Pam "Social Detective" Crooke is a senior therapist at Social Thinking and a faculty member at San José State University in San José, CA. She is known for utilizing engaging language and visuals in her Social Thinking books that students just "get". She authored, with Michelle, Socially Curious and Curiously Social, an anime-illustrated guidebook for teenagers and young adults with Asperger's, ADHD, nonverbal learning disorders and undiagnosed social learning challenges. She also authored You Are a Social Detective!, a comic book curriculum that introduces Social Thinking to younger students - and she directed its translation into French and Spanish.  "Detective" is a fun and inspiring way to introduce Social Thinking not only to students but also to the full team working with them (from general education teacher to grandparent!) - so that everyone involved can help each student figure out the clues of the often mysterious social world. Detective is also a jumping off point for the Superflex curriculum because it explicitly teaches the Social Thinking Vocabulary, providing the "pre-training" workouts needed so that Superflex can build his full powers. And Pam has also just published an interactive anime-illustrated book for middle school aged students, Social Fortune or Social Fate...

She describes this new book: "The idea is based on Michelle's Social Behavior Mapping... readers get to choose the Social Fortune or Social Fate of three kids who – when the book is read RIGHT-SIDE-UP - will make `expected' choices and influence the thoughts/feelings of others in a positive way. When the reader flips the book UPSIDE-DOWN, the same scenario will be shown in comic form, except the characters will do the `unexpected.' There will be Social Behavior Maps to show what happened in each scenario and a Quest Tip for readers to follow. The comic book is well underway and should be a fun for adolescents/teens to explore how the choices we make affect others thoughts and emotions, and ultimately their own feelings. I also spent some time organizing ideas for making a companion practice guide for... Socially Curious and Curiously Social. We hope the companion guide will give individuals, educators and parents a lesson-filled handbook for practicing the strategies discussed in the book."

More on Pam

A speech-language pathologist and direct service provider for over 20 years, Pam also taught graduate students at the University of Arizona in Tucson, AZ, and assisted in the development of a non-profit organization and related community social thinking services in Tucson for many years. Prior to joining, the Social Thinking clinical team, Pam published research on the treatment approach in the Journal of Autism and Developmental Disorders.