Conferences for Professionals, Parents, Family Members & Students

This course is designed to teach professionals and parents the social learning frameworks, concepts, and strategies needed to guide others toward improved social processing and social competencies. Conference attendees will gain new insights into the power of their own social-emotional intelligence as they explore their social motivations and how they process and respond to social information. We will dissect hidden social rules, contemplate how social expectations change with age, and discuss how social problem solving is at the heart of social competencies and affects how students interpret and respond to social-academic information and assignments. Social Thinking has developed a large range of treatment* strategies—and attendees will walk away with a number of them, including approaches for helping students avoid “the blurt,” cope with boring moments, and develop conversational language.

Much of the day will focus on the ILAUGH Model of Social Cognition. ILAUGH is an acronym for Initiating Communication, Listening with Eyes and Brain, Abstract and Inferential Thinking, Understanding Perspective, Getting the Big Picture, and Humor & Human Relatedness. The ILAUGH model demonstrates not only why people with social learning challenges have weaker social abilities but also how social interpretation is linked to academic tasks such as written expression, conversational language, reading comprehension, and organizational skills. As we wrap up the day, we will explore how to teach at the roots—and not through the leaves—of Social Thinking’s Social Learning Tree. We will then discuss how to write realistic IEP goals based on rubrics. Mainstream teachers find the information in this course applicable to all students as it pertains to social-emotional learning, and audiences around the world love that it furthers their own social-emotional insights!

*Treatment refers to using conceptual and strategy-based frameworks to help individuals improve their social thinking, skills, and competencies.

We begin the day by exploring how to better understand the minds of individuals with social learning challenges when traditional standardized tests fall short. We introduce the Social Thinking Informal Dynamic Assessment (ST-IDA), a series of tasks with corresponding templates described in Michelle Garcia Winner's book Thinking About YOU Thinking About ME, 2nd Edition. The dynamic tasks included in the ST-IDA examine the way the individual approaches social communication, executive functioning, and problem solving in real time. The ST-IDA can be a useful tool for initial or three-year testing and can provide valuable insight to all members of the educational or support team.

Results of the ST-IDA can help to uncover the link between social thinking challenges and social and academic learning. We provide a detailed checklist for two assessment tasks, which serves as a catalyst to guide more meaningful observations. Deeper observations, in turn, lead to developing more meaningful treatment* programs. Discussion related to the video footage of the informal assessment tasks will highlight how stakeholders (e.g., parents, diagnosticians, paraprofessionals, teachers, counselors, therapists, etc.) can work more effectively with those we aim to help. Parents and professionals applaud the highly practical nature of this workshop.

In the afternoon, we will review two practical treatment frameworks. The first, Social Behavior Mapping (SBM), is a visual framework that teaches social responsibility by highlighting that social expectations occur in a given context based on the situation and people. SBM enables individuals to discover what is expected or unexpected in a social situation while also learning the impact their behavior has on others’ feelings. How others feel about our behavior also impacts how they treat us and ultimately affects our own feelings! SBM has been widely adopted for use with all ages. This core Social Thinking treatment framework reflects our cognitive behavioral teaching style. Audience members will create their own Social Behavior Map as part of the training.

To help individuals understand the difference between friendly and friendship we have a visual treatment framework called the Friendship Pyramid. We will delve into five different levels of relationship development starting with the importance of initiating and responding to greetings with people who are not “friends.”

To round out the day, we will describe a four-phase social competency pathway to guide our students as they engage in a social learning process.

*Treatment refers to using conceptual and strategy-based frameworks to help individuals improve their social thinking, skills, and competencies.

Diagnostic labels are usually the gateway into intervention and services. However, diagnostic labels are not always helpful in planning treatment goals, nor do they guide the overall intervention plan. Using video clips and case journeys, this course will explore several factors that contribute to social learning abilities and challenges and how to support our clients’ and students’ needs across the school, home, community, and workplace. We will examine how social and academic competencies interact and the importance of setting realistic expectations. Attendees find the inclusion of research-based information combined with practical no-nonsense strategies engaging, refreshing and thought-provoking.

The day begins with an exploration of early social development and Social Thinking’s Group Collaborative Play and Problem-Solving Scale (GPS) for early learners (four-seven years old). This tool provides a systematic guide for our observations of peer-to-peer interactions. We’ll review treatment strategies and practical ways to teach collaboration within a small group for each of the five play levels identified in the GPS.

To understand the developmental and unique learning needs of older students (nine+ years), we will use the Social Thinking-Social Communication Profile™ (ST-SCP). This tool is a way to explore an individual’s current social learning abilities. We will present an overview of five cohorts of learners and then take a deeper dive into three cohorts to identify their unique learning traits (e.g., self-awareness, social self-awareness, executive functioning, mental health, etc.). The Social Thinking Social Competency Model will also serve as a guide to plan treatment based on the individual learner’s level of competencies. We will discuss why certain treatment programs may or may not be recommended to use with a student based on their social learning profile. As attendees understand their student’s core social functioning more deeply, they can plan and select the treatment pathway best suited for the specific needs of that person. This course is packed with insights and tools to explore!

*Treatment refers to using conceptual and strategy-based frameworks to help individuals improve their social competencies.

The majority of individuals with social learning challenges have difficulty developing the organizational skills needed to manage the increasingly complex expectations of life in upper elementary, middle, and high school, and into their adult years. Our organizational abilities emerge from executive functioning skills that are expected to develop with minimal instruction. Not surprisingly, identifying motivation, knowing how to get started on a project, and managing time across a variety of homework assignments can feel overwhelming—even for the most intellectually sharp individuals. The impact of poor organizational skills is immense; it affects outcomes in school, at work, and at home. People with poor organizational skills and limited motivation are often referred to as lazy, but the truth is their behaviors are more likely the result of a neurologically based executive functioning weaknesses than a lack of desire to be competent in their work. Often, relatively little support is provided by parents and teachers to guide individuals to develop these critical skills—and even those who want to help are not sure where to begin.

In this course, we explore key executive functioning skills and practical strategies to help individuals track and tackle homework and other deadline-based responsibilities. Discover two types of organizational skills: static and dynamic. Dissect dynamic organizational skills into 10 steps that are critical to the completion of any homework assignment. Learn an educational strategy aligned with each step and receive an extensive take-home handout to support this teaching method.

This course has been enthusiastically received by parents, counselors, mainstream and special education teachers, administrators, psychologists, speech language pathologists, occupational therapists, and others. As with most Social Thinking courses, hands-on activities help attendees relate their own experiences to the challenges discussed. We go beyond a general description of the issues, guiding attendees to actively explore key concepts and elucidating the pivotal role parents and professionals play in teaching these concepts.

While this course was designed to support individuals with social learning challenges, the cutting-edge information provided is relevant for all populations—mainstream teachers love this conference day!

*Treatment refers to using conceptual and strategy-based frameworks to help individuals improve their social thinking, skills, and competencies.

It’s time to get practical! Using Social Thinking’s Social Competency Model, learn to guide individuals to better socially attend, interpret, problem solve and respond to social information. Explore how to teach three core treatment*-based frameworks and more than 20 unique strategies based on Social Thinking Vocabulary and related activities. Teach students to better interpret and respond to their social world by making smart guesses to discover hidden social rules. Learn systematic and logical ways to encourage social responsibility by learning about our own and others’ social thinking. Explore how our thinking about a situation and what we know about others can help us create the expected behaviors that support our relationships. Learn how we make these abstract concepts more concrete by reviewing a variety of activities through clinical examples. Our evidence-based Social Thinking Vocabulary is the foundation of our teaching programs, and research published in the Journal of Autism and Developmental Disorders (Crooke, et al.) demonstrates how individuals benefit from learning these concepts. The study found that once children were taught how to think about these concepts, they were able to generalize the information.

Social Thinking’s treatment-based frameworks and strategies can easily be used in conjunction with programs such as Positive Behavioral Interventions and Supports (PBIS), Response to Intervention (RTI) and other social and emotional learning (SEL) programs for all students.

Motivational developmental tools such as our We Thinkers! curricula for 4- to 7-year-olds, You Are a Social Detective! and Superflex… a Superhero Social Thinking Curriculum will also be reviewed to help participants see how these materials teach key lessons.

Participants will work in groups to learn how to use Social Thinking concepts to create their own lesson plan. We explore how to make lessons applicable across a variety of environments and focus on enabling students to apply these lessons in their lives. Most lessons are further explained in the book Think Social! A Social Thinking Curriculum for School-Age Students (Winner, 2005), which is used in schools around the world.

How does improving social competencies also improve academic performance? The Social Thinking Methodology recognizes that the social mind not only helps us interact with others, but also has a considerable impact on our success in school and later in life. We use our social competencies to understand the relationships of characters in a novel (impacting our reading comprehension), to write an effective essay that acknowledges the reader’s perspective, to understand that it’s not enough to do your homework, you have to turn it in for the teacher to know you did it! We use our social mind in almost everything we do throughout our life. In this course, we’ll discuss the important connection between social competencies and academic performance. For more information on this topic, check out the book: Why Teach Social Thinking? Questioning Our Assumptions About What It Means to Learn Social Skills.

*Treatment refers to using conceptual and strategy-based frameworks to help individuals improve their social thinking, skills, and competencies.

How do we teach students, clients, or patients to hold a thought in their heads? How do we explore the fact that there is a difference in how others interpret the statements: “I wish ____” vs. “I am ____?” What strategies encourage the ability to pay attention to others' thoughts, motives, and intentions? What does it take to improve conversational interactions? (Hint: more than we think.) How do we perceive each other’s physical movements? How do we create teaching strategies to help our clients with more subtle challenges improve their face-to-face communication?

In this conference, we will explore treatment* frameworks and hands-on strategies not currently taught in other Social Thinking courses. We will use video clips of individuals in treatment sessions to demonstrate the scope and sequence that we use to teach important Social Thinking concepts. We will also provide samples of specific treatment tools for the audience to use to develop a deeper understanding of social conversational engagement. A special Cascade of Social Attention assessment tool, not provided in any of our other materials, will be provided attendees to help guide their observations of an individual’s social input (interpretive) and output (social skills) to better understand how to develop a treatment plan as well as gain related prognostic information.

We will discuss how executive functioning, theory of mind, and central coherence form the heart of social thinking and related social skills. As always, we will connect this information to educational standards to show that we teach social concepts—not in addition to the educational standards—but as part of core social-academic instruction. We will also brainstorm lessons and strategies in teams, give tips for writing solid IEP goals, and developing rubrics for data collection.

Guided observation of specific individuals’ longitudinal (10–20 years) video footage will also be shown to explore how specific students evolve socially across time.

*Treatment refers to using conceptual and strategy-based frameworks to help individuals improve their social thinking, skills, and competencies.

Course Content Disclosure: While this course includes information on other products and the work of other authors, it focuses primarily on the content included in the We Thinkers! Volume 2 Social Problem Solvers curriculum, storybooks, and the GPS assessment and treatment guide for the purpose of teaching this information with fidelity.

Social-executive functioning is at the heart of successful play, social interaction, and learning as part of a group. In this course, we’ll teach how to move from the five basic Social Thinking lessons in We Thinkers! Volume 1 Social Explorers (formerly The Incredible Flexible You!) to the more complex lessons presented in We Thinkers! Volume 2. Attendees will engage in research-based group learning activities and learn strategies to apply in the classroom, clinic, or home the next day. Explore concepts such as the role of play and working as part of a group in the development of self-regulation, social problem solving, and executive functioning. We will also look at why a child who has difficulty with social attention will have trouble with sharing an imagination and interacting/playing with peers. Learn to teach kids to become better social observers and decipher the hidden rules and social expectations of a situation. From there we move to teaching strategies around the concepts of flexible versus stuck thinking, recognizing the size of the problem, making smart guesses, and sharing an imagination. Learn to use Social Thinking’s newest tool, the Group Collaboration, Play and Problem Solving (GPS) Scale, to understand the five different levels of play and how they relate to classroom participation and academic standards. Understand how this scale interfaces with and expands upon other known scales such as the Westby Play Scale (2000), a highly regarded standard in the literature of play assessment. Learn how the lessons and activities in the We Thinkers! curriculum are adapted for each level of Social Thinking’s GPS and how the information can be used in Pre-K–2 mainstream classrooms as part of social and emotional learning (SEL), Positive Behavioral Interventions and Supports (PBIS), and Response to Intervention (RTI) programs. Our goal is to teach how to use We Thinkers! Volume 2 and related treatment* ideas with fidelity. The information presented on this day builds on the five core Social Thinking concepts presented in our precursory course “Teaching Social Thinking to Early Learners Through Stories and Play-Based Activities.”

*Treatment refers to using conceptual and strategy-based frameworks to help individuals improve their social thinking, skills, and competencies.

You have been asking about how to use some of our core curricula with different types of learners and ages, and—voila—here is the answer. This course will focus on teaching the strategies in our core curricula You Are a Social Detective!  and Superflex with fidelity, and will share developmentally appropriate tools to foster social attention and self-regulation for students in kindergarten through middle school. Learn creative ideas to help students understand self-awareness, self-monitoring, and self-control through our more advanced teachings of Superflex's Five-Point Power Plan. We demonstrate how to help children become social detectives to figure out the hidden rules, and how to foster your own super-flexible creativity when teaching these lessons to your own children or students. We’ll also examine developmental adaptations to our teachings for different age groups, and provide strategies for helping students who no longer think Superflex and his team of Unthinkables are “cool.”

This interactive course is filled with creative group activities to help our students move from being “Me” thinkers to “We” thinkers, and explores the core concepts applicable throughout the school-age years. We examine how lessons connect to educational/academic standards in the mainstream classroom—our strategies help everyone improve reading comprehension, written expression, conflict resolution, and work as part of a group. We also discuss the connections between the Social Thinking Methodology and Social and Emotional Learning (SEL) programs, Response to Intervention (RTI), and Positive Behavioral Intervention Supports (PBIS).

PLEASE NOTE: This course focuses on the use of Social Thinking’s books You Are a Social Detective!  and Superflex… a Superhero Social Thinking Curriculum to teach concepts related to Social Thinking. Our intention is NOT to market the products, but instead to show how to teach an appropriate scope, sequence, and pacing of the curricula in the manner they were designed. Our hope is to increase the consistency and fidelity in the ways these concepts are taught. If you (or your district or place of employment) are uncomfortable with a full day focusing on strategies related to products, please select another course to attend.

Content Disclosure: This course does not teach about any other methodologies or programs aside from the Superflex Curriculum within the Social Thinking Methodology.

*Treatment refers to using conceptual and strategy-based frameworks to help individuals improve their social thinking, skills, and competencies.

Watching a clinical case study, or “case journey,” unfold can be very informative and powerful— and gaining tools to unpack the case journeys of the individuals you support is even better. In this course, join us to:

• Unpack the Six Steps for Treatment* Decision-Making template
• Review the six layers of evidence supporting the Social Thinking Methodology and connect the layers of evidence to the treatment planning process
• Explore a conceptual framework, the Social Thinking–Social Competency Model (SCM), to guide treatment based on an individual’s needs. We will demonstrate how the SCM intersects with the Social Thinking Social Learning Tree
• Explore how treatment frameworks and strategies can be used in unison to develop different aspects of social-emotional learning
• Discover how the same treatment frameworks and strategies can be used differently for individuals based on age and social learning development
• Practice using the Six Steps for Treatment Decision-Making template with your caseload or family member(s)

*Treatment refers to using conceptual and strategy-based frameworks to help individuals improve their social competencies.

This course focuses on developing rule-based social learning activities that connect to educational standards and support the student with significant social attention and social interpretation challenges. We will concentrate specifically on students who are described as Challenged Social Communicators (CSC) or Emerging Social Communicators (ESC) on our Social Thinking–Social Communication Profile. These students are more literal, more aloof, miss sarcasm, are less organized, show marked difficulty reading social contextual cues from people and situations, comprehending reading material, and expressing themselves through writing, and they appear more awkward in their attempts to socially engage with their peers. (See this article for more common characteristics of people described as described as Challenged Social Communicators or Emerging Social Communicators.) The day will explore the power of social attention using video clips to provide explicit and practical examples for teaching basic social concepts to encourage the development of theory of mind (perspective taking), sharing social attention, and awareness of trickery.

Video case studies will explore the social learning trajectory of academically bright students who are more literal interpreters. Throughout the day we will explore the assumptions made about social attention and learning in a group, how test scores remove socially based critical thinking and executive functioning making it more difficult to truly understand a student’s real time learning abilities, and how aloof students enjoy social relationship building.

Attendees will receive checklists featuring characteristics associated with different types of social learners, information inspired by the Social Thinking–Social Communication Profile.

Examine how social learning is embedded within many academic standards and how the roots of social learning fan out across a large variety of information explored across a school day (e.g., reading comprehension, narrative language, peer engagement and group work, etc.). The use of rubrics to help with measurement of treatment* goals will be introduced.

Activities for different age groups will also be explored to promote social learning in the group treatment setting. Across the day we explain how this learning is slow and deep, with the goal being to help each student improve when compared to their own baseline abilities. Attendees appreciate the honest and very practical information shared on this day.

*Treatment refers to using conceptual and strategy-based frameworks to help individuals improve their social competencies.

This course will explore how to work with individuals who struggle with self-regulation, social anxiety, and depression, who are described as Nuance-Challenged Social Communicators on our Social Thinking–Social Communication Profile. Individuals in this group may represent a range of diagnoses such as ADHD, Asperger’s, PDD-NOS, ODD, OCD, NVLD, social anxiety, perfectionism, twice exceptional—or may be undiagnosed. Nuance-based social learners tend to have significant issues and are the most likely to be bullied by peers and adults—we introduce the concept of the “forgiveness factor” to detail this phenomenon. (See this article for more common characteristics of people described as Nuance-Challenged Social Communicators.)

We will explore the characteristics and social-emotional learning needs of these individuals starting at four years old, across childhood, and throughout adulthood. We will investigate the different levels of interactive play and collaboration with Social Thinking’s Group Collaboration, Play and Problem Solving Scale (GPS) for use with 4- to 7-year-olds and then examine how patterns in our little ones can extend into adulthood. 

We will explore sophisticated ideas that foster the development of an individual’s perspective taking, executive functioning, and social-emotional self-management. More specifically we will examine different aspects of emotional awareness of self and others, flexible thinking, social problem solving, self-advocacy while guiding the audience through different assessment, and treatment* ideas to foster self-regulation, effective communication, and a sense of well-being. Reviewed within this day are:

• Examples of cognitive flexibility and its relationship to dysregulation
• How social problem solving and emotional expression are linked
• Strategies to promote emotional self-regulation including our emotion scale and how our emotional expression is expected to shift with age
• Learning about one’s own strengths and weaknesses
• Exploring social anxiety and some related treatment ideas
• Enhance social competencies by utilizing Social Thinking’s Friendship Pyramid to explore specific strategies to help teach more sophisticated greetings, and development of acquaintance-based relationships and situational friendships.

Many of our adult clients tell us they wished someone had “taught me this information when I was 10 years old.” Attendees report this course is beneficial for both helping school-age students and better understanding themselves!

*Treatment refers to using conceptual and strategy-based frameworks to help individuals improve their social competencies.

Adolescence. Developmentally, this time is called the transition to adulthood, and we as teams develop plans, outline trajectories, and write goals to facilitate the process. We teach the importance of both academic and social skills, but at the end of the day it's not uncommon to hear, "No thanks, I'm just gonna design video games so I don't really need to learn that other stuff." No matter where we travel around the globe, we answer similar questions about helping teens transition from childhood to young adulthood. Parents and professionals welcome information on realistic planning and preparation to guide our students to better prepare for the social demands of the adult world.

This transition can overwhelm individuals born to social learning challenges, even if they are considered bright and have solid to strong language skills (e.g., ASD level 1 & 2, ADHD, twice exceptional, learning disabilities, nonverbal learning disabilities, specific language impairment, sensory dysregulation, etc.). This course focuses on helping parents and professionals (including teachers, counselors, psychologists, speech-language pathologists, etc.) prepare for—and respond to—this transition. Specifically, we will relate research-based concepts to an exploration of the more nuanced expectations that come with the emergence into adulthood and the strategies to help individuals develop a more mature social mindset.

The day is organized into five chapters:

Chapter 1: Learn to understand a teen’s perspective of their own and others’ social minds and related expectations, individualized learning of strengths and weaknesses, the social-academic connection, the power of our inner-coach, the power of our self-defeater, the connection to cognitive behavioral therapy, social competencies, and the Five Levels of Social Conformity.

Chapter 2: Adulthood and independence don’t always go together. We will define and explore many levels of achieving independence. We will also review how the law changes as a student moves out of K–12 education and into adulthood.

Chapter 3: Briefly explore the different levels of the social mind and tips for teaching and job coaching our more literal-minded individuals. A case study will be reviewed.

Chapter 4: Discuss our clinical experience and related research in working with students who seem resistant to social-emotional learning and working as part of a group. In this very popular chapter, we will examine the perspective of the resistant (self-protective) learner as it relates to the strategies that encourage self-learning and increased collaboration and those sure to meet further resistance. Student examples will be shared along with other resources we find helpful.

Chapter 5: Teach teens who have subtle but significant social learning challenges to establish and manage their own public relations and self-management campaigns. We will also discuss related mental health challenges such as social anxiety. Strategies to encourage motivation and guide learning about one’s own executive functioning, the perspective of self and other, friendship, and the subtleties of social communication will be reviewed with another case study, related video, and hands-on lessons.

All information draws from peer-reviewed published research but is translated into hands-on strategies, clear frameworks, and concepts to explore and discuss. The goal of this course is to help all parents and professionals develop a larger toolkit to better assist students to learn about their own executive functioning, sharpen their perspective taking, and begin to manage their own social lives. We focus on the fact that a successful treatment* program is one that helps the student achieve his or her own goals. This course receives stellar reviews!

*Treatment refers to using conceptual and strategy-based frameworks to help individuals improve their social thinking, skills, and competencies.

The Social Thinking Methodology provides strong tools for engaging adults across the lifespan in the social-emotional learning process. Incorporating 15 years of experience with this population, this course shares what we have learned to help adults with strong language and learning skills interpret and respond to social subtleties expected of adults in the workplace. We set aside diagnostic labels and discuss the broader concept that we all live within social boundaries and want others to include us and show they value us, whether or not we realize it. Exploring the social-emotional undercurrents, we introduce the Five Steps to Social Thinking Psychology and the Social-Emotional Chain Reaction to which we all subconsciously react and respond. Through review of dilemmas encountered by bright adults who have struggled due to social-emotional learning challenges, we demonstrate where social breakdowns happen and discuss strategies to avoid them—including strategies for coping and for working as part of a team.

We’ll explore treatment* strategies to encourage self-management and self-regulation for clients experiencing anxiety, depression, and inflexible thinking. This highly regarded course will tackle strategies to promote executive functioning, spontaneous and advanced perspective taking, and problem solving to help individuals who experience “me thinking” evolve toward collaborating with others as “we thinkers.” Our Intention-Driven Social Behavior Map will be reviewed. Explore case studies to teach specific concepts, such as being an Information Informer versus a Social Relator. Watch videos of adults discussing how their social competencies have evolved over time. This is one of our more compelling and important courses!

*Treatment refers to using conceptual and strategy-based frameworks to help individuals improve their social thinking, skills, and competencies.

Overview of the Emotions series:
In our two-course Emotions series, explore how emotions are the undercurrent of all forms of social communication and are at the heart of personal problem solving, motivation, relationships, and life memories (episodic memory). This information applies to everyone, including typically developing individuals, but this series focuses on teaching about emotion to individuals with social-emotional learning challenges. Across the two courses, discover how to teach students, clients, and patients about their emotions and build self-regulation across three contexts: 1. Me: pursuing goals to meet the individual’s needs; 2. We: working collectively to be part of a group (e.g., in the classroom, on the playground, at a restaurant, on a team); 3. Us: interacting face-to-face with one or more people. Engage in hands-on activities and explore use of treatment* scales and frameworks to help your students, clients, and patients unpack the social-emotional experience and understand how emotions take center stage in all aspects of life.

Emotions Part 1:
In this first course in the series, explore information and research-based treatment ideas spanning these topics to help individuals understand and regulate their emotions:

• The negative¬–positive emotional framework and how the brain processes negative emotions differently than positive emotions
• Emotions and personal memory making (episodic memories), which are required in all environments, including in school, community, home, and vocational settings
• Memory and narrative language: how emotions impact how we explain ourselves to others
• Strategies to break the cycle when a student, client, or patient gets stuck recalling only negative experiences
• The difference between feelings and emotions
• Hands-on activities to explore the depth and complexity of an individual’s feelings and emotions. Practice using treatment tools (e.g., visual scales, treatment frameworks, etc.) that help make the complicated social experience more explicit and understandable
• The definition of self-conscious emotions and their tie to social anxiety
• How emotions are embedded within the Social Thinking–Social Competency Model
• How Superflex’s Worry Wall and other Unthinkable characters can be used to encourage expression of the emotional self to foster self-regulation
• The use of manipulatives to guide individuals to express their feelings and experiences, and to socially problem solve when language falls short
• Case study: Review of longitudinal treatment for a grumpy 13-year-old; how the invention of the Pyramid of Dislike, paired with Social Thinking’s Friendship Pyramid, provided self-discovery and motivation to increase peer engagement and emotional satisfaction
• And much more!

Learn a lot to help your students, clients, and patients—and a lot about yourself, given how this fascinating topic impacts us all!

*Treatment refers to using conceptual and strategy-based frameworks to help individuals improve their social competencies.

To maximize your learning we recommend attending the course Emotions Part 1 before Emotions Part 2, but it’s not required since key concepts from the first course will be summarized in the second. In Emotions Part 2, learn strategies to help your students, clients, or patients develop emotional awareness, explore how to read the emotions and intentions of others, emotionally sync with others, and work through social anxiety. Many of these skills are required for developing friendships, understanding the actions and reactions of characters in literature and history—impacting performance on academic standards, and working with others as part of a team—impacting success in the classroom and 21^st century workforce. Discover a variety of strategies that can be used immediately in the classroom, at home, in the community, and at work spanning these topics:

• Social anxiety disorder (SAD) and the autism spectrum:
  • Recognize the overlap of these diagnoses and the importance of developing social competencies as part of treatment*
  • Determine key things to be aware of when working with an individual suffering from depression or sadness
• Social-emotional learning:
  • Validate the social-emotional learning process as individuals explore their social vulnerabilities
  • Recognize the power of one’s inner critic and coach
  • Understand how managing emotions is part of executive functioning and how this relates to tracking the development of one’s own Social Operating System
• The social evaluative process: how we account for each other’s intentions
• Interpreting the hidden emotional messages of others
• Personal self-marketing campaign: what messages are your students, clients, and patients sending?
• Use of scales for many different purposes:
  • Evaluate social risk
  • Evaluate social-emotional experiences
  • Get versus take someone’s perspective
• Relationship development and social-emotional competencies:
  • Explore how little acts of kindness pave the way for relationship development prior to having a conversation
  • Determine how emotion syncing is important as we share and listen to little stories within our social conversations
  • Use physical manipulatives to encourage social-emotional reappraisal of people in context
• Case study: learn how to validate your student, client, or patient’s progress by addressing vulnerabilities with a Social Operating System

Learn a lot to help your students, clients, and patients—and a lot about yourself, given how this fascinating topic impacts us all!

*Treatment refers to using conceptual and strategy-based frameworks to help individuals improve their social competencies.