Dedicated to Advancing Social Learning for a Lifetime of Well-Being

There is so much to explore within the social world to better understand how individuals we work or live with process and respond to socially based information that is foundational for development and expansion of their social competencies as they age. This talk has evolved and expanded across the years, and it incorporates the use of practical and easy-to-access materials, such as static socially based pictures, as well as movie, TV, or YouTube clips. The bullets below summarize the strategies we’ve developed over the past 26 years to help both professionals and parents (e.g., general education and special education teachers, speech-language pathologists, occupational therapists, administrators, social workers, psychologists, counselors, therapists, behavior therapists, other family members) learn concrete ways to explore the abstract nature of the social mind. The information can be used with children and adults, starting at age four, who have solid to strong expressive and receptive language abilities. The goal is to help all conference attendees learn strategies to unpack abstract aspects of the social world, not only to better understand the individuals with whom we live or work, but also figure out what type of lessons will benefit these individuals moving forward. The following are some of the many points we will cover during this course:

• Explore the Social Thinking–Social Competency Model to navigate the four-step assessment pathway
• Examine how the social brain is designed to zoom in on social relevance and inhibit unrelated responses to maintain social attention
• Consider aspects that are central to relationship development and how we can assess them
• Explore why standardized testing is not designed, nor is it an accurate measure, of face-to-face communicative abilities
• Learn how to examine engagement in two levels of joint attention
• Learn how to conduct a Double Interview

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

Using the 4 Steps of Communication and the Social Thinking–Social Competency Model as a backdrop, attendees will learn about the role of social attention, interpretation, problem solving, and social responses as part of navigating the social world. We will explore how to teach and learn the evidence base for core teaching frameworks and a handful of unique and practical strategies based on the Social Thinking Vocabulary. Attendees will learn how one’s social attention to what is happening and the people in the situation can encourage understanding of the unspoken expectations for that social context. We also describe ways to teach interpreting and responding by making smart guesses and the relationship to social emotional learning.

Attendees will explore specific treatment strategies for how our bodies establish physical presence in a group (body in the group) and how we think with our eyes to gain awareness of the social environment, whether interacting or simply sharing space. Throughout the course, we emphasize how to make abstract concepts more concrete through clinical examples.

We’ll investigate how to teach conversational language by deconstructing the components, including how people share an imagination in the process. Attendees will also take a deeper look at how thoughts, feelings, actions, and reactions are linked to social situations, the people present, and what is happening through the framework called Social Behavior Mapping. Attendees will also learn strategies for dealing with the size of the problem, flexible thinking, and self-regulation as we consider how to think more deeply about social concepts required for navigation and regulation in school, home, and online learning environments.

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