Conferences for Professionals, Parents, Family Members & Students
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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Greater Hartford, CT | Apr 4 - 5, 2019
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Chicago Metro Area, IL | Apr 23 - 26, 2019
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Greater Baltimore, MD | Apr 29 - May 3, 2019
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Denver, CO | May 6 - 9, 2019
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12th Annual Global Providers' Conference | Jun 21 - 23, 2019
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Sponsored by Social Thinking
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Sponsored by Other Organizations
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 Credit
When you register as a Professional for a conference sponsored by Social Thinking (i.e., the conference has a dedicated page on our website) you gain access to continuing education (CE) credit at no additional cost. Find your profession below to learn about your CE options. Each day-long course provides 6 hours of instruction and each attendee will be given a certificate of attendance and a course agenda as proof of participation. If you’re familiar with the Social Thinking Methodology, you may also be eligible to access CE credit by participating in our popular three-day Clinical Training Program. For information about CE credit offered by conferences NOT sponsored by Social Thinking, please contact the sponsoring organization.
We are proud to provide access to continuing education credit for:
- Speech-Language Pathologists
- Educators
- Social Workers
- Counselors
- Clinical and School Psychologists
- Board Certified Behavior Analysts
- ...and others!
Contact your licensing and/or certification organization
We are approved to offer access to CE credit in many instances. Because state requirements can change without notice, we recommend contacting your regulatory board or licensing organization to verify course approval to be 100% confident you can earn CE credit for our courses. Please note that licensing and/or certification organizations have varying requirements that must be fulfilled to earn CE credit for attending a continuing education event.
If your profession is not listed below, we recommend you contact your licensing organization to determine whether they will approve our courses. All attendees will receive a certificate of attendance and agenda for each course as proof of participation.
Requests for Replacement Paperwork
If you need to replace lost paperwork (such as a certificate of attendance, agenda, etc.) from a conference you attended in the past, please contact conferences@socialthinking.com. There is a $40 archive retrieval charge to help cover the time spent searching our records to locate the requested information. Payment is required (via MasterCard, Visa, or Discover) in order for the documents to be released.
Continuing Education Credit by Profession (in alphabetical order)
BOARD CERTIFIED BEHAVIOR ANALYSTS (BCBAs)
Attendees will receive a certificate of attendance and agenda for each course as proof of participation. Each day-long course provides 6 hours of instruction.
Social Thinking is not an approved BACB provider; however, BCBAs may still access CEUs by attending Social Thinking conferences. The Behavior Analyst Certification Board (BACB) allows up to 25% of required CEUs for a BCBA certification cycle to be obtained from unapproved events. The BACB recognizes 50 minutes of conference time to equal 1 CEU, therefore each Social Thinking course is offered for 7 CEUs per day.
COUNSELORS
Professions included under this category:
- Licensed Mental Health Counselors
- Licensed Clinical Mental Health Counselors
- Certified Professional Counselors
- Licensed Professional Counselors
- Associate Professional Counselors
- Licensed Professional Clinical Counselors
Attendees will receive a certificate of attendance and agenda for each course as proof of participation. Each day-long course provides 6 hours of instruction.
Contact your licensing and/or certification organization: We are approved to offer CE credit in many instances. Because requirements can change without notice, we recommend contacting your licensing and/or certification organization to verify CE credit for our courses.
United States
Most states: Each course is offered to counselors for 6 clock hours toward National Board of Certified Counselors (NBCC) credit except where noted below. Social Thinking has been designated by NBCC as an Approved Continuing Education Provider (ACEP) No. 6685. Social Thinking is solely responsible for all aspects of the programs.
States that typically accept CE hours for courses approved by the National Board of Certified Counselors:
- All U.S. states except MT, NY, NV, OK
States that typically accept CE hours for courses approved by other organizations:
- MA: Normally accepts CE hours for courses approved through Commonwealth Educational Seminars
EDUCATORS
Attendees will receive a certificate of attendance and agenda for each course as proof of participation. Each day-long course provides 6 hours of instruction.
United States
Most states: To apply for continuing education credit for our courses, submit your certificate of attendance and agenda documents to your district or employer after the conference has taken place.
The following states have additional or separate procedures for applying for CE credit:
- Illinois: Our courses are pre-approved for professional development hours in partnership with Elmhurst College Provider #100249. ISBE evidence forms will be available for pickup at the conference registration table, this is your proof of attendance for CE purposes. At the end of each course, please complete evaluation forms and place them in the ISBE evaluations collection box.
- Massachusetts: In addition to offering CE hours, Social Thinking is an approved PD Provider #2017F007 with the Massachusetts Department of Elementary and Secondary Education. To be eligible for PDPs, you must attend at least two of our 6-hour courses within the same conference. To apply for PDPs, fill out a form at the conference registration table.
- New York: Submit the following documents to your district or employer after the conference: course description and objectives (available at the bottom of this page), certificate of attendance, and course agenda.
- Ohio: Fill out the Contact Hour Verification Form available at the conference registration table and submit it to your district or employer after the conference.
- Oregon: Before attending the conference, request approval for PDU credit from your district or employer.
- Pennsylvania: Social Thinking courses are offered for Act 48 hours, 6 hours per course. To apply for Act 48 hours for attending our conference, visit www.bucksiu.org.
- Texas: Social Thinking is an approved Continuing Education Provider CPE# 901965 with the Texas Education Agency. Pick up a certificate from the registration table each day and submit it to your employer to apply for CE credit.
- Washington: We offer Washington state clock hours and vocational clock hours, 6 clock hours per course! To apply for clock hours, fill out an in-service registration form from the registration table and mail it along with the clock hour registration fee according to instruction on the form.
OCCUPATIONAL THERAPISTS (OTs)
Attendees will receive a certificate of attendance and agenda for each course as proof of participation. Each day-long course provides 6 hours of instruction.
Contact your licensing and/or certification organization: To see if you can earn continuing education credit for our courses we recommend contacting your licensing and/or certification organization. Many states accept CE hours for our courses; however, Social Thinking is not an AOTA-approved provider.
United States
States that are likely to accept CE hours for our courses after the conference:
- AL, AZ, AR, CA, CO, CT, DE, GA, HI, ID, IA, KS, KY, ME, MA, MI, MN, MS, MO, MT, NE, NV, NJ, OH, OK, OR, PA, SD, TN, UT, VA, WA, WV, WI, WY, Washington DC
States that require participants to submit the course for approval before the event to accept CE hours for attendance:
- IL, LA (for live events only), NM, ND, VT
States that are unlikely to accept CE hours for our courses:
- The states not listed in either category above require the attendance of AOTA-approved courses to earn CE credit. Unfortunately, Social Thinking is not an AOTA-approved provider.
Canada
To apply for CEEs for our courses, submit the certificate of attendance and agenda provided at the conference to your licensing organization. Each course is offered for 6 CEEs.
PSYCHOLOGISTS (CLINICAL & SCHOOL)
Attendees will receive a certificate of attendance and an agenda for each course as proof of participation. Each day-long course provides 6 hours of instruction.
Contact your licensing and/or certification organization: We are approved to offer CE credit in many instances. Because requirements can change without notice, we recommend contacting your licensing and/or certification organization to verify CE credit for our courses.
United States
All states: Social Thinking courses are approved for American Psychological Association credit through our partnership with Commonwealth Educational Seminars. Commonwealth Educational Seminars is approved by the American Psychological Association to sponsor continuing education for psychologists. Commonwealth Educational Seminars maintains responsibility for this program and its content. Psychologists will receive 6 hours of continuing education credit upon completing this program. If you are not affiliated with APA, inquire with your respective state board to see if you can earn CE credit by attending our courses. It might help to tell them the courses are approved for APA credit.
SOCIAL WORKERS
Attendees will receive a certificate of attendance and an agenda for each course as proof of participation. Each day-long course provides 6 hours of instruction.
Contact your licensing and/or certification organization: We are approved to offer continuing education credit in many U.S. states and Canadian provinces; however, because requirements can change without notice, we recommend contacting your licensing and/or certification organization to verify course approval to be 100% confident you can earn CE credit for our courses. If you work in a location not listed, we recommend contacting your board to determine course approval.
United States
Social Thinking courses are available for continuing education credit in partnership with Commonwealth Educational Seminars (CES). CES is entitled to award continuing education credit for Social Workers. CES maintains responsibility for this program and its content. Social Workers completing this program will receive 6 clinical hours of clinical continuing education credit.
States that typically accept CE hours for courses approved by Commonwealth Educational Seminars:
- AK, AL, AR, AZ, CA, CO, CT, DE, FL, GA, IA, ID, IL, IN, KS, KY, LA, MA, MD, ME, MI, MN, MO, MS, MT, NC, ND, NE, NH, NM, NY, OH, OR, PA, RI, SC, SD, TN, TX, UT, VA, VT, WA, WI, WV, WY
States that typically accept CE hours for courses approved by other organizations:
- NY: 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. Each course is offered for 6 contact hours.
Canada – as of January 2018
Provinces that typically accept CE hours for courses approved by Commonwealth Educational Seminars:
- Alberta, British Columbia, New Brunswick, Newfoundland & Labrador, Saskatchewan, Nova Scotia
LICENSED MARRIAGE AND FAMILY THERAPISTS (LMFTs)
Attendees will receive a certificate of attendance and agenda for each course as proof of participation. Each day-long course provides 6 hours of instruction.
Contact your licensing and/or certification organization: We are approved to offer CE credit in many instances. Because requirements can change without notice, we recommend contacting your licensing and/or certification organization to verify CE credit for our courses.
United States
Each course is offered for National Board of Certified Counselors (NBCC) credit except where noted below. Social Thinking has been designated by NBCC as an Approved Continuing Education Provider (ACEP) No. 6685. Programs that do not qualify for NBCC credit are clearly identified. Social Thinking is solely responsible for all aspects of the programs.
States that typically accept CE hours for modules approved by NBCC, though they can change without notice:
- AL, AR, AZ, CA, CT, DC, DE, FL, GA, HI, IA, ID, ME, MN, MO, NH, NJ, NM, NV, OR, PA, RI, SD, TN, VA, VT, WA, WI, WY
SPEECH-LANGUAGE PATHOLOGISTS (SLPs)
Attendees will receive a certificate of attendance and an agenda for each course as proof of participation. Each day-long course provides 6 hours of instruction.
United States & Global ASHA Affiliates
All states: We are an approved continuing education provider through the American Speech-Language-Hearing Association (ASHA), each course is offered for 0.6 ASHA CEUs. To apply for ASHA CEUs, fill out an ASHA registration form and sign in and out each day of the conference you attend. Remember to bring your ASHA number to include on the form!
If you maintain your own CE hours, your certificate of attendance qualifies as your verification of attendance form.
Each conference course is offered for 0.6 ASHA CEUs (Intermediate level, Professional area).
The full Providers' Conference is offered for up to 1.8 ASHA CEUs (Intermediate level, Professional area). Each day is available for 0.6 ASHA CEUs.
California: Michelle Garcia Winner is an approved Continuing Professional Development Provider by the Speech-Language Pathology, Audiology and Hearing Aid Dispensers Board for state of California SLPs (PDP 54) (6 hours per day).
Canada
To apply for CEEs, submit the certificate of attendance and agenda to your licensing organization. Each course is offered for 6 CEEs.
EARN PROFESSIONAL DEVELOPMENT CREDIT
We have an arrangement unique to students at the University of the Pacific wherein conference attendees can earn credit toward up to 3 semester units of Graduate-Level Professional Development for work related to or inspired by Social Thinking training events.
Courses
In our 20+ years of public speaking, Social Thinking has amassed a rich collection of full-day courses (6 hours of instruction apiece). Each conference we host is assembled from this collection, tailored to our guests at that location. In addition to continually updating our course material, we're careful to distribute courses and topic areas so each conference-even if it's in the same city-provides an opportunity to learn something new.
Click the Age Group of Interest
Social Thinking Across the Home and School Day: The ILAUGH Model
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.
The Informal Dynamic Assessment and Core Treatment Strategies
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.
Executive Functioning: Tackle Homework and Classwork with these Helpful Strategies!
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.
Implementing Social Thinking Concepts and Vocabulary: A Day to Develop Team Creativity
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.
Master Class 1: Exploring Key Social Communication Concepts Through Hands-on Activities
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.
Teaching Social Thinking to Early Learners through Stories and Play-Based Activities
This course introduces professionals and parents to the many important facets of development that underlie social learning in preschool- and early elementary-age children. What looks like pure fun to us has important social consequences for the developing mind. The ability to participate in collaborative 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 functioning skills to multitask the use of it all. Educational standards highlight the importance of classroom listening and collaboration, which are hallmarks of developmental learning in preschool and early elementary years. This course is designed to give participants knowledge of the key researched components of social-cognitive development from birth to age 5 as they connect to the core concepts taught through our curriculum. Social-emotional growth and 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.
*Treatment refers to using conceptual and strategy-based frameworks to help individuals improve their social thinking, skills, and competencies.
What Does Play Have to Do with Classroom Learning? Exploring Social-Executive Functioning and Social-Emotional Learning for Early Learners
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.
Social Detective, Superflex®, and Friends Take On Social-Emotional Learning
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.
ZOOMING IN: Strategies for Concrete Learners
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 thinking, skills, and competencies.
ZOOMING IN: Strategies for Individuals with Subtle but Significant Social Problems
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 thinking, skills, and competencies.
To Infinity and Beyond: Preparing Adolescents to Launch into the Real World
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.
Let’s Get Real: Tackling Dilemmas Faced by Adults with Social Learning Challenges
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.
Emotions Part 1: More Than We Think and All That We Feel
Overview of the Emotions series:
This course is the first of a two-day series on emotions, in which Michelle Garcia Winner, the founder of Social Thinking, examines how emotions are the undercurrent of all forms of social communication and are at the heart of personal problem solving, motivation, and life memories (episodic memory). She explains how this information applies to typically developing individuals while also exploring how to teach it to individuals with social-emotional learning challenges. Across the series, we will explore how to teach students, patients, and clients about their emotions and social self-regulation across three contexts: 1. pursuing goals to meet individual needs; 2. working collectively to be part of a group (e.g., classroom, playground, restaurant, team); 3. interacting face-to-face with one or more people. Attendees will engage in hands-on activities and explore use of treatment* scales and frameworks to unpack the social-emotional experience for their students, patients, and clients. Strategies will be discussed to improve self-regulation, problem solving, and social communication.
*Treatment refers to using conceptual and strategy-based frameworks to help individuals improve their social skills and competencies.
Emotions Part 1:
In this first course, attendees will explore information and research-based treatment ideas that focus on each person’s emotional self. Join Michelle to explore these topics:
- The negative–positive emotional framework and how the brain processes different types of emotional information
- Emotions and personal memory making (episodic memories), which are relevant in all environments, including in school, community, home, and vocational settings
- Memory and narrative language: how emotions impact how we explain ourselves to others, and what to do if a student, patient, or client is stuck recalling only negative experiences
- Hands-on activities to explore the depth and complexity of an individual’s feelings and emotions, and practice using treatment tools (e.g., visual scales, treatment frameworks, etc.) to help make the implicit more explicit
- The definition of self-conscious emotions and their tie to social anxiety
- How emotions are embedded within Social Thinking’s Social Competency Model
- How Superflex’s Worry Wall and other Unthinkables can be used to encourage expression of the emotional self to foster self-regulation
- Use of manipulatives to guide individuals to express their feelings and experiences, and 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 provides self-discovery and motivation to increase peer engagement and emotional satisfaction
- And much more!
Attendees will learn a lot to help their students, patients, and clients—and a lot about themselves—given how this fascinating topic impacts us all!
Emotions Part 2: More Than We Think and All That We Feel
In this second course in our two-day series on emotions, Michelle Garcia Winner will explore how emotions play a large role in the social interactive process and in relationship development, including when greeting someone in the hall, developing relationships for teamwork, creating social networks and longer-term friendships, etc. Emotional intelligence is also embedded in academic standards worldwide. Explore many strategies that can be used immediately in the classroom, at home, and at work related to these topics:
- Social anxiety disorder (SAD) and autism spectrum disorders:
- the overlap and need to focus on developing social competencies
- what to be aware of with regard to depression and sadness
- Social-emotional learning:
- How to validate the social-emotional learning process, as individuals explore their social vulnerabilities
- Recognizing the power of one’s inner critic and coach
- Case study on a student’s tracking of his emerging social operating system
- The social evaluative process: how we account for each other’s intentions
- Interpreting the hidden emotional messages of others
- Your personal self-marketing campaign: what message is your face sending?
- Use of scales for many different reasons:
- Evaluation of social risk
- Helping students evaluate their own social-emotional experiences
- Getting a student’s perspective
- And more
- Case study: working with a school-phobic student
- Relationship development and social-emotional competencies:
- Don’t start with conversational skills! How little acts of positive kindness go a long way toward relationship building
- Use of emotional syncing to share our experiences in a manner that is interesting to the listener
- The emotions behind adding a thought and asking questions to others
- Using physical manipulatives to encourage social-emotional reappraisal of people in context
- Social-Emotional Chain Reaction: Introducing three levels of teaching Social Behavior Mapping
- If time permits, personal problem solving
- Case study of an adult engineer in a Silicon Valley company
- How the game of chess is an analogy for the social evaluation process inherit in social communication
- Getting stuck on the negative: reframing how negative moments can be part of positive experiences
To maximize your learning, we recommend attending the course Emotions Part 1 before attending this course.
NOTE: Treatment refers to using conceptual and strategy-based frameworks to help individuals improve their social skills and competencies.