Evolving ideas for working with adults and high school teams helping to prepare students for adulthood

Many of our students/clients received some level of support through school based 504 plans, IEPs and/or from counselors, psychologists and psychiatrists in their community as children and into their high school years.

Turning 18 years old in the United States results in a person being referred to as an “adult” or “young adult.” This means they are legally responsible for their actions and based on their parents’ decision, they are potentially responsible financially for all of their costs of living, education, etc.  However, many parents continue to financially support their young adult/adult children while they pursue post-secondary education as well as assist with living costs if their “children” are unable support themselves. To parents this may feel like their adult-children continue to require extra educational, psychological, social skills and/or life-skills counseling to help them learn to live more independently as an adult. While parents may fund these extra educational/therapeutic adult services, parents are not typically permitted the same direct access to their adult-children’s service providers. Instead it is expected adult-children can independently understand how to utilize the information they are gaining from these treatment services and then directly apply strategies learned as needed across their school, vocational, community or home experiences.

Here is an article Pam and I wrote for a journal, which we've updated and now have permission to publish for free access on our website. I hope you will find the information useful, as it is a good overview on Social Thinking. Feel free to link to the article to share with your friends and colleagues! 

Social Thinking®: A Developmental Treatment Approach for Students with Social Learning/Social Pragmatic Challenges

By: Michelle Garcia Winner, MS, CCC-SLP  & Pamela J. Crooke, PhD., CCC-SLP

Journal Title: Perspectives on Language Learning and Education
Journal Volume: 16
Issue: (2)
Pages: 62-69
Month/Year: July 2009
Original article can also be found in PDF here:

Abstract: Teaching students with social learning/pragmatic challenges what neurotypical children learn intuitively is an act that blends art and science. This article will describe the development of social learning and social communication and their relationship to social skills. A training and treatment framework referred to as “Social Thinking” will be introduced.  The training aspect of Social Thinking is referred to as the ILAUGH Model, an acronym representing how different aspects of the school and home day require core social knowledge and then how we use this knowledge to produce our social skills as well as participate successfully in specific academic tasks. This article will also introduce one aspect of Social Thinking treatment called the Social Thinking Vocabulary which creates concrete ways to explore and teach abstract lessons related to our social skills production.

Exploring Social Learning by Starting at our Roots

By Michelle Garcia Winner, CCC-SLP

Learning evolves. 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.” For those of us who are neurotypical, 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.

By Pam Crooke & Michelle Garcia Winner

From Brisbane to New Delhi to Kuala Lumpur and Singapore, our purpose during this summer's workshop schedule in Asia was to teach about Social Thinking, but, not surprisingly, we were the ones learning too!

I received the below story by Shelly Green, who has worked in special education for 30 years, and the related art - I thought it offered a nice example of how a little creativity goes a long way with helping our clients through anxious moments. Nice job Shelley! Enjoy reading...

Working through Getting Blood Work

I received a frantic call from a parent requesting help for her son. He was scheduled to have lab work that morning and her husband, who helped to restrain him in the past, was out of town. The child, a 16 year old with an Asperger’s diagnosis and two cochlear implants, had not been able to make it through a blood test without a physical intervention.

I quickly went into my, “How do I get through blood work?” mindset and drove off to the local pharmacy to buy my markers and paper. I actually drew the visual at the counter so it would be done before I reached the hospital.

The following are some questions from different employers I have received about adults in the work world with AS. While we know that there are adults with AS at many workplaces without the following problems (many in fact!), I thought I would share my thoughts on the following questions:

Is there an average work week that most AS adults are best suited to work?

People with AS are a really mixed group. They have different personalities, skills, abilities, etc., so your experience with this one gentleman likely will not be the same set of challenges you will experience with another person with AS. Some can only handle a 20 hour or so week and others are fully productive with 40. Read our article on the Social Thinking-Social Communication Profile. 

The following are some thoughtful words from a psychologist to a 'social thinking clinician' regarding two teen clients who are struggling to benefit from treatment. I know most parents are working extremely hard to set limits and that not all children respond even if parents try! These parents should not read the below blog!!

This article is about the parents who are not sure if they should set limits or have clear consequences for desired and undesireable behavior, yet would like their children, adolescents or young adults to be rid of their behavior problems.

I received an email from a consultant practicing in public schools (special education) and homes. In his email he expressed questions he had about the Social Thinking program to better understand the concepts used in it as well as other clarification questions.

In answering his email I realized how these questions might arise with many others; thus I have posted both his set of questions and my response to them.

1. Empirical evidence supporting the efficacy of Social Thinking® is weak. Why do you not spend more of your time conducting research to document efficacy prior to selling it to parents and professionals as effective?
2. Your website makes this statement: "Social Thinking® is required prior to the development of social skills".  Does this mean that your program, a registered trademark, is a necessary prerequisite to the ability to learn the skills we label social?
3. Your website makes this statement: "In neurotypical (so-called normal-thinking) people, social thinking is hard-wired at birth".  Do you mean Social Thinking (the registered trademark) is hard-wired in newborns' brains or that social thinking (generic) is hard-wired in newborns' brains? Whichever the answer, what evidence supports this claim?

Over the years, I observed so many students get upset by the fact they had “autism” or “Asperger’s Syndrome” or “ADHD” and in as much as they could verbalize these terms aloud they still didn’t seem to understand what their learning challenges actually were.

I also observed many adults explaining to students that the reason they were having difficulty socializing, studying, and learning was that they had “autism” or “Asperger’s Syndrome”, or “ADHD.” I thought this was a really abstract way of explaining to a student with limited abstract thinking how best to understand their own learning challenges. I also have observed that for many of our smart but socially not-in-step students, that they were using their label as an excuse for not working at learning new ideas; they interpreted the fact that they had a diagnostic label as a reason to not continue to learn.

I was also inspired by the writings of those who describe learning abilities and challenges given the framework that each of us have strengths and weaknesses with regards to our own brain’s design of our multiple intelligences (See books by Dr. Mel Levine and Howard Gardner).

Guest Blog by Sean Sweeney, CCC-SLP

Author of the blog SpeechTechie: Looking at Technology Through a Language Lens, which won the 2010 Best New Edublog Award

I was very happy during the hustle and bustle of ASHA Convention to have had a few minutes to chat with Michelle about some exciting and fun (not to mention free) web-based tools that have great potential to complement and extend social thinking instruction. That chat led to this guest post!

As we teach key concepts in the social thinking curriculum, technology can provide us with yet another means to help kids apply vocabulary in the course of a very motivating (especially for our population) activity.  Technology tools such as comic and video creators provide the additional benefit of taking something that is rather fleeting and providing a visual and replicable example that in many cases is easily sharable with parents. Implementing these short technology projects with kids while we are introducing skills also has the added advantage of working at a bit of distance from the kids’ own unexpected behaviors. A project we might create with kids thus provides a frame of reference for more direct cues as we progress. Many tech tools with potential for social thinking instruction are quite playful and easy to use, and are a good activity for parents and their children to explore together!