Innovative Teaching Strategies to Be Presented at Social Thinking Providers Conference

SAN JOSE, Calif. - On June 21 and 22, the "1st Social Thinking Providers Conference: Applying Social Thinking Across Schools and Community" will bring together about 200 educators from as far away as Hong Kong who have implemented strategies for helping individuals with Asperger' Syndrome high-functioning autism, ADHD and similar challenges. PDAs, immersion camps, reality TV, popular movies and a superhero comic book are a few of the innovative tools that professionals will discuss.

A 2008 Congressional award winner for her groundbreaking work with people who have autism spectrum disorders (ASD), Michelle Garcia Winner coined the term "social thinking" and founded Michelle G. Winner's Center for Social Thinking in 1998. She has organized the Providers Conference to foster an exchange of information among educators and other professionals who have successfully used and developed social-thinking methods.

Winner and her Center for Social Thinking innovated social thinking as a way to help persons with social-communicative challenges who are considered "higher functioning" (those with IQs of 70 and above and a solid language system). These challenges are present in ASD, which includes high-functioning autism and Asperger Syndrome, ADHD and similar disorders. The success of the social-thinking treatment approach was the focus of a recent article in the Journal of Autism and Developmental Disorders. The clinic currently serves 250 clients, who visit on a weekly basis.

Winner is continuing to develop and expand social-thinking programs, curricula, books and multimedia offerings. Her organization, Think Social, focuses its operations on the teaching of social thinking nationally and internationally through Winner's books, workshops and intensive training sessions.

The rates of ASD are growing, with the CDC saying 1 in 150 children is diagnosed with ASD. Data from the California Department of Developmental Services show that 85 percent of the ASD population is between the ages of 3 and 21, which portends significant costs to the state as that population ages.