Video case studies will explore the social emotional learning trajectory of Emerging Social Communicators (ESCs) who are described as being academically bright as well as very literal interpreters. We’ll explore common learning strengths, differences, and challenges and then introduce three different types of social emotional learning strategies often helpful for this cohort, beginning in elementary school and progressing through high school. We’ll also review longitudinal case studies of those who have graduated from universities.

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.). We will introduce a crash course in the use of rubrics to measure outcomes.

Activities for different age groups will also be explored to promote social learning in the group setting. We emphasize that this learning is slow and deep, with the goal being to help individuals improve in their social learning goals compared to their own abilities. Attendees appreciate the honest and very practical information shared on this day.

Concepts covered include but are not limited to:

1. Emerging Social Communicators: learning strengths, differences, and challenges
2. Defining social versus science learning competencies
3. Why bother learning about what other people think and feel?
4. Strategies to encourage productive use of perseverative language
5. Mini-longitudinal case study, including the parent’s point of view
6. Three levels of teaching increasingly complex social ideas and related lessons
7. Use of the Social Thinking–Social Learning Tree to explore how the social mind is embedded in academic learning
8. Measurement of progress using rubrics
9. The use of motivational developmental tools to highlight lessons within different age groups
10. Group lesson ideas for students of different developmental ages
11. Writing social emotional learning goals

Who Should Attend

The Social Thinking Methodology is used by a wide variety of professionals; including speech-language pathologists, special and general education teachers, social workers, counselors, clinical and school psychologists, occupational therapists, behavior specialists, and school administrators to name a few. It’s also used by family members and caregivers across settings.

In this two-part series, we focus on developing rule-based social learning activities that connect to educational standards and support social learners with significant social attention and social interpretation challenges. We will concentrate specifically on understanding and supporting Challenged Social Communicators (CSC) in part 1 and Emerging Social Communicators (ESC) in part 2. These social learners are described as having relative strengths in concrete learning with a tendency to interpret both social and written information in a very literal manner. Parents often report struggles with organization, sarcasm, literalness with reading comprehension and writing, as well as a more awkward manner when socially engaging with peers. Both parts of this series will explore the power of social attention using video clips to provide explicit and practical examples for teaching basic social concepts to encourage the development of theory of mind (perspective taking), sharing social attention, and awareness of trickery.

We will also address assumptions about social attention, learning in groups, and reliance on test scores to guide intervention planning. We will examine how socially based critical thinking and executive functioning make it difficult to truly understand the social learner’s real-time learning abilities.

Objectives

Participants will be able to:

1. Describe two or more core characteristics of Emerging Social Communicators and explain the impact on social and academic learning.
2. Explain the connection between academic standards, social learning, and the challenges of literal learners using the Social Thinking–Social Learning Tree.
3. Describe at least two practical lessons to teach: "I know I have my own thoughts/feelings" and "I know others can have thoughts/feelings different from mine."

Agenda

5-minutes Dr. Pamela Crooke, PhD, CCC-SLP, co-developer of the Social Thinking® Methodology and Social Thinking Chief Curriculum Officer: welcome and introduction to Ryan Hendrix

1 hour and 15 minutes Social versus science learning competencies, social characteristics and the social-academic connection, the Social Thinking-Social Learning Tree

10 minute Break

1 hour Understanding the development of social emotional goals and lessons, measurement and lesson examples

40 minutes Previously Recorded Q & A

Click here to see if you can receive CE credit by Profession and by State

We are proud to provide access to continuing education credit for:

• Speech-Language Pathologists (livestream and On Demand)
• Educators (livestream and On Demand)
• Counselors (only for watching livestream)
• NY State Social Workers (only for watching livestream)
• ...and others!

Livestream Events Accessing Certificates of Attendance and/or CE certificate(s)

Immediately following the livestream course, an email will be sent with a link to verify your attendance. After receiving your response, we will email an access link to the certificate of attendance and other CE documents if applicable. An online form will be available to SLPs at that time to submit their ASHA info to claim ASHA CEUs.

See Detailed CE Info