200 lighthearted cartoons that make learning fun for kids. With this book, children learn strategies to help them build meaningful friendships and navigate the challenges that come up along the way.

Empower children to manage their anxiety by learning that it comes from a place of protective strength within their brains—the amygdala—a tiny but fierce personal “warrior” that prepares us to fight or flee danger, even when we don’t need or want its protection! Wonderful illustrations and keen insights gently teach children how to be the boss of their brains and let their warriors know when to stand down and relax through positive thinking and breathing exercises. By understanding the physical science of anxiety and why their brains produce it, children can then learn to master it as a positive, friendly superpower.

Millions of children suffer from anxiety, and recent research has uncovered a link between highly imaginative children and anxiety. Using engaging illustrations and fun activities based in cognitive behavioral therapy (CBT)—one of the most widely used forms of therapy today—this workbook presents a unique approach to help children ages 5-11 harness the power of their imaginations to reduce anxiety, build self-esteem, and develop a positive mindset. Designed to help children understand their anxious thoughts within a positive framework, this method focuses on imagination training and developing skills like problem solving, assertiveness, positive thinking, body awareness, relaxation, and mindfulness.

Our best-selling curriculum for children ages 9-12, The Kids’ Guidebook introduces select Social Thinking Vocabulary through colorful illustrations and easy-to-understand content. This award-winning two-book set provides the teaching tools to break down complex social concepts to make it easier for educators, therapists, and caregivers to teach and for students to learn. Thinksheets for Social Emotional Learning includes multiple mini-lessons (thinksheets) for in-depth exploration of each chapter of The Kids’ Guidebook to help build social learners’ metacognitive awareness and develop practical strategies. Kids enjoy becoming stronger social observers and problem solvers. A natural fit for school, clinic, and home.

Two leaders in the field of cognitive behavioral therapy (CBT) present the wisdom and guidance of their book Think Confident, Be Confident for Teens in a fun, teen-friendly workbook format. Filled with easy CBT-based activities and tips, this workbook guides students through a process of self-study, encouraging them to explore alternative pathways when faced with self-doubt and inner criticism. The exercises foster skills that help empower teens to replace self-doubt with self-confidence, leading them become the people they want to be.

Building on the core social concepts and vocabulary introduced in We Thinkers! Volume 1: Social Explorers, multiple award-winning Volume 2 provides the structure, curriculum, storybooks, and support materials to teach executive functioning and social problem solving to neurotypical children ages 4–7 in a classroom setting, as well as to Neurodivergent students who might have social emotional learning differences and/or challenges. Includes our groundbreaking Group Collaboration, Play and Problem Solving (GPS) Scale, observation and scoring tools, and related differentiated play activities. Five storybooks introduce five Social Thinking® Vocabulary and concepts: hidden rules and expected and unexpected behavior, smart guess, flexible and stuck thinking, size of the problem, and sharing an imagination. Use only after Volume 1!

Based on their best-selling book, The Whole-Brain Child, internationally acclaimed neuropsychiatrist Dan Siegel and brain-based parenting expert Tina Payne Bryson have created a companion workbook to apply the metacognitively based whole-brain principles. The workbook presents a unique, interactive approach that allows readers to not only think more deeply about how the ideas fit their own parenting (and or teaching) approach, but also develop specific, practical ways to implement the concepts with children. Provides dozens of practical, age-specific exercises and activities to help children learn to better manage their own minds.

Use YouTube videos to make learning about feelings and relationships easy and fun! YouCue Feelings offers video recommendations and provides 50 practical activities to guide students ages 4–14 in building their social emotional vocabulary, tracking changes in feelings over time, and increasing their ability to reflect on their own emotional experiences. By incorporating brief, diverse video clips with targeted exercises, YouCue Feelings helps get young students thinking about, talking about, and ultimately, practicing important social emotional learning ideas in their everyday lives.

An excellent resource for parents and practitioners, this creative workbook helps kids ages 4-9 understand and manage their anger. Meet the anger gremlin—a pest whose favorite meal is your anger, and the more he eats the angrier you get! There's only one way to stop him: starve him of angry feelings and behaviors. Based on cognitive behavior therapy (CBT) principles, this book provides fun, engaging activities for teaching young children how to control their anger by changing how they think and act. Packed with stories, puzzles, quizzes, and coloring, drawing, and writing games for developing this critical social skill.

Help kids ages 5-9 understand and manage their anxiety with this engaging and imaginative workbook. Readers are introduced to the anxiety gremlin who feeds and grows on their anxious feelings, and the more anxious they feel, the more powerful it becomes! Packed with puzzles, games, and coloring and drawing activities based on Cognitive Behavioral Therapy (CBT), this practical and fun book helps children learn strategies to minimize their anxieties by reexamining how they think and act—and empowers them to give the anxiety gremlin the boot. An excellent resource for parents and professionals.

The achievement gap remains a stubborn problem for educators of culturally and linguistically diverse students. With the introduction of the rigorous Common Core State Standards, diverse classrooms need a proven framework for optimizing student engagement and facilitating deeper learning.

This hands-on workbook helps kids ages 11+ take on the “stress gremlin”—that beastie that feeds on our feelings of stress—and learn to manage their stress levels through a range of practical techniques. Based on the principles of cognitive behavior therapy, the workbook uses fun, engaging social scenarios that help children understand why they get stressed, learn the effects of stress, and how to “starve” their own stress gremlin. The real-life stories from young people resonate with young readers, revealing they aren’t alone in their struggles with stress management. Students can use the workbook independently or with adult support.

This must-have anxiety management workbook helps children ages 10+ understand why they get anxious and learn about the different types of anxiety. Based on the Cognitive Behavioral Therapy (CBT) principle that thoughts, feelings, and behaviors are interconnected, this award-winning book shows how to use simple, practical techniques to manage anxiety in its many forms, including phobias, separation anxiety, panic attacks, and obsessive-compulsive disorder. Kids can learn independently through the fun activities and real-life stories from others struggling with the same challenges or explore the workbook with the guidance of a parent or professional.

Meet the anger gremlin—a troublesome pest whose favorite meal is your anger, and the more he eats the angrier you get! There's only one way to stop him: starve him of angry feelings and behaviors. This imaginative workbook teaches children ages 10+ how to manage angry thoughts and behaviors. The tried-and-tested program, based on effective cognitive behavior therapy (CBT) principles, can be implemented by students themselves or with a practitioner or parent. Fun and simple activities help kids understand why they get angry, how their anger affects them and others, and how they can develop strategies to self-regulate.

This book explores the role different parts of our brains play in managing our own behavior. The authors, a neuropsychiatrist and a parenting expert, illustrate how teaching children about their brains can help them learn to cultivate healthy emotional and intellectual development, in addition to self-management, in order to foster balanced lives that include healthy relationships, success in school, responsible behavior, and positive self-regard. Written for use with children, in language and images they can understand, this book explains and visually depicts simplified neurology paired with 12 concrete metacognitive strategies to help children learn how to better control their actions and reactions.

Confidence is a magnet that attracts others and helps people achieve their goals. In this accessible, confidence-coaching handbook, two leaders in the field of cognitive behavioral therapy (CBT) show teenagers and young adults how to build and tap into their self-esteem so they can learn to be themselves no matter how awkward or scary it may seem at first. Fun exercises and tips guide readers through feelings of self-doubt and encourage them to believe in themselves, strengthen their friendships, and meet every challenge head-on. For additional skill-building exercises see The Think Confident, Be Confident Workbook for Teens.

Fichas de Comportamiento Social son un recurso visual que ilustran estos conceptos abstractos por medio de un diagrama de flujo. Padres y profesionales de la educación las utilizan para enseñar cómo todos los comportamientos que se llevan a cabo frente a los demás están implicados con las interpretaciones y reacciones sociales en una variedad de temas, incluyendo el hogar, la comunidad y el salón de clases. Este libro de 105 páginas incluye más de 50 fichas. Incluso se pueden crear fichas adicionales que correspondan a los comportamientos y necesidades del alumno. Esta estrategia, concebida para alumnos de 6 ños en adelante, es de mayor eficacia para los estudiantes que tienen ya una base sólida de lenguaje.

Join expert speakers Kari Zweber Palmer, MA, CCC-SLP, Michelle Garcia Winner, MA, CCC-SLP, and Jenny Sojat, MA, CCC-SLP, R-SLP in Greater Boston (Norwood) for two days of in-person learning from 8:30 AM to 3:40 PM! Along with the famous gourmet lunch provided by Four Points Sheraton in Norwood and your seat in the conference, we are bundling a free curriculum with your registration on each day ($49.99-$74.99 added value each day or $125 in free materials for both days).

Whether you’re teaching young learners or teens/tweens, these two days are packed with strategies across the ages for teaching social problem solving, understanding perspectives, goal-setting, rallying motivation, and self-regulation. Day 1 features lessons ideas from a brand new curriculum series focusing on social attention, interpretation, and problem solving. Piloted in both Tier 1 classrooms and small groups around the US, these interactive lessons are fun to teach and even more fun for students to learn. On Day 2 we are launching a BRAND NEW course with practical ideas for teaching executive functions, exploring social risk, mental time travel, social problem solving, and other concepts using storybooks, thinksheets (thinking lesson plans), and a new graphic novel for tweens, teens and young adults. The speakers are excellent and there will be plenty of teaching take-aways as well as time for discussion and reflection.

Professional Development Options

Social Thinking is registered with Massachusetts DESE as a Professional Development Provider. These courses are approved by ASHA for SLP CE Credit. Other eligible professionals can earn a certificate of completion and up to 11 hours of CE Credit. Click here to see if you are eligible.

We are packing our latest thinking and sharing our most helpful strategies by consolidating core topics, tailored to offer a deeper understanding related to assessment, goals and measurement, and practical teaching tools. This course offers ample time for networking, sharing practical lessons and strategies, as well as engaging in robust Q&A sessions with the instructors and fellow attendees. This smaller, more focused seminar is designed to align with the school day, running from 9:00 am to 3:00 pm on Fridays only, in specific regions around the United States. Hosted by Social Thinking experts, this is a unique opportunity to connect, learn, and grow within a supportive and collaborative environment with others in your region.

In this 90-minute course, we’ll explore motivation-based myths. We’ll then contrast this information with research-based, as well as tried-and-true methods, to help individuals rally their motivation so they can tackle basic to complex social and organizational goals. In this journey we’ll also explore factors that get in the way of motivation, such as anxiety, perfectionism, lagging social and organizational competencies, and/or digital device distractions, and then review practical strategies and tools to help individuals feel “they can” rather than “they can’t.”

Download this free visual with practical ideas for initiating social conversations, which Michelle Garcia Winner presents in this course.

Loneliness is a dangerous national epidemic that has been growing in depth and complexity for many years. Loneliness not only endangers our mental and physical health, but it also can make us less kind and caring toward others, resulting at times in misbehavior at schools and within our communities. We’ll explore a range of research-informed ways we can cultivate meaningful relationships with others to foster our well-being, as well as kindness, empathy, and generosity of spirit toward others. Now more than ever, building social awareness, managing anxiety, and developing social communication strategies to combat this growing crisis of loneliness is critical for school-age children, tweens and teens, and all the way through the adult years.

Parents and caregivers are always asking about how to teach and support self-regulation. In this course designed specifically for parents and caregivers, we’ll talk about the ways the social mind can support social thinking and self-regulation for early learners. We will cover practical strategies including how we can use stories, activities, and play to build self-regulation; how to teach children to better understand their own and others’ thoughts and feelings, and the plan of the group and their role within it. Please note: this course is not eligible for Continuing Education.

Get ready to engage social learning with Social Situation Shorts, a set of five video vignettes, featuring real kids in real-world social situations using their social thinking and social skills. These teaching videos are perfect for fostering discussions and engaging young students or clients with relatable social situations. Each video comes with two lesson plans to extend the learning, and some shorts feature a visit from Science Guy Brad for a little extra fun. Have fun exploring social concepts and skills for kids between the ages of 5-9+.

Note: This video is not eligible for continuing education credit.

Small talk and conversations are dynamic, and we cannot create reliable scripts for how they will unfold. We can, however, increase our students' awareness of why we engage in social exchanges such as small talk. In this online course, we will unpack the complexities of small talk and conversation. We’ll break these down into their component parts to build strategies that support engagement in initial and ongoing social connection for children, teens, and adults.

Tweens, teens, and young adults are expected to naturally develop social and organizational competencies needed in school and across their lives. However, students with social learning and organized thinking differences (e.g., ADHD, twice exceptional, expressive receptive language, sensory processing, autism levels 1 and 2, etc.) may not intuitively learn these concepts and skills. This course will explore 5 critical life skills related to social emotional learning and organized thinking that can and should be directly addressed and taught to students & clients ages 11-22 in our homes, schools, and clinics. We’ll also review a variety of explicit metacognitive frameworks and practical strategies for teaching and learning these critical social competencies.

What is alexithymia? It refers to challenges in developing awareness of one’s feelings, identifying, and distinguishing them from other physical sensations—and it’s gaining interest in the research, schools, and clinical arenas. Educators and parents have reported an increase in overall “regulation” challenges in the classroom, on the playground, and during small group activities. We’ll highlight select key aspects of emotional awareness and regulation and its role in perspective taking. Specifically, we’ll explore how alexithymia can impact the building blocks for spontaneous perspective taking across all contexts. We will suggest practical strategies to increase awareness of feelings within the perspective-taking process to use within the classroom, school, community, and home.

In two keynotes, Dr. Damon Korb, MD FAAP and developmental behavioral pediatrician, and Michelle Garcia Winner, MA, CCC-SLP and founder of the Social Thinking® Methodology, will connect the dots between executive functions—including self-regulation and perspective taking—and creative, practical strategies to foster organized thinking. Damon’s keynote will explain five important steps professionals can learn to guide parents in how to raise an organized child. He will also present strategies and lessons he has learned during his 20 years as a developmental and behavioral pediatrician to help foster children’s active engagement of organized thinking, the kind of learning and functions they’ll use throughout their lives. Michelle’s keynote will focus on how to help students/clients develop friendships. How do people make friends? How do we keep them? What creative strategies can we teach to help tweens and teens learn to invest in these important but complicated relationships?

This course explores the role of executive functions across school and home environments. We explain strategies for tackling motivation, time prediction, prioritizing workload, and tracking multiple assignments simultaneously. We review key executive functioning skills and practical metacognitively based strategies to help individuals track and tackle homework and other deadline-based responsibilities.

Discover an array of concepts and strategies that bolster social learning and help students meet socially based educational standards. Explore the ILAUGH Model of Social Cognition to help break down and make sense of the social world. Uncover how differences and/or challenges in social communication, executive functioning, and perspective taking impact written expression, reading comprehension of literature, organizational skills, and working in a group. Learn strategies to support students, clients, and patients in each of the above! Rounding out the day: learn tips for student-driven goal writing and data keeping. Note: This course is introductory and designed for those who are new to Social Thinking or just want to expand how they teach lessons from the Social Thinking Methodology.

This strategy-filled course delves into crucial aspects of building social competencies in preschool and early elementary-age students (ages 4-7). Explore how flexible thinking, social language, self-regulation, and social and emotional development are vital for developing collaborative interactions in group settings, both on the playground and in the classroom. Gain insights from a research perspective on the impact of executive functioning, social attention, and social problem solving through the lens of our award-winning We Thinkers! curriculum series. Walk away with practical strategies and examples to seamlessly integrate social learning concepts into your existing teaching methods.

Educators, therapists, and caregivers have been asking for a motivating and fun way to teach elementary students social, emotional, and academic concepts. This short course will focus on the theory underlying core lessons and how to implement a detective and superhero themed social, emotional, and academic learning (SEAL) teaching series with fidelity. Consider this to be the essential crash course for implementing the Dynamic Duo Curriculum series with fidelity. Content is designed for students 7-11+ years.

The way most of us concentrate and focus our attention on things that matter has undergone a dramatic disruption in the past two decades. While what we need to do can be enhanced by technology, there are potentially even more digital factors that get in the way of meeting one’s academic, employment, and/or social goals. In this course, we will use a developmental lens as we introduce strategies to help students problem solve and self-evaluate how they set goals, make plans, and stay on task to foster executive functioning, while simultaneously and constantly being distracted by digital tools such as screens, phones, and watches. We’ll also take a deeper look at the latest research related to concentration and focus.

The same abilities to think socially that are required to relate effectively to others are also essential for success in academics. Dynamic practitioners and award-winning coauthors, Kari Zweber Palmer and Ryan Hendrix team up again to explore the use of concepts within the Social Thinking Methodology that can be used from the start of a new school year or any time in between. This course explains how to set up for social connection and academic success in schools. Review core strategies and tools to support students in learning more about the social world around them and navigating to regulate to meet their own needs and social goals. We’ll focus on practical strategies and ideas for use in classrooms, as well as schoolwide implementation, building a bridge between environments and people to support the social mind and learning across a student’s day.

Chronic stress and anxiety can impact children’s ability to focus and learn, whether it’s in the classroom or through an online education portal. Helping children metacognitively explore their stress is the first step toward their self-regulation, and this metacognitive understanding also helps educators, therapists, and caregivers learn how to avoid creating even more stressors for children. In this webinar, Michelle Garcia Winner guides parents and professionals in creating structured empathetic discussions with their children and/or students using visual supports and tips.

In this webinar, Michelle Garcia Winner, the founder of Social Thinking, discusses an evidence-informed Social Thinking - Social Competency Model. This model is a way to think about a four-step developmental process to help educators and therapists better support their students and clients.

There is a big difference between using reward systems to encourage students to behave and teaching students how to self-regulate. Join Michelle Garcia Winner, the founder of the Social Thinking Methodology, to explore the many moving parts of self-regulation and which of our strategies, frameworks, and teaching materials help students develop these competencies across age groups.

We still believe in the power of free! In fact, we are hosting a free 60-minute webinar where attendees will get a chance to win new and award-winning products, and we’re also including a free teaching tool! Three for the price of free. In addition, we are offering a sneak peek into a FREE Social Thinking lesson hosted on the award-winning educational platform, Seesaw!

Many students who are academically strong struggle with executive functioning, which can deeply impact their well-being in the social, academic, and job worlds. Join our founder, Michelle Garcia Winner, for this free webinar to break down executive functions and learn how to teach them.

It’s human nature to want to help others, but it’s often difficult for people to ask for help, especially those with social, emotional, and academic learning differences. In this webinar, we’ll discuss why children, students, and adults may resist help or refuse to ask for it and we’ll deconstruct the multi-step process through which we ask for help. We’ll also explore the social emotional benefits for all participating in this unique and rewarding relationship.

Perspective taking can happen anytime at school—during academic learning time, in the hallways, playground, or lunchroom. In this free webinar you will learn about perspective taking in the classroom—supporting students to attend to and interpret their own and others’ thoughts and feelings, whether simply sharing space, interacting, or deciding if and how to participate.

Explore the world of social observation and learn how it lays the foundation for better interpersonal relationships and academic learning. Understanding what it means to be a Social Detective (social observer), especially during the start of a new school year, is crucial to navigating change, academic learning, making friends & more. In this free webinar, we’ll explore the highly accessible and easy-to-embed You Are a Social Detective! Curriculum & Teaching Guide. You’ll watch a curriculum lesson taught by a mainstream third-grade teacher, peruse curriculum-generated student work, and discover innovative ways to adapt these social learning concepts for the secondary grades.

Learn how to teach the dynamics of face-to-face communication, a crucial part of the social emotional experience—and now a source of anxiety and stress for many! In this free webinar, we’ll provide many examples of teaching frameworks and Social Thinking® Vocabulary to encourage the development of metacognitive awareness and practical strategies for use in the classroom and home.

Consider that everything we do or say, and possibly what we don’t do or say, is perceived and interpreted by others. At times the message we are communicating is considered quite risky, but it might be worth the potential benefit. To help individuals figure out the perceived or potential level of risk related to actions or statements, we developed the Social Risk Scale. It’s a simple visual tool to empower people to make their own decisions related to their social goals.

The “I Don’t Care Scale” is a visual tool codeveloped by teens. It was originally designed to help educators, therapists, and caregivers better understand the perspective of the student who routinely responds with, “I don’t care.” The scale is also a tool to acknowledge an individual’s point of view with empathy and without judgement and promote meaningful discussions.

A relationship, especially an intimate relationship, poses a lot of challenges for autistic people or other social cognitive challenges. Or, as a young autistic once told us: “Relationships are 1000 times more difficult than math!” Contrary to math, a relationship is built around an infinite number of unwritten rules and laws. And unwritten rule number one is: there are no fixed rules in a relationship. And that’s because a relationship is the result of the bonding of two unique people. It takes two to tango, but we all tango our own, unique way. So, every relationship is unique.

The 3 Parts of Play/Activity is a visual framework designed to teach social learners about planning, choice making, and time management—all executive functions. It also helps individuals learn that any activity involves a process, and there are steps we take from start to finish while keeping time limitations in mind. This builds essential and foundational executive functions. The nice part about this framework is that we can explain that any activity, whether individual or group based, has at least three parts, and all parts involve time prediction.

Most of us find motivation to do stuff we like or that interests us. But how do we rally our motivation to do things when we feel sad or anxious, or when tasks are complex, or take a lot of time, effort, and thought? Motivation is essential to achieving our goals—mundane or spectacular—but how to rally it is rarely, if ever, taught explicitly. This article explores evidence-informed and practice-based tips, tools & strategies to help individuals of all ages overcome such motivation when dealing with anxiety, depression, lagging social and/or organizational competencies, and negative self-talk.

Superflex® has become super-popular! We have enjoyed hearing from so many people around the world about their love of Superflex and the Team of UnthinkaBots and Thinkables and the positive effect the Superflex curriculum has on helping individuals become better social thinkers and social problem solvers!

As we travel around the country, people are often interested in what we recommend as the “DOs and DON’Ts” related to Social Thinking philosophy and treatment. We start out by saying: be flexible! Be an observer, be supportive, be present! It turns out that what we teach our students and clients is sound advice for us as well.

Have you ever been talking to another person and you suddenly realize you're talking too much about something really interesting to you - but something that may not be all that interesting to him? I think the majority of us have had, and continue to have, these experiences from time to time. Once we realize what's happening, we try to shift and pull our attention away from the "me-focused" discussion to ask questions to our communicative partner or follow the lead to discuss a topic interesting to her. Without realizing it, we understand the idea that being with others is a sort of social see-saw where we try to maintain a balance between attending to others' interests and needs while also getting a chance to share information about ourselves or our interests.

We learn so much from our clients—and we want to share it with you. In this free “Aha! Teaching Moments” video, Social Thinking founder Michelle Garcia Winner shares what she learned when helping a client with social anxiety make progress towards his social goal—to talk more in class. They collectively discovered other factors that probable made the social anxiety more profound.

It’s our understanding that cognition comes from our neurology and our neurology is parked in our brain. So technically if something is non-cognitive, its origin is non-neural or non-brain based. You see our confusion here. The research suggests that what we do socially are a by-product of many other processes: perspective taking/theory of mind, conceptual processing, executive functioning, social attention, auditory processing, interpretation of nonverbal cues, situational cues, etc. These, of course, are also dependent on the situation (context), and the people (cultural and social-emotional factors). Social situations require us to continually consider these social elements within each moment of interaction. Is all of that mental work non-cognitive?

The ILAUGH Model of Social Thinking is a core (and critical) framework created and developed to help professionals and parents understand and think about how those with social learning differences, difficulties, and disabilities approach the social world.

Have you ever wondered how we do we know what to do or say in a given situation? The Social Thinking-Social Competency Model breaks down this big, complex process into four foundational steps.

Learning evolves and brains are diverse in how they learn. The brain’s capacity to acquire new knowledge helps determine how and what we intuitively learn. Some learning happens as a matter of cognitive, social, and emotional development, i.e., from the “inside out,” while other learning happens “from the outside in.” Social learning helps us bond with our caregivers early in life then paves the way for language development, more advanced relations, and an understanding of abstract social concepts that grows through experience and maturity.

Many kids say, "I don't care" or "I don't want friends" or "I don't like people." I don't care is a heavy topic to cover in a blog, but here is my shot at it! Here is my spin on this. Our kids struggle to do something that appears so easy and seamless to everyone else. Those who are "higher functioning" begin to notice that they are not fitting in, but they don't know how to make it right.

The following is a list of questions to explore when students are in middle-high school to help consider realistic options post-graduation. Rarely have the students whom I've observed "pulled it together" in their junior/senior years of high school, given the tremendous increasing pressures they feel as they realize they will be graduating. While we need to include the student in transition discussions, we also have to realize that many cannot imagine something they have not experienced.

Even though scientists tell us the brain physically stops growing by our mid-20s, has your brain stopped learning? We continue to learn throughout our lifetime and our social learning is no exception. We find that adult clients can be strong social leaders. They have more social awareness and socially-based experiences, and they do well discussing and applying social concepts in real world settings. They are also less likely to blame their challenges on a peer, teacher, or a parent.

In this third part of the transition to adulthood series, take a minute to read about the perspective of a parent while helping her son transition into adulthood. This mother’s perspective, as told through an extensive letter, shows just how complicated this process can be, even for those with lots of resources and supports.

To better understand and support social learners, it’s important to understand their social learning system based on their social learning characteristics (e.g., strengths, needs, and/or struggles). The Social Thinking– Social Communication/Characteristics Summary (ST-SCS) is a dynamic descriptive tool (not diagnostic!) to help interventionists better understand the learning nuances of the clients and students with whom they live, work, and teach. Based on 30+ years of clinical observations, dynamic assessments, and family input, this tool defines six distinct social learning systems, including strengths of the learner, type of teaching & supports that best fit the learning system, and prognosis.

Creating imaginary front doors for your favorite Halloween character can be a fun and friendly way to teach social observation, reading clues, people files, and smart guesses. From brooms and spider webs to giant googly eyes, kids will enjoy transforming a simple file folder or folded paper into a front door where goblins, witches, mummies, or any other Halloween character might live.

Social anxiety prevents many people from initiating face-to-face social connections with others, which can make them feel isolated and lonely. Explore why face-to-face interaction is vital to our personal well-being and discover some simple, authentic ways to empower those who struggle with initiating connection and loneliness to feel included and valued within their communities.

Listening to our students and trusting them as experts on their own experiences can transform the educational landscape through student-led approaches to social, emotional, and academic learning (SEAL). Conversations with approximately 500 4th and 5th graders based on the simple prompt, Someday in school, I would like to_____., empowered these kids to give voice to their aspirations and perspectives on making school a more inclusive and fulfilling environment. The powerful themes of choices and relationships that emerged from this activity highlight the essential elements needed for every student to feel a sense of belonging. Truly heeding their voice serves as an important reminder of where to invest our time and energy—especially as we head back to school.

Engage your students in a low-effort, high-impact group activity that cultivates future thinking, reasoning, and flexible thinking to develop advocacy skills. When encouraging students to imagine their ideal school experience by completing the sentence, Someday in school, I would like to ___., educators create opportunities for students to imagine what they can do in the here and now to create a path for themselves that they desire for the future. Explore how this activity fosters students’ goal setting, interactions with others, and the practice of using their voice for advocacy, allowing them to feel empowered, included, heard, and engaged in their educational experience.

Explore the teachable role that everyday doors play in developing social observation skills. Doors not only define physical spaces, but they also serve as visual cues for transitioning into new situations. By encouraging our students, children, and clients to use the Do ObseRve strategy before entering a new space, they can first imagine the situation, gather information by thinking with their eyes, ears, and brain as they observe the situation, and then make smart guesses about what to expect to manage the transition and navigate social situations more effectively. Use this simple strategy in school, at home, and in the community.

“I’m bored!” Those familiar (yet dreaded!) words can often punctuate the lazy days of summer we hope to be filled with fun, adventure, and new experiences. But boredom, like any other feeling, holds valuable information. Recognizing and understanding boredom is the first step toward transforming it into something more fulfilling. In this article, we explore the signs of summer boredom, particularly focusing on children and teens, and delve into strategies to combat its restlessness, ignite creativity, and empower guided decision-making.

Summer break can be a great time for kids to relax and have fun, but it can also be a time when change and lack of structure are the norm, which can be stressful for kids and parents alike. In this article, we share two executive function strategies for creating a summer break schedule that’s full of choices and gives kids some responsibility for coming up with healthy ways to entertain themselves while staying connected with the family.

Summertime is travel time and while travel can be exciting and fun for many, it can be stressful for individuals with social learning differences and/or challenges and their travel companions. Learn about some common travel stressors and tips for a more pleasant trip for all!

A teacher recently shared her thoughts on the end of the school year, referring to it as the time when teachers and caregivers have everything to do and students have… nothing to do. While this, of course, is an overgeneralization, many of us might be able to relate. So how do we finish up the school year with Social Thinking in an intentional, but also realistic way?

As social beings, we’re wired to want to help others. That’s why it can be so baffling when our students and clients find it difficult to ask for and accept help from those who genuinely want to give it. The reasons can be many: anxiety, shame, pride, a lack of awareness that they may need assistance, or not knowing the actual social and emotional process of how to do it. We all need help from others from time to time to achieve our social, academic, and career goals. So, how do we help our children, students, and clients learn how to ask for help?

Social thinking is what we do when we share space with others and when sending an email, sitting in a classroom, lining up at the grocery store, reading a work of fiction, watching a funny video clip, participating in a business meeting, driving in traffic, and a host of other daily activities that involve our social interpretation and related reactions. The Social Thinking Methodology provides teaching and support frameworks and strategies that encourage individuals to focus their social attention, interpret the social context, and socially problem solve to figure out how to respond to this social information, with the overall goal of helping them make gains toward their social goals.

Early on in childhood development, most individuals learn to coordinate their own body and mind, as well as interpret the words and actions of others to participate with increasing sophistication in the act of communication. It just comes to us. Yet these same skills may not develop intuitively for those with social thinking needs.

This is Belinda’s story, a woman with significant social learning differences who works hard to understand how the social world works. However, she must constantly confront the social expectations others hold for her that often do not match her actual abilities. Through her thoughtful, surprising, and at times, heart-rending account, she teaches us why it’s critical to put our assumptions aside and deeply understand our students in order to meaningfully teach them.

Add-a-Thought is a strategy to practice conversational language by making comments about our own lives that connect to other participants’ life experiences and vice versa. Learn how you can use the visual tool to teach skills such as perspective taking, sharing an imagination, conversational timing, and more

At just about every conference, people ask for ways to describe what we mean by Social Thinking in a few words or a short paragraph. “Sound bites—that’s what they need,” I think to myself. “Easy-to-remember phrases that capture the essence of what we’re trying to do with the curricula and materials we create for our public.” I hope you find a few bits of information to clarify what we mean by the term, Social Thinking.

Teachers frequently ask: “How can I talk to parents about my observations of their child’s social learning differences or challenges?” Michelle Garcia Winner provides nine tips to help professionals and parents engage with each other about social issues in an open, positive, and collaborative way.

A man with social-cognitive learning differences (in this case challenges)—who is also a speech-language pathologist—shares the impact learning about and applying the Social Thinking Methodology has had in both his professional and personal lives.

It's no secret that our students with social learning differences (ADHD, NVLD, social pragmatic challenges, autism Levels 1 and 2, etc.) may struggle through various aspects of their education. Whether due to difficulties establishing peer-based social relationships, completing academic assignments or both, many kids have not had it easy. We all have to think out of the box to develop lessons/opportunities for learning explicitly what neurotypically developing students learn implicitly (e.g., social thinking, executive function skills, inferencing, and synthesizing information, etc.).

Studies continue to demonstrate the benefits of starting education early, and that education is the best way to close the gap for disadvantaged students. It’s also the best way to provide supported collaborative learning and play experiences for children with social cognitive learning differences and/or challenges.

Historically, there has been a tendency to teach social behavior by setting behavioral expectations and then simply telling students what to do or telling them when we are disappointed by their behavior. To this end, professionals and parents, upon noticing a student doing what they might perceive as an “undesired” behavior, will tell the student, “That’s inappropriate.” Rarely do you hear teachers and parents telling students their behaviors are “appropriate.” When we interpret the meaning behind the use of the phrase “That’s inappropriate,” we usually find it implies the person is disappointed, if not upset with the behavior. Therefore, it is used to scold and redirect rather than to teach.

Kids come to the classroom with differing abilities. Those who are more "me-based" or adult- based players are not as likely to naturally figure out the dynamics of a playground or a classroom, while those with stronger "we-based" play skills tend to be more fluid in their ability to attend and learn in larger groups. Learn about our Interactive Play Scale and how you can use our tools to help the children you work with improve their social understanding through play.

Making friends is a desired but complex social emotional learning journey. The ability to forge new friendships and maintain older friendships provides us with an understanding of relationships and practice needed to be part of a class, work effectively as a collaborative member of a team or group, and simply feel included wherever we may be. In adulthood, this same set of concepts and skills will help us become part of a community, hold a job, and possibly nurture families of our own. The authors identify 10 factors for making and keeping friends and provide a list of practical resources.

When we work with students with social learning differences and/or challenges on their social thinking and related social skills, we’re asking them to talk about and work on something their brains don’t make easy for them, which can be difficult and anxiety provoking at times. See how to use the visual ideas of brain smarts, brain wires, and social smarts to make these concepts more concrete and create a more productive conversation.

Summer is here, and for many families that means vacation and new adventures—great opportunities to practice being a Social Detective! Explore why social observation is a crucial skill for everyone when traveling, and how to take a few minutes each day to increase social awareness in a fun, effective way.

Helping individuals build social competencies is very different from teaching specific social skills to use in specific situations (e.g., sharing toys at home or asking questions during an outing). In fact, teaching the thinking process underlying “why” we use social skills is a way to help individuals carry this understanding with them from place to place, often referred to as generalization. The following article outlines our experiences engaging learners in the social learning process that naturally fosters “generalization” across people, time, and space.

As digital devices become ever more pervasive in our world, face-to-face interactions are decreasing while social anxiety and depression are increasing. Discover fresh concepts and activities from the Social Thinking Methodology to help everyone look up from their phones and participate in face-to-face interaction.

Self-regulation and behavior control using behavior plans are two very different ideas. The term "self-regulation” has a bit of a bad reputation in that people often use it to describe a way to impose behavior control. But as the term implies, regulation in this way comes from oneself, one’s inner tools, and strategies. Conversely, behavior plans are developed outside of the individual by others and are meant to shape pro-social or eliminate unwanted behaviors. While there may be valid reasons and times to develop behavior plans, we argue that teaching concepts around social emotional learning, social emotional self-regulation, and executive functioning should not be one of those times.

Our daily lives are made up of an endless stream of thoughts, decisions, actions and reactions to the people and environment in which we live. The internal and external actions fit together, sometimes seamlessly sometimes not; largely dependent upon a set of invisible yet highly important skills we call Executive Functioning (EF). These skills, which involve planning, organizing, sequencing, prioritizing, shifting attention, and time management can be well-developed in some people (think traffic controllers, wedding planners, business CEOs, etc.) and less developed in others.

So many people want and need connection but are inhibited—even prevented—by social anxiety, an unintentional unfriendly appearance, or the struggle to just initiate a conversation. Reaching out and making face-to-face connections with others is what creates a strong, caring community—which can have an immeasurable positive impact on someone’s life. All of us can play a vital role in nurturing our community; learn how you can help.© 2022 Think Social Publishing, Inc.

Social anxiety can often prevent students from communicating, initiating, and connecting with their teachers, a powerful building block of learning. Here is a simple tool to help teachers teach their students about social anxiety and then empower students with a strategy to manage anxiety in the classroom and in face-to-face communication.

When a student of any age exhibits a persistent pattern of disengagement (social or otherwise), shows confusion, and seems to “check out” during routine classroom instruction and activities or group activities, it may be that they are struggling to figure out how the social world works and how to work in the social world—even if they have academic strengths. This article discusses the signs that teachers should be aware of related to students who may face social learning and executive functioning differences and/or challenges. We also outline three ways to advocate and build supportive environments and teams.

We don’t learn helplessness—it’s an innate brain default. We do learn how to create hope in our minds to avoid feeling helpless. By using language and metacognition in an internal dialogue, we can teach our social minds to push toward social emotional learning for new ways to handle ourselves in a range of situations. Aspects of the Social Thinking® Methodology provide pathways for creating and sustaining hope in our lives.

We help our kids learn math, science, history, and how to prepare for things like tests and fire drills—but for some reason, we don’t proactively teach them strategies to manage the anxieties that are an inevitable part of life. In this article, learn practical tips to help all students recognize and manage their anxieties.

For many, living independently and flexibly responding to daily demands doesn’t just happen without support. We’ve developed a visual strategy based framework called the 10 Levels to Living Independently to help kids and young adults practice 10 essential independence skills before they venture out on their own.

Social perspective taking helps us make meaning of people as they interact or coexist together in specific contexts. It also helps us to navigate to self-regulate in the social world—a world where we are consciously aware of each other and adjust what we do and say to meet our social goals. Most of us begin learning to take perspective intuitively as infants, but those with social learning differences and/or challenges may need explicit teaching. Explore what social perspective taking looks like, why it’s important, and how to define it in clear, practical terms. Unpack social perspective taking in 5 steps and learn how to teach abstract social cognitive concepts using this concrete framework, as social learners progress in their journeys toward self-regulation.

A couple of years ago I received a phone call from Ron Suskind, a Pulitzer Prize–winning journalist and best-selling author. Intrigued and curious about why he was reaching out to me, I listened while Ron explained that he and his wife, Cornelia, had just begun learning about the Social Thinking® Methodology to help their 23-year-old son, Owen. Ron passionately described how Owen was born with strong early relationship skills which almost vanished overnight as a toddler. By preschool and early elementary school years, Owen was very limited in his language, social communication, and many academic learning skills.

Some students have significant anxiety that can get in the way of them accessing their solid social knowledge. We have found that helping students learn about their own anxiety can also help them recognize and practice their social competencies. A few years ago I developed a tool, alongside and with a group of students, to help them talk about the complexity of their social anxieties and how it can impact their social world. We collectively named the tool, The Spirals or The Spirals of Anxiety. This article will show the tool and explain our group journey.

It’s wonderful that so many interventionists are teaching self-regulation strategies and flexible thinking using Superflex and the cast of UnthinkaBots (formally called Unthinkables) and Thinkables! But the way we use our words to call attention to a student’s behaviors can make the difference between supportive versus punitive teaching. Here are four ways we often see teaching go awry—and helpful tips for what to do instead.

Social Thinking Vocabulary terms describing behavior as “expected” or “unexpected” are popular as they help students develop self-awareness and look for the “hidden social rules” in a situation. This article offers tips and questions to reflect on your instruction to determine if your use of the terms “expected and unexpected” is a catalyst for powerful teaching, or just an attempt to redirect behavior.

If you think about it, written expression requires motor planning, social thinking, organizational skills, spelling, grammar, and punctuation to all dance together simultaneously. If any one of these factors gets left out or is missed, the result is a poor writing sample. We also know from the literature that some kids have an associated struggle to multi-task or use effective executive function skills.

Engaging in conversations requires more than meets the eye! For us to understand and teach shared imagination and why it’s essential to conversational skills and relationship development, we must first define, understand, and observe singular imagination. It’s our ability to create feelings, thoughts, experiences, and imaginary worlds internally. While this may be a kind of personal creative superpower, individuals who solely experience singular imagination may struggle to relate to, imagine, and share others’ thoughts, feelings, and experiences—sharing an imagination—so vital to conversation and social connection.

Here's the bottom line: The general public expects adults who do not manifest obvious social skills problems to use good social skills at work and in the community.

Every April, during National Autism Awareness Month, we pause to think back on the pivotal role students and clients have played in our lives and work. For professionals like us, who seek to develop helpful tools to unpack how the social world works as the first step in the ongoing journey of navigating and regulating in that world, we rely on the perspective and input of those we learn with and teach. Autistic, as well as other neurodivergent individuals, have been helping shape the Social Thinking Methodology and our own personal learning journeys for over two decades.

Thought bubbles and speech bubbles have endless uses, especially when discussing how what we do and say impacts one another in the moment. Many individuals with social learning differences and/or challenges report difficulties tracking conversations or discussions in real time. The reality is that conversations are not concrete; the words are spoken, and then poof, they’re gone! These same individuals also report needing help thinking about what others around them are thinking and feeling.

Over the years, I have been inspired by the writings of professionals who describe learning abilities, differences, and challenges within a framework of “multiple intelligences” (see Howard Gardner). Essentially this means that each of us have different types of intelligences and we each have our strengths, differences, and relative challenges with regard to our own brain’s design. This is the case for Neurotypicals and Neurodivergents.

This article describes tenacity, a concept introduced in the authors’ most recent book Tenacity in Children: Nurturing the Seven Instincts for Lifetime Success. The authors identify seven dynamic instincts that exist in each child from birth and the prominent role they play in the course of a child’s development and show why it is imperative for parents, educators, mental health, and childcare professionals to strive to identify and support them in children.

Times of stress and hardship can drive us apart—but they often can also bring us together in positive ways we never imagined. The “social distancing” now required by the COVID-19 pandemic can actually foster better real-time communication and forge stronger, supportive relationships through flexible thinking, mindfulness, and socially smart technologies. Here are five ways to overcome the spiral of negative thinking, take control of what you can control, and positively contribute to the social emotional well-being of your community, as well as your own.

Often students do not qualify for special services because a summary report states there is “no educational need” based on academic test scores and grades—even though it’s clear to everyone that these students are struggling to understand how the social and organizational world works and how to navigate within it. How do we define what it means to have educational need? Discover a strategy that uses school mission statements to define what a public education is to better understand whether students have special educational needs—and ultimately—to help prepare them for college and career readiness.

Bullying can take on many forms, and the internet presents yet another way children can torment each other. Cyberbullying can be pervasive; it can follow a child anywhere they have access to a computer or smart phone—at home, school, work, and even while out with friends and family. The good news is you can help. Learn the five signs that your child may be dealing with cyberbullying and what you can do to help.

When a speech-language pathologist had a new baby, her typically-developing three-year-old daughter grew aggressive. The mom tried every parenting strategy she knew but the behavior remained out of control. Then, she began using Social Thinking Vocabulary to help her daughter understand thoughts and feelings and the group plan—and it made all the difference.

A speech-language pathologist’s neurotypically-developing baby girl grew into an aggressive three-year seemingly without warning signs or signals. Her mom tried every parenting strategy, but the behavior remained out of control. She decided to try using some of the Social Thinking Vocabulary to help her daughter understand thoughts and feelings and the group plan—and, in this case, it made all the difference.

Featured in the ASHA Leader! Many students do not qualify for social treatment services given their academic and testing strengths, but they are at the greatest risk for social, emotional, and academic problems. By focusing treatment on improving social competencies rather than social skills, we are able to make gains in reading, writing, speaking, listening, organizational skills, motivation and social self-awareness as they relate to critical thinking and social problem-solving.

Life is improv. We make it up as we go along—responding and reacting to the words and actions of others. Yes, there are times when life may feel more scripted as we go through the same experiences again and again, but if you really stop and think about it, each interaction has a tone and feel all its own.

I didn't know what to do with Jake. A friendly but lonely high school freshman, Jake desperately needed a social group— an opportunity to develop cognitive flexibility and learn strategies to manage the anger that was blocking him out of friendships.

Anyone who has tried to find them knows that resources and services for adults with developmental and learning disorders are hard to find and then difficult to access. And anyone who has worked with or lives with someone with these challenges knows that there can be times when our loved one becomes discouraged, depressed, enraged, irrational, and possibly acutely at risk for harming him/herself or others.

Dans mon livre précédent, Inside Out : What Makes the Person with Social Cognitive Deficits Tick ? (2000), j’ai présenté un cadre de référence à partir duquel les enseignants et les éducateurs peuvent mieux identifier les déficits de ces élèves.

Nuestros amigos son las personas que nos hacen sentir bien con nosotros mismos. A pesar de que ésta es una simple verdad, crear esas amistades es un proceso complejo, especialmente para individuos con Trastrono del Espectro Autista (TEA), con sus enormes dificultades de aprendizaje social.

Aparentemente dentro de la comunidad de autismo, los ojos son claves. Consulta 10 Programas Individualizados de Educación diferentes y probablemente encontrarás objetivos involucrando el contacto visual en cada uno.

A l'aube du développement de l'enfance, la plupart des individus apprend à coordonner leur propre corps et esprit, ainsi que d'interpréter les paroles et les actions des autres afin de pouvoir participer dans l'acte de communiquer de façon de plus en plus sophistiquée.

A maior parte dos indivíduos aprende, desde muito cedo na infância, a coordenar o seu próprio corpo e mente e a interpretar as palavras e acções das outras pessoas, de forma a participar no acto da comunicação, com uma sofisticação crescente. Este percurso acontece de uma forma natural. No entanto, nos alunos que apresentam dificuldades na aprendizagem do social, estas competências não se desenvolvem intuitivamente, fazendo com que a comunicação tenha que ser aprendida.

Michelle Garcia Winner har utarbetat ILAUGH som en ram för den sociala kognitionen för att förklara de många olika tankemässiga förmågor som krävs för att lyckas i socialt samspel och i problemlösning. Var och en av de delar av den sociala kognitionen som ILAUGH står för påverkar inte bara förmågan att få och behålla vänner utan också förmågan att bearbeta komplex information i klassrummet och på arbetsplatsen. ILAUGH modellen är evidensbaserad genom att varje aspekt av den är ett eget forskningsområde och har definierats som en karaktäristisk svårighet för personer som har problem med det sociala samspelet. Här följer en kort sammanfattning av vad ILAUGH står för:

Expected and unexpected behaviors. These two words, made popular by Michelle Garcia Winner and the Social Thinking team as part of their larger Social Thinking Methodology, changed the way I thought about—and taught—social communication and thinking. Once your students could use these words and knew the difference between them, you thought that was all they needed, didn’t you? So did I. Until it didn't work. That was unexpected.

En artículos anteriores hemos explorado el significado general en que se basan los 4 Pasos de la Comunicación y hemos aprendido que la comunicación no es un único acto, sino una sinfonía de pensamientos y acciones relacionadas, sincronizadas en el tiempo.

La última vez discutimos el primero de los 4 pasos de la comunicación: Pensando en la persona con la que nos estamos comunicando. En esta columna vamos a explorar estrategias concretas relacionadas con este paso.

La impulsividad esta obviamente atada a la auto-regulación (sensorial y emocional). Muchos de los conceptos del pensamiento social se refieren a los tratamientos que alientan al estudiante impulsivo a expandir la auto-conciencia que tiene de su cuerpo y su estado emocional.

In this third and final part of my series on “Treatment Options and Parent Choice”, I will consider ways that professionals serving Autistic children and their families can adopt practices to move closer to the goal of becoming family-centered. I will begin by considering the essential elements of family-centered practice, the ultimate goal of which is that of empowering families with the knowledge and skills to make the best choices for their children and for the family unit, as a whole. When parents feel empowered, they feel more in control. In addition, parents also become more invested when they are respected as active collaborators in treatment and educational planning.

All'inizio dello sviluppo infantile, la maggior parte di noi impara a coordinare il proprio corpo e la propria mente; allo stesso tempo impariamo ad interpretare le parole e le azioni degli altri, partecipando in maniera sempre piu' sofisticata all'atto della comunicazione.

A classic example of a person with a social learning challenge is Jason. He is in 4th grade, has excellent language skills, and amazing abilities to learn information about his topics interest (i.e., history, math). He enjoys learning factual information and excels in fact-based academic tasks. However, he struggles to focus his attention in a mainstream classroom, participate as part of a group, explain his ideas to others in writing, filter unwanted opinions, and make friends. Learning facts is easy for Jason, but editing papers, organizing materials, and adapting to another's opinion is not. He prefers talking to adults rather than peers because adults tend to want to discuss his areas of interest.

Notre travail en tant que parent et éducateur est d’enseigner aux personnes autistes des éléments qui élargissent leur connaissance d’informations sociales AVANT d’enseigner les habiletés pour interagir avec les autres.

No último artigo discutimos o primeiro dos Quatro Passos da Comunicação: Pensar acerca da pessoa com quem estamos a comunicar. Agora vamos explorar estratégias concretas relacionadas com esse passo.

Psychologist Abra Garfield (2015) explains, “mindfulness techniques stem from Buddhist practice of meditation originating about 2500 years ago. Mindfulness meditation was used widely for spiritual and intellectual development, to strengthen concentration, unlock human potential and reach a state of inner peace.”

Navigating life with Asperger's, I often reflect on missed opportunities due to social struggles. But with perseverance and support, I embarked on a transformative journey. Introduced to the Social Thinking® Methodology by my wife and son's therapist, I began unraveling the complexities of social interactions. Each step forward brings newfound understanding and growth, enriching both my relationships and self-awareness.

Usually, when we are interacting with other people, our ability to understand if a behavior is or isn't appropriate is something intuitive; we can recognize and understand other people's emotions and desires effortlessly. But that's not always the case.

Nuestra vida diaria está compuesta por un torrente interminable de pensamientos, decisiones, acciones y reacciones a las personas y al medio en el cual vivimos. Las acciones internas y externas a veces encajan sin problemas, y otras veces no, dependiendo principalmente de un conjunto invisible de herramientas muy importantes que llamamos Funciones Ejecutivas (FE).

Originally Published by Autism Spectrum Quarterly - Winter 2008

Choices about educational and treatment approaches may be among the most important, yet anxiety-arousing decisions made by parents of Autistic children. A few decades ago, the limited amount of information and number of choices available for supporting children with autism were sources of great frustration for parents. Today, the myriad educational and treatment approaches, and claims of success associated with some of them—most often made by those most invested in those approaches—are sources of overwhelming confusion for many parents.

No hay mayor cumplido que prestar nuestra atención a otra persona (cuando es deseada, por supuesto). Ya sea que el enfoque sea breve, sostenido o no dividido, anhelamos el reconocimiento de los demás. La otra cara es lo que podríamos llamar el "anti-cumplido" de un enfoque a medias y dividido entre las pantallas de tecnología y el enfoque cara a cara. Esta atención incompleta e interrumpida transmite un mensaje fuerte: estoy interesado en usted-o algo así… O tal vez no tanto.

Nos amis sont ceux qui nous mettent à l'aise avec nous-mêmes. Bien que ce soit une vérité simple, les démarches qui créent ces amitiés sont complexes, surtout pour ceux qui sont sur le spectre autiste (TSA) avec leurs défis d'apprentissages sociaux généralisés.

Leah Kuypers, the creator and author of The Zones of Regulation reminds us that The Zones should never be used as a behavioral or compliance model. It is designed and intended to offer positive and proactive instruction that helps people gain an understanding of their feelings and find adaptive tools and strategies for communication, coping, and wellness. She offers six points for guiding best practice when implementing and teaching The Zones of Regulation.

Those of you who are seasoned users of The Zones of Regulation framework are very familiar with the core tenet and phrase “All the Zones are OK.” So, if we really mean that all the Zones are OK, why are we asking kids to “get back to Green”? When it comes to The Zones of Regulation, it is imperative to state, restate, and restate again that there is no “good Zone” or “bad Zone,” and that all Zones—the full rainbow spectrum of emotions—are expected in life.

Os amigos são aquelas pessoas que nos fazem sentir bem acerca de nós próprios. Ainda que isto seja uma verdade simples, fazer amizades é um processo complexo, principalmente para indivíduos com Síndrome de Asperger, para os quais a aprendizagem social é um verdadeiro desafio.

Bullies only do what bystanders allow. Bullying is a useless and harmful human behavior that occurs at all age levels, in all countries, to all levels of income with some very clear challenges for parents, teachers, schools, and policymakers. Simply put, bullying is publically and repeatedly targeting someone or a group with shame-causing messages sent directly or online.

Diez a quince años atrás los que trabajamos en el campo de los trastornos del espectro autista (TEA) recién estábamos comenzando a aprender lo que eran las habilidades sociales. Era nuevo para nosotros: el hecho de que los niños con TEA no aprendían observando a otros, no entendían que diferentes personas tienen reacciones diferentes...

El propósito de este documento es aclarar si tienen validez las afirmaciones frecuentes respecto del Análisis del comportamiento aplicado (ABA) vs. otros tratamientos y abordajes educativos para niños con trastornos del espectro autista (TEA).

As noted in part one of this three-part series, educational and treatment approaches for Autistic children tend to be limited with respect to family-centered practice, and there is a dire need to move practice in this direction. In this discussion, we will consider a very popular and influential category of treatment approaches—applied behavior analysis— given that it is illustrative of an intervention technique that is often promoted in a manner that violates principles of family-centered philosophy and practice.

Neurodiversity should be acknowledged and celebrated. But there are some who struggle to understand and navigate within the social world, who seek and should also have access to information for developing stronger social competencies in order to meet their self-determined social goals. This article makes a clear, logical case for providing access to social emotional teaching and strategies, not to “fix” or “cure” but to provide a methodical and concrete way of seeing and understanding how the social world works. The point of this article is not to mandate social interventions but rather make the argument that all individuals, neurotypical or Neurodivergent, should have the opportunity to find strategies to meet their social goals if they so choose.

Disney Pixar’s Inside Out gave creative attention to the feelings inside all of us. However, Riley, the protagonist, did a poor job of communicating and regulating her feelings – which led to trouble. To learn from Riley’s mistakes, here are five lessons for teaching kids to identify, communicate, and regulate their feelings.

Caleb es un joven “brillante” de 23 años con síndrome de Asperger, quien tiene un don para las matemáticas. Hace poco él realizó una evaluación del pensamiento social en nuestra clínica.

Gli amici sono quelle persone che ci fanno sentire bene con noi stessi. Pur essendo questa una semplice verita’, creare delle amicizie e’ un processo complicato, specialmente per gli individui autistici o con disturbivi pervasivi dell’apprendimento sociale.

The new normal seems to be everything but normal—which poses big challenges for students, families, and educators. This article focuses on practical ways educators and schools can continue to effectively support students and their families by serving as models of resilience during a historically challenging time. The authors outline concrete steps and strategies that can be woven into daily curricula to reduce stress, ease anxiety, cultivate productive coping mechanisms, and build a generation of resilient and well-adjusted children.

Doug tiene dificultades para jugar durante el recreo. Deambula por el patio hablando solo, y no es invitado por sus pares a jugar. El es claramente “diferente” de los otros ya que no ha desarrollado intuitivamente las habilidades para jugar, ni siquiera ahora que tiene una maestra especial trabajando con él.

Come abbiamo scoperto nell'ultimo articolo, la comunicazione e' un processo dinamico che cambia nei diversi momenti. Diventare dei conversatori di successo va ben oltre l'apprendimento delle parole o azioni sociali appropriate: significa essere in grado di pensare in modo sociale quando queste situazioni sorgono.

El siguiente artículo ha sido traducido con la intención de captar el significado original deseado. Al leerlo, por favor tenga en cuenta que en la traducción muchas veces es difícil captar la sutileza del significado deseado. Sin embargo, esperamos que la mayoría de los conceptos sean fieles al original.

While it is crucial to address a child's weaknesses, I discovered that to place too much emphasis on analyzing and fixing deficits limits our ability to assist children with special needs to lead more satisfying, resilient lives. It is for this reason that more than 30 years ago I introduced the metaphor "islands of competence" to capture the strength-based approach I had adopted.

Come abbiamo scoperto nell'ultimo articolo, la comunicazione e' un processo dinamico che cambia nei diversi momenti. Diventare dei conversatori di successo va ben oltre l'apprendimento delle parole o azioni sociali appropriate: significa essere in grado di pensare in modo sociale quando queste situazioni sorgono.

It's important to teach individuals with social learning challenges how communication involves more than an exchange of words—our bodies play an essential role in face to face interactions. Here are tips for how to teach about and incorporate movement into your lessons!

Espertezas Sociais: O tipo de “espertezas do nosso cérebro que usamos quando estamos com outras pessoas. As espertezas sociais ajudam os cérebros a perceber que as outras pessoas têm pensamentos sobre nós e que nós temos pensamentos sobre elas. Usamos as espertezas sociais na escola, em casa e EM TODO O LADO!

Las reglas ocultas o escondidas y los comportamientos esperados e inesperados son conceptos básicos del vocabulario del método Social Thinking y con frecuencia me hacen preguntas relacionadas con la enseñanza de estos conceptos.

Nos artigos anteriores, explorámos de forma global o significado dos 4 Passos da Comunicação e aprendemos que a comunicação não é um acto isolado, mas sim uma sinfonia de pensamentos e acções relacionadas e sincronizadas no tempo.

Le mois dernier nous avons vu que la communication s’agit d’un processus dynamique qui change de moment en moment. Réussir à être un partenaire social va au-delà de l’apprentissage du verbiage ou des gestes appropriés; ceci se traduit en établissant une fondation de ‘penser socialement’ d’où surgissent ces actions sociales.

En artículos previos exploramos el rol vital que tiene el pensar acerca de las personas con las cuales nos estamos comunicando para lograr interacciones exitosas. Cómo nos relacionamos con las personas está basado en lo que sabemos acerca de ellos: de nuestros recuerdos previos (nuestros “archivos de personas”) y de pistas de la situación actual. También exploramos la idea de que “pensamos con nuestros ojos” para evaluar una situación social.

Il y a entre 10 et 15 ans, les spécialistes en troubles autistes commençaient tout juste à comprendre l'idée des capacités sociales. C'était nouveau de considérer le faite que les enfants nés avec des Troubles du Spectre Autistique (TSA) n'apprenaient rien sur le plan social en observant leur entourage...

Mientras que la mayoría de nosotros nos relacionamos socialmente de manera intuitiva, muchos pacientes con problemas de aprendizaje social, que tienen un lenguaje y nivel cognitivo bueno o excelente, (Ej, Autismo de alto funcionamiento, Trastornos del espectro autista- no especificado, síndrome de asperger, y/o déficit de atención) tienen poca habilidad para pensar en cómo pensamos socialmente.

Como descobrimos no artigo do último mês, a comunicação é um processo dinâmico que muda a cada momento. Tornar-se num parceiro social bem sucedido estende-se muito para além de aprender as palavras ou acções socialmente adequadas, significa ter um bom pensamento social que permita reconhecer de onde vêm estas vêm.

Há cerca de dez, quinze anos atrás, aqueles que de nós trabalhavam na área do Espectro do Autismo, começaram a abraçar as competências sociais. Era uma novidade para nós o facto das crianças com Síndrome de Asperger não aprenderem através da observação dos outros, não compreenderem que pessoas diferentes têm reacções diferentes àquilo que as rodeia...

Fino a pochi anni fa, quelli di noi che lavoravano nella sfera dell’autismo, iniziavano appena a prendere in considerazione le abilita’ sociali. Il fatto che dei bambini nello spettro dell’autismo (ASD) non imparassero guardando gli altri, non comprendessero che diverse persone hanno reazioni differenti al mondo che li circonda...

Working with thirteen-year-olds can be tricky, especially when resistant (we would say self-protective) to our supportive attempts. This Aha teaching moment shows how the “Pyramid of Dislike” thinksheet was developed based on one student’s reported desire to be “the most hated kid in school.”

As a speech-language pathologist and a technology expert, I get excited when I find a program, curriculum, or teaching tool that brings about tangible, positive growth in children. When I find two that work seamlessly together to make learning even more powerful… that’s something I want to tell everyone about!

In this article, a 49-year-old man with Asperger’s shares his insights about being on the spectrum and handling the ins and outs of dating.

Récemment nous avons discuté la première démarche de la Communication: Penser à la personne avec qui nous communiquons. Dans cet article nous explorerons des stratégies concrètes liées à cette démarche.

Chithra Kathiresan is a speech-language therapist who has lived and worked in Singapore for more than 28 years. She trains professionals, parents, and teachers extensively both locally and in the region. She is a passionate speaker and leads highly engaging sessions that are tailored to spark curiosity, inspire, and move people to action.

Renee Attaway-Storer is a speech-language pathologist and social-cognitive therapist at her private practice, Social Concepts, in Houston, Texas. Her caseload includes preschool to adult.

Ariela Jokel, PhD, CCC-SLP is a speech-language pathologist with extensive experience working at child development centers in the US and Israel. She completed her undergrad degree in psychology with a minor in Spanish at York University in Toronto, Canada and her Masters and Doctoral degrees in communication sciences and disorders at the University of Texas at Dallas (UTD Callier Center).

Nancy Clements is a speech-language pathologist and Executive Director of Social Thinking® Boston, the East Coast sister clinic to Social Thinking® San Jose and Social Thinking® Santa Clara. She brings her highly creative approach to her clinical practice, where she maintains a very active and varied caseload ranging from early social learners through adults.

Nancy Tarshis, a speech-language pathologist/special educator with extensive experience working with children and their parents, is the Director of Early Elementary Programming at The Quad Preparatory School, for twice-exceptional children, K-12.

Leah earned a Bachelor’s degree in Occupational Therapy from the University of Wisconsin-Madison, a Graduate Certificate in Autism, and a Master’s in Education from Hamline University in St. Paul, MN. She has practiced as an OT and specialist in school and clinical settings, specializing in regulation and social-emotional learning.

Pamela Crooke, PhD, CCC-SLP, is the Chief Operations Officer and Director of Research, Content, Clinical Services, and the Social Thinking Training & Speakers’ Collaborative at Social Thinking. She served as a clinical faculty member of three universities and worked as a speech-language pathologist in the Arizona public schools for 15 years.

Beckham earned a Bachelor of Arts degree in Therapeutic Recreation and a Master of Arts degree in Speech Language Pathology at Oklahoma State University. She has worked in a variety of settings since 1990 and developed an early interest in social communication while working in acute care and rehabilitation settings in the Midwest.

Jenny Sojat, MA CCC-SLP R-SLP, is based in Vancouver BC and began her career at the Social Thinking- Stevens Creek, under mentorship of Michelle Garcia Winner and her team.

Dr. Tracey Marks is a seasoned psychiatrist with over 20 years of experience in both general and forensic psychiatry.

Dr. Robert Brooks is a clinical psychologist on the part-time faculty of Harvard Medical School and former Director of the Department of Psychology at McLean Hospital, a private psychiatric hospital.

Dr. Nancy Rappaport is a graduate of Princeton University and Tufts University School of Medicine. A board-certified child and adolescent psychiatrist, Rappaport is currently a part-time associate professor of psychiatry at Harvard Medical School. Her research, teaching, and clinical expertise focus on the collaboration between education and psychiatry.

Damon Korb, M.D., a board certified behavioral and developmental pediatrician, examines the neurodevelopmental brain functions that determine how a child learns, behaves, and socializes. With the opening of Center for Developing Minds in 2005, Dr. Korb has held pivotal roles in the establishment of three unique clinics in Santa Clara County that serve children with developmental variations.

Ryan Hendrix is a senior Social Cognitive Therapist at Social Thinking Stevens Creek in San Jose and a private therapist in San Francisco. She trained and works directly with Michelle Garcia Winner and Dr. Pamela Crooke. Her diverse caseload experience includes preschool-age children through young adults with social cognitive learning differences.

Michelle Garcia Winner, MA, CCC-SLP, is the founder and CEO of Social Thinking and a globally recognized thought leader, author, speaker, and social-cognitive therapist. She is dedicated to helping people of all ages develop social emotional learning, including those with social learning differences.

Kari Zweber Palmer is a speech-language pathologist and social-cognitive therapist at her private practice, Changing Perspectives, in Excelsior, MN. She has co-authored, with Michelle Garcia Winner, Ryan Hendrix, and Nancy Tarshis, We Thinkers! Volume 1 Social Explorers and We Thinkers! Volume 2 Social Problem Solvers. Additionally, Kari consults with school districts on implementing Social Thinking into their programming.