Foster the development of social competencies across all ages with free teaching ideas, downloadable Thinksheets, video lessons, webinars & more
For over 25 years Social Thinking has been a guiding resource for schools, clinics, and families around the world, and we’re here for you, too! Our Free Stuff Portal is filled to the brim with teaching ideas and resources to foster the development of students' social competencies. Discover free support strategies to use with your students, clients and children. We stand committed to providing quality, practical information that is rooted in research, built upon real-world experiences, and is responsive to the needs of the people who use our methodology. We are constantly learning and gaining inspiration from our clients and others we meet, so our work is ever-evolving yet remains grounded in its adherence to rigorous standards of quality.
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Throughout our 25+ years of research, practice, and teaching, we’ve found that when children as young as four years old learn the mechanics of why and how we use our social minds to foster social and emotional awareness and self-monitoring—it helps them develop deeper insights and foundational social competencies that follow them throughout their lives. Help children build foundational social competencies and essential life skills through stories, lessons, and play activities. Social Thinking's Free Stuff for early learners is designed to be used with both typically developing children and those with social learning differences.
What Is Shared Imagination & Why Is It So Important to Relationship Development?
For us to understand and teach shared imagination & why it’s essential to conversational skills and relationship development, we must first define, understand, and observe singular imagination.
Social expectations grow as children go through elementary school—they are expected to become stronger social observers, problem solvers, and know how to regulate their own emotions and behaviors. Engaging in a social emotional thinking/feeling based process can be difficult at times for everyone. Our role as (teachers, speech-language pathologists, therapists, clinicians, parents, and caregivers is to help motivate social learners to "do the work" and explore how we all share social expectations, thoughts, feelings, make mistakes and try again as we learn to navigate our way toward our social goals. Social Thinking's Free Stuff for school age students is designed to be used with both typically developing children and those with social learning differences.
Understanding Self-Regulation: Help Your Students Learn to Help Themselves
Explore the many moving parts of social and emotional self-regulation and how it involves personal problem solving. Discover which of our strategies, frameworks, and teaching materials to use to help students develop these competencies.
How to Foster Students’ Flexible Thinking & Advocacy Skills Using Future Thinking
Simply ask kids to think about and respond to this prompt: Someday in school, I would like to ___. Students can respond by writing their response, answering the question aloud, or drawing a picture. Each someday goal will likely require flexible thinking, goal setting, interactions with others & opportunities for all students to practice using their voice of advocacy in meaningful ways. Download this free Someday Activity infographic.
The Social Thinking Methodology first developed from our work with high schoolers. It’s now the premier, go-to source for understanding the social world through an evidence-based lens, which encourages the ongoing development of teaching concepts, strategies, and tools for working with and supporting tweens and teens as they learn about themselves and others, as well as how to navigate meeting their own goals in the ever-changing landscapes within the social world. Social Thinking's Free Stuff for tweens and teens is designed to be used with both typically developing children and those with social learning differences.
Perspective Taking in the Classroom
Perspective taking can happen anytime at school. In this free webinar you will learn about perspective taking in the classroom—supporting students to attend to and interpret their own and others’ thoughts and feelings, whether simply sharing space, interacting, or deciding if and how to participate.
10 Levels to Living Independently
For many, living independently and flexibly responding to daily demands doesn’t just happen without support. We’ve developed a visual strategy based framework called the 10 Levels to Living Independently to help kids and young adults practice 10 essential independence skills before they venture out on their own.
Throughout our 25+ years of research, practice, and teaching, we’ve focused on the needs of young and mature adults and have found that when these social learners are presented with relevant and explicit concepts, tools, and practical strategies to make sense of evolving expectations within the social world, they can continue to learn to improve their social emotional problem solving. They’re able to gradually gain social competencies that help them, step by step, achieve their own social goals as they learn to navigate the complexities of the adult social emotional world.
What Does the Social World Look Like Through the Eyes of a Social Learner?
This story gives you the opportunity to see through the eyes of someone with social learning differences (from her perspective, challenges) to better understand how difficult it can be to navigate the complex social world. This is the life story of Belinda, a woman with significant social learning differences.
The Social Thinking Methodology provides evidence-based strategies to help people ages four throughout adulthood develop their social competencies, flexible thinking, and social problem solving to meet their own social goals and improve: