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Conferences for Professionals, Parents, Family Members & Students

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About Social Thinking Conferences

At Social Thinking, we help people with social emotional learning challenges improve how they interpret and respond to social information to better connect with others. At our conferences, we teach professionals and parents strategies to improve social competencies in those they support. Our practical strategies can be used immediately in the classroom, clinic, home and community, and help improve performance on educational standards (including the Common Core Standards), as well as reinforce programs such as PBIS, RTI, SEL, and others. Our work goes deep - we're always thrilled when we hear from people around the world that the Social Thinking Methodology is changing lives.

 

Who We Help: The Social Thinking Methodology is designed to be used with individuals ages 4 through the lifespan with solid language and learning abilities. While our work was originally developed for individuals with Asperger's syndrome, ASD levels 1 & 2, ADHD, Social Communication Challenges, etc., our teaching tools are also being used in mainstream classrooms to refine the social abilities of all students.

 

Our Conferences Teach Strategies for:

•          Social interpretation

•          Social skills

•          Self-regulation

•          Executive functions

•          Social emotional learning

•          Perspective taking

•          Social problem solving

•          .... and much more!

 

Our Speakers: The Social Thinking Training & Speakers' Collaborative (STTSC) consists of 12 clinicians who train around the world on the Social Thinking Methodology. It is a priority that all our speakers maintain an active caseload so they may continue to share the most practical and meaningful treatment information. Note: members of the STTSC are the only people licensed to train on the Social Thinking Methodology.

Social Thinking Conferences

At our conferences we share our latest frameworks, lessons, and strategies for teaching social thinking and related social skills to people ages 4 years old through adulthood. We offer 15+ full-day courses, each offering unique concepts and strategies regarding a particular theme or age group. All information presented can be used immediately in the classroom, home, community, and workplace!

Conferences Sponsored By Social Thinking

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Conferences sponsored by Social Thinking (i.e. those you can register for on our website) offer continuing education, complimentary lunch and dessert, and our products available for purchase. The aforementioned cannot be guaranteed at conferences sponsored by other organizations.

Continuing Education Available

Conferences sponsored by Social Thinking (i.e. those you can register for on our website) offer continuing education credits/units/clock hours at no cost. Each course offers 6 hours of instruction and each attendee will be given a certificate of attendance and a course agenda for their records. For information about continuing education credit offered by conferences NOT sponsored by Social Thinking, please contact the sponsoring organization. For those of you familiar with the Social Thinking Methodology, you can also earn continuing education credits/units/clock hours by participating in our popular three-day Clinical Training Program. 

We are proud to be a continuing education provider for:

  • Speech-Language Pathologists
  • Social Workers
  • Marriage and Family Therapists
  • Clinical and School Psychologists
  • Licensed Professional Counselors
  • Licensed Mental Health Counselors
  • Licensed Professional Clinical Counselors
  • ... and others!

 

Attendee Requests for Duplicate Paperwork

Each conference attendee will receive a print copy of the course presentation as well as a Certificate of Attendance for each course they attend hosted by Social Thinking. Forms will be available for attendees to fill out in order to obtain their continuing education credits/units/clock hours on the day(s) of their conference attendance. If an attendee contacts our office after a conference because they have misplaced any of these forms, we must charge a $40.00 administrative fee to help cover the time spent searching our archives to locate and then re-create the requested information. To avoid this fee, please keep track of all papers and information provided at the conference. If you are seeking lost paperwork, please contact conferences@socialthinking.com. Payment is required before we may release the requested information, we accept Visa, MasterCard and Discover.

 

Region-Specific Continuing Education Units/Credits

 

California

Michelle G Winner is an approved Continuing Education Provider for State of California SLPs (PDP 54), MFTs and LCSWs (PCE 1782) (6 hours per day).

 

 

Canada

SLPs & OTs: Each attendee will receive a Certificate of Attendance and Agenda for each course as proof of participation. Earn 6 CEEs per course!

 

 

Illinois

Educators: Our courses are offered for Professional Development Hours in partnership with Elmhurst College Provider #100249. To earn credit, just complete a form provided at the conference and we'll submit it for you. 

OTs & LMFTS: To receive credit for course(s), before the day of the conference submit an application and processing fee to the Illinois Department of Financial and Professional Regulation.

 

 

New York

Social Workers: Social Thinking, Inc., SW CPE is recognized by New York State Education Department’s State Board for Social Work as an approved provider of continuing education for licensed social workers #0334. Earn 6 Contact Hours for each course!

 

 

Washington

Educators: We offer WA State Clock Hours and Vocational Clock hours, 6 clock hours per course! 

 

 

More Continuing Education Units/Credits Available

American Speech-Language-Hearing Association (ASHA)

 

ASHA

Each course is offered for 0.6 ASHA CEUs (Intermediate level, Professional area).


Providers' Conference:

ASHA

The full course is offered for up to 1.80 CEUs (Intermediate level, Professional area). Each day is available for 0.6 ASHA CEUs.


ASHA credits will be available to Speech Language Pathologists interested in receiving and maintaining their continuing education hours through ASHA. All SLPs enrolling in ASHA CEUs will need to bring their ASHA number with them to include on their CEU registration form. Signing in & out and filling out a registration form is required for each day you attend the conference.

Commonwealth Educational Seminars (CES)

commonwelth

Continuing Education Units for Social Workers, LMHCs, LMFTs, Clinical and School Psychologists are available.  States that are covered are listed below.  Some states have exceptions and these are noted as well.

 

Social Workers: Commonwealth Educational Seminars (CES) #1117, is approved as a Provider for Social Work Continuing Education by the Association of Social Work Boards (ASWB, 400 South Ridge Parkway, Ste B, Culpepper, VA 22701) www.aswb.org

 

Social workers should contact their regulatory board to determine course approval. Social workers receive 6 continuing education clock hours participating in this course for each workshop day.

 

NOTE: Clock hours are not available through CES for Social Workers in New Jersey.

 

Marriage and Family Therapists: The following marriage and family therapy boards accept programs offered by ASWB or APA approved providers (of which CES is approved): AL, AR, AZ, CT, DE, FL, GA, ID, IN, IA, KS, LA, MD, ME, MN, MS, MT, NE, NH, NJ, NM, OK, OR, PA, RI, SD, TN, VA, VT, WA AND WI. In addition, CES is approved for CA MFTs. Marriage and family therapists receive 6 CE hours credit for each workshop day.

NOTE: CE hours are not available through CES for LMFTs in Massachusetts.

 

Psychologists: Commonwealth Educational Seminars (CES) is approved by the American Psychological Association (APA) to offer continuing education credit programs. CES maintains responsibility for this program. Psychologists completing this program earn 6 continuing education hours of credit.

NBCC Credit: Certified Counselors

NBCC

 

Certified Counselors receive 6 clock hours for each conference day toward NBCC credit. Social Thinking, Inc. has been approved by NBCC as an Approved Continuing Education Provider, ACEP No. 6685. Programs that do not qualify for NBCC credit are clearly identified. Social Thinking, Inc. is solely responsible for all aspects of the programs. 

 

Courses4Teachers & University of the Pacific

Courses4Teachers  

Earn Professional Development Credit
Earn three Semester Units of University of the Pacific Graduate-Level, Professional Development Credit for your work related to or inspired by Social Thinking training events. Learn more at www.courses4teachers.net/credit-for-social-thinking or by contacting Courses4Teachers at (925) 837-3817 or Courses4Teachers@Courses4Teachers.net.

Courses

All of courses provide practical strategies for using Social Thinking. This is where more description would go on the benefits of all our courses. This is where more description would go on the benefits of all our courses. This is where more description would go on the benefits of all our courses. This is where more description would go on the benefits of all our courses.

Click the Age Group of Interest

  • All Ages
  • Ages 4-7
  • Ages 8-10
  • Ages 11-13
  • Ages 14-18
  • Young Adult
  • Adult
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Social Thinking Across the Home and School Day: The ILAUGH Model

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Social Thinking Across the Home and School Day: The ILAUGH Model
ages 5 - young adult
Description
This conference day is designed to teach professionals and parents frameworks, concepts, and strategies so that they may better understand the social learning experience and guide others toward improved social processing and social skills. 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 the hidden rules, contemplate how social rules change with age, and discuss how social problem solving is at the heart of social skills, and affects how one interprets and responds 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 those for helping students avoid “the blurt”, cope with “boring moments”, and develop conversational language. Additionally, we will focus much of our attention on the ILAUGH Model of Social Thinking. The ILAUGH model is an acronym to represent treatment ideas and research related to: Initiating communication, Listening with the eyes and brain, Abstracting and inferencing, Understanding perspective, Getting the gist, and Humor & human relationships. The ILAUGH model not only demonstrates why people with social learning challenges have weaker social skills 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 we want to “teach in the roots” and not through the leaves of Social Thinking’s Social Learning Tree. We will then discuss how to write achievable IEP goals based on rubrics. Mainstream teachers find the information presented on this conference day 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 conceptual and strategy-based frameworks for building understanding and use of social skills and social thinking.
What You Will Learn
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The Social Thinking Informal Dynamic Assessment and Core Treatment Strategies

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The Social Thinking Informal Dynamic Assessment and Core Treatment Strategies
ages 5 - young adult
Description
We launch the day exploring three practical frameworks and teaching strategies. First, Social Behavior Mapping (SBM) is a visual framework that teaches how to better understand the social expectations in a given situation. SBM then guides us to strategies specific to an individual’s needs as they discover what’s “expected" or “unexpected" in a social situation and how their behavior impacts the feelings of others.  How others feels about us impacts how they treat us in that situation and ultimately affects our own feelings!  Social Behavior Mapping has been widely adopted for use with all ages.  This core Social Thinking tool reflects our Cognitive Behavioral teaching style. Next, we explain through a visual framework the journey between learning to be friendly and maintaining successful friendships through our Peer-a-mid of Friendships.  We will delve into what it means to be a friend, distinguishing between 1) "being friendly," 2) developing a friendship, and 3) having a "bonded friend." We will also discuss how conversational skills are only one component to keeping friends - as "hanging out" actually means we share space without necessarily talking! For individuals with strong social self-awareness but nuanced social learning challenges, social anxiety commonly emerges as another factor to be considered in treatment. The visual tools named the Spiral of Social Success and the Spiral of Social Failure guide how we teach social competencies while also teaching how to manage social anxiety.We will also offer some basic concepts and ideas for running Social Thinking groups.  Our treatment goals are to help make the abstractions of the social world more easily interpreted through our concrete explanations! We round out the day by demonstrating to parents and professionals how to better understand the inner minds of individuals with social learning challenges when our standardized testing falls short. We introduce the Informal Dynamic Social Thinking  (IDST) Assessment, a tool described in Michelle's book, Thinking About YOU Thinking About ME, 2nd Edition. IDST assessment tasks are useful as part of the initial or three-year testing process – and can also be used by any parent or professional to better understand how an individual processes and responds to social information. The IDST is invaluable in learning more about the way individuals think, and how their social thinking challenges affect their social and academic learning. This, in turn, illuminates why they need direct teaching of social concepts and arms us with relevant knowledge to determine specific treatment strategies that are best aligned with their needs. Video footage of the informal assessment will demonstrate ways in which all of us (diagnosticians, parents, paraprofessionals, treatment clinicians, etc.) can work more effectively with our students. Parents and professionals give high praise for the highly practical nature of this workshop. *Treatment refers to conceptual and strategy-based frameworks for building understanding and use of social skills and social thinking.
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Day D

Executive Functioning: Tackle Homework and Classwork with these Helpful Strategies!

Day D
Executive Functioning: Tackle Homework and Classwork with these Helpful Strategies!
ages 10 - young adult
Description
The majority of individuals with social learning challenges have difficulty developing organizational skills to manage the increasingly complex expectations of life in upper elementary, middle, high school and into their adult years. Our organizational abilities emerge from our executive functioning skills that are expected to develop through time with minimal instruction. However, for many individuals finding their motivation, knowing how to get started on a project, and managing time across a variety of homework assignments can feel like an overwhelming set of tasks - even for the most intellectually sharp individuals. The impact of poor organizational skills is immense; it affects one's outcome in school, at work, well as at home. People often misinterpret folks with poor organizational skills and limited motivation as being lazy, without understanding that these challenges are more likely the result of a neurologically-based executive function 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. Even those who want to provide support are not sure where to begin! In this conference, we explore critical executive functioning skills and practical strategies for individuals to track and tackle homework and other deadline-based responsibilities. Discover two types of organizational skills: static and dynamic. Zoom in on dynamic organizational skills and dissect them into 10 steps that are critical in 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 conference has been enthusiastically received by parents, counselors, mainstream and special education teachers, administrators, psychologists, speech language pathologists, occupational therapists, etc. As with most Social Thinking conferences, hands-on activities help attendees relate their own experiences to the challenges discussed. We do not merely give a general description of the issues. Instead, we guide attendees to actively explore key concepts and to appreciate the pivotal role parents and professionals play in teaching these concepts to individuals. While this conference was designed to help individuals with social learning challenges, the information provided has also proven to be relevant to all students and young adults. Mainstream teachers love this conference day! This information is cutting edge for all populations.
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Implementing Social Thinking Concepts and Vocabulary: A Day to Develop Team Creativity

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Implementing Social Thinking Concepts and Vocabulary: A Day to Develop Team Creativity
ages 5 - young adult
Description
It’s time to get practical! Learn about 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 exploring how to engage in richer social observation and 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 navigate and 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. 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 the concepts, they were able to generalize the information.

Social Thinking’s treatment-based frameworks and strategies can easily be used in Positive Behavioral Interventions and Supports (PBIS) and other social-emotional learning 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 incorporate key lessons taught throughout the day. 

Participants will work in groups to learn how to use Social Thinking concepts across settings, creating one or two lesson plans of their own. 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 school districts around the world.

The Social Thinking Methodology encourages us to recognize how the social mind is not only used to help us adapt our social skills more effectively, but also when interpreting socially based information presented through school curriculum or in popular media. For more information on this, attendees can read: Thinking About YOU Thinking About ME and Inside Out: What Makes a Person with Social Cognitive Deficits Tick?
What You Will Learn
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Master Class 1: Exploring Key Social Communication Concepts through Hands-on Activities

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Master Class 1: Exploring Key Social Communication Concepts through Hands-on Activities
ages 5 - young adult
Description

The reviews are in and they are terrific! Participants love the hands on activities while simultaneously learning how to teach core Social Thinking concepts and strategies. Utilizing video clips that incorporate deep lessons from The Four Steps of Communication treatment framework, we will guide you in hands-on activities to facilitate improved social communication skills with your students/clients/children. A detailed handout for guided observations, as well as a bag of physical manipulatives, will be provided for attendees to work in small groups to practice and interact with one another. Different activities will focus on students with different levels of the social mind:

1. Use the newly developed Cascade of Social Attention Checklist, which is only available at this conference. The Checklist is a tool to help evaluate an individual's social interpretive systems to better understand where to begin in the process of teaching how to think socially and ultimately produce related social skills. The Cascade also helps to explain why many of our students/clients/children have challenges with academic tasks such as reading comprehension and written expression.

2. For some literal-minded individuals who show challenges in social self-awareness and observational skills, we often see a struggle to distinguish what is real versus what they hope or wish would be real. The audience will learn and practice activities to encourage more reality-based perspective taking.

3. When trying to relate with others, many of our students/clients/children have a weak sense of physical presence and facial expressions. We will explore how to use simple technology (phone camera) and Popsicle sticks for teaching abstract ideas in very concrete ways.

4. We will also teach an array of activities to encourage social conversational skills within a group to balance participation between your more talkative and less talkative individuals.

5. Core lessons and activities will show a connection to the state and Common Core standards.  We will also include examples of goals and rubrics for the activities taught throughout the day. 6. Finally, we will track the social growth of four different clients over 5-15 years of development and discuss how social emotional and executive function needs shift across time.

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Teaching Social Thinking to Early Learners through Stories and Play-Based Activities

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Teaching Social Thinking to Early Learners through Stories and Play-Based Activities
ages 4 - 7
Description
This course introduces professionals and parents to the many important facets of development that underlie social learning in preschool- and early elementary-aged children.  What looks like pure fun to us has important social consequences for the developing mind. The ability to participate in collaborative pretend play and learn as part of a group depends upon having a flexible brain, competent language ability, self-regulation, and solid social-emotional development as well as the executive function skills to multi-task the use of all of the above! The Common Core Standards highlight the importance of “listening and collaboration” in the classroom, which are hallmarks of developmental learning in preschool and during the early elementary years. This course is designed to give participants knowledge of the key researched components of social cognitive development from birth to five years of age as they connect to the core concepts taught through our curriculum. Social-emotional growth, executive functioning/self-regulation, and their interactive impact on socio-communicative abilities will also be explored from a research perspective. This course will focus on how to put the research and best practices of teaching social information into action.  We will introduce five Social Thinking Vocabulary concepts that have been adapted for children ages 4-7:  Thoughts and Feelings, The Group Plan, Thinking with Your Eyes, Body in the Group, and Whole Body Listening.  We will explore methods to teach these concepts through storybooks, music, structured activities, and play.  We will also look at different strategies for service delivery in a variety of settings. Strategies for home and school are designed for young children with average to strong language and learning abilities.

*Due to the confusion caused by use of the word "flexible" in the names of many of our products, The Incredible Flexible You series name has changed to We Thinkers! Volume 1 Social Explorers. No content has been changed in Volume 1; only the name has changed. Volume 2 is named We Thinkers! Volume 2 Social Problem Solvers.
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What Does Play Have to Do with Classroom Learning? Exploring Social Executive Functioning and Social Emotional Learning for Early Learners

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What Does Play Have to Do with Classroom Learning? Exploring Social Executive Functioning and Social Emotional Learning for Early Learners
ages 4 - 7
Description
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 (formerly named The Incredible Flexible You!) to the more complex lessons presented in Volume 2. Attendees will engage in group-learning activities that align with the research and learn strategies to use in their classroom, clinic, or home the very 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. We delve into teaching kids to become better social observers, and tips for deciphering 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 our newest tool, Social Thinking’s Group Collaboration, Play and Problem Solving Scale (GPS) to understand the five different levels of play and how they relate to classroom participation and academic standards! Understand how this play scale interfaces with and expands upon other known scales such as the Westby Play Scale (2000), a gold standard in the literature of play assessment. Learn how the lessons and activities in the We Thinkers! curriculum are adapted for each level of the Social Thinking GPS, and how the information can be used in Pre-K-2 mainstream classrooms as part of social 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 conceptual and strategy-based frameworks for building understanding and use of social skills and social thinking.
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Social Detective, Superflex®, and Friends Take On Social Emotional Learning

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Social Detective, Superflex®, and Friends Take On Social Emotional Learning
ages 5 - 14
Description
You asked for this day! 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 workshop day will focus on how to use strategies in our core curricula You are a Social Detective! and Superflex®. We will explore how to use these and other tools to foster social attention and self regulation in developmentally appropriate ways for students in kindergarten through middle school. We will describe the connections between the Social Thinking concepts and the State Standards, how these concepts integrate with Social Emotional Learning, and the interrelationships with Response to Intervention (RTI) and Positive Behavioral Intervention Supports (PBIS). This interactive conference day will be filled with creative group activities to help our students move from being 'Me' thinkers to 'We' thinkers!   More specifically we will be exploring: The core concepts we are teaching through these curricula that weaves throughout the school-age years. Linking the State Standards and examples of how You are a Social Detective and Superflex have been used in the mainstream classroom to help teach literature, writing, conflict resolution and working as part of a group. How we adapt our teachings for Kindergartners, young elementary school students, older elementary school students, and how the core lessons transfer into middle school and high school. How to encourage children to become social detectives to figure out the hidden rules. Creative ideas to help students learn self-awareness, self-monitoring and self-control through the teachings of Superflex's Five-Point Power Plan. How these lessons are used as part of Social Emotional Learning (SEL), Positive Behavior Interventions and Supports (PBIS) and Response to Intervention (RTI). How to foster your own super-flexible creativity when teaching these lessons to your own children or students. PLEASE NOTE: This conference day focuses on the use of the books You are a Social Detective, Superflex… a Superhero Social Thinking Curriculum, to teach concepts related to Social Thinking. Our intention is NOT to market the products, but instead teach how to use these curricula in the manner they were designed. Our hope is to increase the consistency and fidelity in the ways in which all of us are teaching these concepts. If you (or your district or place of employment) are uncomfortable with a full day focusing on strategies related to products, please select another conference day to attend.
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The Zones of Regulation®: A Framework to Foster Self-Regulation and Emotional Control

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The Zones of Regulation®: A Framework to Foster Self-Regulation and Emotional Control
ages 5 - young adult
Description
The Zones of Regulation is a framework and curriculum designed to foster skills in self-regulation, including emotional control, sensory regulation, and executive functions. It is a systematic, cognitive behavior approach that uses four colors to help students visually and verbally self-identify how they are functioning in the moment given their emotions and state of alertness. The model incorporates Social Thinking concepts to help students use perspective taking to understand the social context and how their management of their feelings and states impact those around them. Through using the curriculum, individuals become more self-aware and learn tools they can use to regulate emotions and states to meet environmental and social demands. It can be used effectively in home, school, and clinical settings, as well as in conjunction with other social emotional learning (SEL) strategies. 

The Zones of Regulation presentation provides teachers, therapists, and parents with hands-on knowledge on the nature of self-regulation and strategies for improving self-regulation and emotional control in individuals of all ages. The presentation addresses topics such as: the brain’s involvement, typical development, sensory processing, emotional regulation, social cognition, and executive functioning. Audience participants will learn an explicit, stair-stepped method and tools to guide students in using The Zones framework across situations and environments to regulate sensory needs, impulses, and emotional states to social demands. 

Visuals, videos, and student work samples are highlighted to illustrate numerous learning activities. A variety of tools (sensory supports, calming techniques, and thinking strategies) are explored to help students recognize their internal emotions, sensory needs, and thinking patterns in each zone, when shifting from one zone to another, and then self-regulate within zones. Participants explore ideas on how to support students using tools effectively across environments. The Zones of Regulation presentation also incorporates core concepts from Michelle Garcia Winner’s Social Thinking framework to help teach students about perspective taking, so they better understand how being in the different zones impacts the thoughts and feelings of other people around them and use this insight to guide them in self-management. 
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Social Thinking Meets RTI and PBS: Social Thinking as a School Wide Systems Approach

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Social Thinking Meets RTI and PBS: Social Thinking as a School Wide Systems Approach
ages 5 - young adult
Description
Students with Social Thinking challenges, such as those with ASD, ADHD, NLD, Social Communication Disorder, and other social and behaviorally-based disorders often struggle in the areas of organization, attention, social engagement, group dynamics, and self-regulation; all of which make learning difficult. In this presentation, we will explore how the Social Thinking framework can easily be introduced school wide, offer strategies to differentiate Social Thinking instruction across the three tiers of intervention and describe effective tools for universal screening, data collection, progress monitoring, and more. The model presented is based on the framework of RTI and PB/PBIS. Response to Intervention (RTI) is a multi-tiered method of academic intervention designed to provide early, effective assistance to struggling learners at increasing levels of intensity. It is designed to address the learning needs of all students, school wide, through academic supports aligned with individual student need. Positive Behavior Supports (PBS/PBIS) is another school initiative that uses a differentiated system of supports to increase learning and decrease problem behavior. RTI and PBS are both used at the group and individual level and help educators and intervention providers ensure that instructional practices are high quality, based on scientific evidence, and are assessment driven, differentiated, and specific. Information gained from an RTI or PBS process is used by school personnel and parents to adapt instruction as needed to facilitate student learning.
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ZOOMING IN: Strategies for Concrete Learners

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ZOOMING IN: Strategies for Concrete Learners
ages 5 - young adult
Description
This conference day focuses on developing rule-based social learning activities that connect to the Common Core/State Standards and support the student with significant social processing challenges. We will concentrate specifically on students who are described as Challenged or Emerging Social Communicators (CSC and 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 the situation, comprehending reading material, expressing themselves through writing, and appear more awkward in their attempts to socially engage with their peers. The emphasis of this day will be around expanding our understanding of where to start and how to progress with these students based on their age, what is realistic to teach, and how to apply this learning in the inclusion-based classroom. Because this conference day is focused on expanding and deepening knowledge around Social Thinking strategies, it is advised that participants already have basic knowledge about Social Thinking and introductory treatment concepts. Participants should familiarize themselves with the Social Thinking-Social Communication Profile by reading the article, Social Communication Learning Styles as a Guide to Treatment and Prognosis: The Social Thinking‐Social Communication Profile™. *Treatment refers to conceptual and strategy-based frameworks for building understanding and use of social skills and social thinking.
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ZOOMING IN: Strategies for Individuals with Subtle but Significant Social Problems

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ZOOMING IN: Strategies for Individuals with Subtle but Significant Social Problems
ages 5 - young adult
Description
This conference day will explore how to work with individuals who struggle with self-regulation, social anxiety, and depression (Nuance Challenged Social Communicator). We will offer nuance-based social learning activities that connect to the Common Core Standards, and take a deeper look at how teaching lessons related to social nuance differs from teaching social “rules.” Individuals in this group may represent a range of diagnoses such as: ADHD, Asperger’s, PDD-NOS, ODD, OCD, NVLD – or be undiagnosed. Nuance-based social learners tend to have significant issues, yet they are least likely to get peer mentor support because they often appear to “blend in” with their peers, at least from an adult perspective. They are also the most likely to be bullied since they are seen by their peers as subtly different. As a result, they may have significant social anxiety and experience meltdown moments. Many have considerable challenges with Executive Functioning such as asking for help, working in peer-based groups, and doing homework. There tends to be an underlying struggle to interpret the intentions and perspective of others, but a keen ability to notice when others aren’t following the social rules. These individuals often act without a deeper understanding of the social situation or how their actions affect those around them. Because this conference day is focused on expanding and deepening knowledge around Social Thinking strategies, it is advised that participants already have basic knowledge about Social Thinking and introductory treatment concepts. Participants should familiarize themselves with the Social Thinking-Social Communication Profile by reading the article, Social Communication Learning Styles as a Guide to Treatment and Prognosis: The Social Thinking--‐Social Communication Profile™. *Treatment refers to conceptual and strategy-based frameworks for building understanding and use of social skills and social thinking.
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“I’m going to be a video game designer!” Helping Teens Prepare for the REAL Adult World

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“I’m going to be a video game designer!” Helping Teens Prepare for the REAL Adult World
ages 11 - young adult
Description

Adolescence, angst, and apathy - the characteristics routinely used to describe teens and young adults who yearn for independence, but often have no plan for getting there. 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."  Interestingly, no matter where we travel around the globe, the love affair between the teenager and the field of video game design poses a stumbling block to more realistic planning and preparation for the social demands of the adult world. This transition can overwhelm individuals born to social learning challenges, even those who are “bright” with strong language skills. This conference focuses on helping parents and professionals (e.g., teachers, counselors, psychologists, speech language pathologists) prepare for - and respond to - this transition. Specifically, we will explore the more nuanced expectations that come with the emergence into adulthood and strategies to help individuals develop a more mature social mindset.

The day is organized to address some of the most common statements from our tweens/teens and young adults including: - "I just want to have a friend.” (Preferably a boy/girlfriend!)

  • "I saw a video on YouTube, so I got this."
  • "I already know how to hang out, I just don't know what to say."
  • "I thought the person just wanted to hang out (not take advantage of me)."
  • "My parents are driving me nuts!"
  • "I know what to do, but it stresses me out."

 

We will use the research related to friendships, anxiety, social communication, and perspective takings to teach concrete strategies for:

  • Becoming comfortable with discomfort  
  • Understanding the levels of friendship and approachability
  • Encouraging self awareness and accountability
  • Understanding stress and anxiety (the good, the bad, and the roadblocks)
  • Motivation and grit (the good 4 letter word)

What You Will Learn
Schedule
Conference Locations
Day G

Let’s Get Real: Tackling Dilemmas Faced by Adults with Social Learning Challenges

Day G
Let’s Get Real: Tackling Dilemmas Faced by Adults with Social Learning Challenges
ages 14 - mature adult
Description
This conference day is the sequel to the conference, “I’m going to be a video game designer!” Helping Teens Prepare for the Adult World - with a continued emphasis on teaching children and teens the concepts and skills they will need as they emerge into adulthood. However, on this day the focus moves into the world of adult work, the social-emotional expectations that exist in the workplace, and what it takes to live as an independent adult. 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. We introduce the 5 Steps to Social Thinking Psychology and also the Social Thinking Social-Emotional Chain Effects to which we all subconsciously react and respond. Through review of dilemmas encountered by bright adults who have fallen off career tracks, we demonstrate where social learning breakdowns happen and discuss strategies to avoid them – including strategies for coping and for working as part of a team. In addition, we redefine what it means to function as an "independent adult". Remarkably, even college-educated, scientifically or artistically gifted adults who are living "on their own" may still not be able to manage all adult expectations until we teach them how to function independently. We will also address the complex issues that parents of these adults face. Teachers and parents of school-age students have described this conference day as impactful for orienting their teachings toward encouraging success in the adult years. Prior to attending this workshop, please read a blog written by Michelle Garcia Winner and a parent of an adult with social communication challenges: Adults: Becoming the Directors of Their Own Treatment Teams and Treatment Plans. The Reason for This Conference Day:  When we released our book, Socially Curious and Curiously Social: A Social Thinking Guidebook for Teens and Young Adults, we were flooded with requests for a conference day to teach Social Thinking to adults. Many adults were writing us, requesting we address their specific issues, while many counseling and psychology groups asked for our treatment* methodology. There is little comprehensive information offered in conferences to address the needs of our "smart" but at times "clueless" adults, many of whom were never diagnosed and have received few concrete treatments. As a result, we developed this two-day workshop to meet these pressing needs. *Treatment refers to conceptual and strategy-based frameworks for building understanding and use of social skills and social thinking.
What You Will Learn
Schedule
Conference Locations