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 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 competencies.

1. Describe two (2) strategies for helping individuals learn to be more flexible thinkers.
2. Describe two (2) strategies to help individuals learn how problem solving involves self-regulation.
3. Design a lesson to promote a child’s development of Shared, Collaborative, Imaginative Play (SCIP).
4. Describe two (2) aspects of each of the five levels of play as explained through Social Thinking’s Group Collaboration, Play and Problem Solving (GPS) Scale.
5. Define two (2) different strategies to provide differentiated instruction to students who have different interactive play abilities.
6. Explain how to teach students to read the hidden rules to figure out what behaviors are expected in a specific situation.

This agenda may change without notice.

We are proud to be a continuing education provider for Speech-Language Pathologists, Social Workers, Marriage and Family Therapists, Clinical and School Psychologists, and Certified Counselors, such as Licensed Professional Counselors, Licensed Mental Health Counselors, Licensed Professional Clinical Counselors, and others.

We offer continuing education units/credits/clock hours through:

• ASHA: American Speech-Language-Hearing Association
• CES: Commonwealth Educational Seminars
• NBCC: National Board for Certified Counselors
• And more!

Click here to see more Continuing Education Information