Teaching Social Thinking Facilitates Learning Language Arts

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Teaching Social Thinking Facilitates Learning
Language Arts

• Michelle Garcia Winner
• M.A., CCCSLP
• Michelle G Winners Center for Social Thinking
• www.socialthinking.com

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DX Social Skill Challenges

• High Functioning Autism (HFA)
• Aspergers Syndrome
• Pervasive Developmental Disorder Not Otherwise
  Specified (PDD-NOS)
• Semantic Pragmatic Disorder
• Nonverbal Learning Disorder (NLD)
• Hyperlexic
• Tourettes? .Fragile X.
• ADHD OCD Asperger Syndrome?
• Where does Bipolar fit in?

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What is meant by having good social skills?

• Its the ability to share space effectively.
• To be able to adapt effective in different
  contexts within the same environments and across
  environments.

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How do Social Skills Emerge?

• First week of life babies start matching others
  facial expression.
• 9-12 months old Joint attention
• Along with joint attention babies start to read
  other peoples plans (physical intentions)

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Kicked off by Joint Attention

• Babies also start to use an index finger point,
  to connect their attention to others.
• Ask for help, prelinguistically, through
  gestures.
• Language emerges to share, comment and question
  about their world.
• They also use language to begin to regulate
  others with clear intention (terrible 2s!)
• In the 2nd year of life, babies realize when
  people are having problems and try and help to
  solve those problems (picking up the broom mom
  has dropped).

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Play concepts that emerge as toddlers in the
preschool years

• Pretending and abstracting
• Imitation
• Synchronicity of body movement/body presence.
• Making guesses about other people in play.
• Sharing an imagination
• Listening to and expressing related ideas.
• Cooperating and Negotiating through actions and
  language.

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Language also becomes more sophisticated

• In the later preschool and early elementary
  school years, students are abstracting language,
  beginning to intuitively realize the difference
  between literal and figurative.
• The proof is in Amelia Bedelia

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In the 4th year..

• Children are engaged in group, cooperative,
  imaginative play.
• These play skills are critical for the later
  development of conversation, reading
  comprehension, class relations, personal problem
  solving, etc

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It is assumed that students enter elementary
school with this social software.

• Providing them access to tasks requiring social
  knowledge
• Playground experiences
• Classroom cooperation and compliance
• Working as part of a peer work group
• Reading comprehension
• Written expression
• Asking for help

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Given we expect the social software to be born
into us

• We provide very little explicit teaching to
  assist with
• Playground experiences
• Classroom cooperation and compliance
• Working as part of a peer work group
• Reading comprehension
• Written expression
• Yet, these are the skills that become critical
  for advancing successfully into adulthood.

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Implicit skills required to interpret literature
starting in preschool

• Understanding the characters perspective
• Motivations
• Emotions
• Perceived problems
• Interpretation of language and prediction
• Considering prior knowledge to help interpret the
  overall meaning and relevance in the text.
• Determining what information is relevant versus
  irrelevant.
• Using a shared imagination to actively engage
  in the text.

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Implicit social concepts to be able to produce
written expression in elementary school and
beyond

• Determining what the reader needs to know to
  comprehend consider the shared
  knowledge/experiences of the reader.
• Conceptualizing the main idea.
• Interpreting assignments by taking the teachers
  perspective.
• Using indirect language..creating ideas rather
  than listing facts.
• Applying conceptual knowledge while multitasking
  through the body to write.

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Once in school we think our job is to teach the
children the standards of education (NCLB).

• However, do we realize the infrastructure to the
  language arts standards is in social thinking?
• Do teachers actually teach the standards?
• Do the standards assist with the development of
  necessary skills for adult living?

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Video of reading
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Social Thinking is the Infrastructure to many
Educational standards

• Teaching social thinking and related skills is
  not an extra bonus to education IT INCLUDES the
  ESSENTIAL elements of education both for
  academics and life skills.

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Select Reading Standards

• K.2.2 predictions with pictures and context.
• 4.3.5 Define figurative language and identify its
  use in literary works.
• 4.3.3 Use knowledge of situation, character
  traits/motivations to determine causes for
  characters actions.
• 6.3.2 Analyze the effect of the qualities of the
  character on plot and resolution of conflict.
• 9-10.3.4 Determine characters traits by seeing
  what they say about themselves in narrative,
  dialogue, etc..

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Exploring Treatment Options

• We need to explode the social code and help
  students to process and respond to social
  information they did not intuitively learn.
• Teach social thinking and related social skills
  through developing peer understanding and
  relating information to the text.

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Intervention for kids with poor social skills is
not quite so simple as teaching them better
social skills.

• We need to help teach students to become more
  efficient social thinkers, before we can expect
  them to produce better social skills.
• Example eye contact.
• How delayed is Daniel? What core concepts is he
  lacking?

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Elises video

• We now teach students to think with their eyes.

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Social Expectations in the classroom

• Teachers teach with their eyes.
• When a student blurts, respond by maintaining
  gaze with the person you are talking to, put you
  hand up to the blurter and say
• I am looking at _______, I am talking to
  _______, I am not talking to you right now.

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Teach how social is connected to thought!

• Social algebra
• All persons have thoughts about those who are in
  their shared space. The more desired social
  skills are those that keep people having more
  positive thoughts about us.
• Greetings
• My eye contact kind words your positive
  attention.
• Lack of greeting
• NO eye contact no kind words person has
  thought you dont care or dont like them. .

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Story of 8th grader with huge writing block

• Also
• Cant interpret literature
• Doesnt understand he has emotions, he wrote
  about himself in the 3rd person.
• Doesnt want to accept he has to adjust his
  behavior based on other peoples thoughts.
• Brilliant in math and science.
• Will not pass the HS exit exam.
• Oh yeahand he is selectively mute.

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Goal of Treatment

• To explore socially abstract concepts about
  understanding other peoples minds in more
  concrete ways.
• Apply social knowledge to academic tasks.

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Teaching a trick

• Reading of literature has a lot to do with
  understanding people have motives and may try and
  manipulate another persons mind.
• Teaching tasks
• For classically high functioning autistic
  kids..may need to teach what a trick is.
• Daniels video thinking and tricking..

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Higher Students can understand people trick but
still cannot perceive motive (so they still get
stuck)

• Define motive or people have plans in their
  mindsour job is to read peoples plans.
• Use indirect language lessons to practice reading
  peoples plans
• Hey, are you hungry?
• Do you have any extra money? (said while in a
  coffee shop to an acquaintance).
• I see Laura coming, do you want to leave now?
• Relate these lessons into passage interpretation.

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Teach awareness of prior knowledge and
experiences.

• Our ability to narrate our language is in large
  part due to our ability to figure out what people
  need to know, to express ourselves efficiently
  through language and writing.
• We also have to figure out what we think we know
  about a character in a book in order to try and
  read their intentions and understand the course
  of their actions.

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Teach awareness to know something does not
mean you have to have experienced it.

• Have students act out situations they have never
  experienced e.g. girl in a boys locker room.
• Read passages imagining what is known based on
  lifes knowledge if not experiences.

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Teach about Sharing an Imagination

• Differentiate this from a singular imagination.
  
• Sharing an imagination is critical for
  imaginative play, conversations, reading
  comprehension and written expression.
• Use Comic Strip Conversations (Gray) to
  illustrate.

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Imagination gives access to other peoples world
of thought
Shared Imagination
Singular Imagination
Halloween!
Abc
Xyz
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Exploring emotional understanding

• Students cannot interpret and explore other
  peoples emotions, or those of characters, if
  they dont know they have them, themselves.
• Work on identifying the existence of emotions and
  differentiating them. (Anger versus Nervous
  happy versus excited).
• Students who cannot differentiate emotions make
  us think they feel one way when they actually
  feel another (We think they are angry when they
  are nervous).

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Mental Health and Emotion issues

• Large amount of studies now on co-morbid mental
  health issues with students with Asperger
  Syndrome/ ADHD.
• Emotions connect social pragmatics (the SLP) to
  the mental health counselor. We cannot
  professionally avoid working on emotions because
  we think this relates to mental health.
• All communication is intentional and all
  communication impacts emotions of self and
  others.

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• Social Behavior Mapping
• Define the behavior (expected and unexpected)
• Show how it is linked to perspective of others.
• Show how it is linked to good and bad
  consequences.

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Social Behavior Map

• See Poster..

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Step 1 Define Behaviors as belonging to a set of
behaviors.Peoples behaviors are perceived by
others according to how predictable they are.

• Normal Expected
• Weird Unexpected

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Example Behaviors for Learning

• Expected Behaviors
• Sit in seat
• Look at the teacher or the work on the desk
• Think about what the teacher is saying or wanting
  you to do

• Unexpected Behaviors
• Falling out of seat
• Looking around the class when the teacher is
  talking
• Thinking about hobbies or recess when the teacher
  is talking

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Step 2 Mapping PerspectiveAssume the child
does not perceive how he is affecting others
through his behavior.

• Teach perspective of others as part of the plan!

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Behaviors for LearningPerspective

• With expected behaviors, people feel
• happy
• calm
• pleased the class is working together

• With unexpected behaviors, people feel
• worried
• annoyed
• concerned the class is not working as a team

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Step 3 Explore Consequences

• Consequences in our environment are usually
  linked to how people FEEL about the behavior.

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Behaviors For LearningConsequences

• When I feel good about your behaviors, then
• good job
• you stay calm.
• you get a reward.

• When I dont feel good about your behaviors,
  then
• I have to bug you to get to work
• you get anxious.
• you might lose a privilege.

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A reward system should be based on the childs
motivators (areas of interest) and administered
only after the behavioral chain is explained to
the student.
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The Social Behavioral Map

• Explains how people react to each other
• Explains how consequences are linked to behavior
• Does not eliminate the need for traditional
  reward-based behavior plans, but supports them
  with more information

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Academic Programs that Benefit Our Students

• Step up to Writing stepuptowriting.com
• Framing Our Thoughts www.projectread.com
• Empower Writing www.architectsforlearning.com
• Story Grammar Marker www.storygrammarmarker.com

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The following on books of interest to todays
topic
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Books on Normal Social Development

• Martha Bronson (2000) Self-Regulation in Early
  Childhood.
• Gopnick, Meltzoff and Kuhl (1999) The Scientist
  in the Crib
• Hirsh-Pasek and Golinkoff (2003) Einstein Never
  Used Flashcards
• Marshall and Fox (2006) The Development of Social
  Engagement
• Cris Tovani (2000) I Read It But I Dont Get It.
• D. Goleman (2006) Social Intelligence

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Select Therapeutic Social Thinking Strategy
Books

• Buron and Curtis (2004) The Incredible 5 Point
  Scale.
• All books by Carol Gray www.thegraycenter.com
• Michelle Winner 4 books including Think
  Social! (curriculum) and posters
  www.socialthinking.com
• Tony Attwood (2006) The Ultimate book on Asperger
  Syndrome.
• The SCERTS Model (2006) www.scerts.com

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Enjoy Teaching Social Thinking!Michelle G
Winner, SLP

• 3550 Stevens Creek Blvd 200
• San Jose, Ca 95117
• [phone]
• www.socialthinking.com
• Conferences, Books and Treatment