How do we teach students, clients, and 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 competencies. 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 competencies.

1. Describe one strategy for how to teach the difference between reality-based comments and fantasy-driven statements.
2. Describe one practical lesson to facilitate self-awareness of nonverbal language (body proximity to others).
3. Explain how to use visual supports (e.g., everyday materials) to foster the development of three different types of social conversational skills.
4. Describe how rubrics can be used to track social emotional learning outcomes over time.
5. Explain how the treatment framework Four Steps of Communication can be taught using visual tools and concrete, hands-on strategies.

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