Social Thinking was born out of necessity, as a way to reach those “bright but socially clueless students” who need to know more than what social skill to use: they need to know why they should bother to use that skill.

Michelle Garcia Winner, M.A., CCC-SLP,  developed social thinking for the treatment of individuals with social-cognitive deficits: those with diagnoses such as autism, Asperger syndrome, ADHD and nonverbal learning disorder (NLD). She first began teaching social thinking in 1995 to brighter students when she worked as a speech-language pathologist for a high school district. Twelve years later, she received an Award of Special Congressional Recognition for her development and ongoing innovation of this treatment approach. At the about the same time, the Journal of Autism and Developmental Disorders published research supporting her methods for the treatment of students with Asperger syndrome and high-functioning autism.

Michelle entered into part-time private practice in 1998, and then went full-time in 1999, as parents and school districts asked her to work with a growing number of students. From the start, her clinical services rapidly evolved. To meet demand for services, she hired and trained a number of professionals in the art and science of teaching social thinking. Simultaneously, she started Think Social Publishing to meet the demand for national and international prenstations and workshops and her own (and now others') social thinking books and curriculum materials. By 2008, Michelle G. Winner's Center for Social Thinking saw over 250 clients (preschool through adults) from the San Jose area of California for weekly therapy sessions.

As Michelle worked to keep up with the growth of social thinking, she found she had less time for the management of a rapidly growing clinic. She realized she was serving both a local community and a national/international community. Establishing a non-profit organization offered the ideal option to meet these competing demands.

Michelle worked with Dr. Pamela Crooke and the other therapists at the clinic to establish the new non-profit. She gave the option to her trained therapists to open a social thinking clinic that they would manage within the non-profit, called Teach SOCIAL - Silicon Valley (TSSV). They agreed and the transition proved to be mostly a name change for clients. The Center for Social Thinking closed in August of 2008 and Teach SOCIAL opened in September of 2008.

While Michelle is not on the regulating board of TSSV (given it would be a conflict of interest), she will continue to offer trainings to the clinical staff of TSSV through monthly grand round meetings. She will also serve on the advisory board.

Thus, from September 2008 onward Michelle has worked for Think Social Publishing (aka Social Thinking) along with colleagues Stephanie Madrigal and Dr. Pamela Crooke. Social Thinking runs a small (no-growth) clinic, allowing these therapists to continue to work with clients, while also serving as a training facility to professionals from around the world so that they can apply the core concepts of social thinking in their settings.

The San Jose area benefits from having an innovative, established, non-profit clinic in their community to not only help clients and their families but to also train educators from local schools. This arrangement also allows Michelle to continue to focus on developing and sharing new treatment ideas for parents and professionals alike, as social thinking expands and matures.

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

Social thinking is increasingly being applied not only to students with autism and related disabilities, but also more broadly to students in mainstream classrooms and to adults in vocational and professional settings in the U.S. and abroad. Michelle's goal is to raise awareness among administrators, educators and parents about the critical role that social thinking and social skills play in every student’s life, not only for academic success, but also for growth into adulthood and throughout life.

Michelle travels around the world speaking on topics relating to social thinking, and receives accolades for her educational and energetic workshop presentations. She has been invited to train psychiatrists, psychologists, counselors, parents, educators and government policy makers on the importance of social thinking.

She has written several books on social-cognitive deficits and social thinking and has released training videos/DVDs for educators and parents.

Based in Northern California, Michelle has two daughters attending college, Heidi and Robyn, who continue to keep her very humble….and a dog Bernadette, who reminds her daily that social thinking crosses species.