Download the 10-Step Visual Guide to teach this framework with fidelity.
Note: This book is also available in Spanish!

The Framework

What’s happening around us influences our thoughts and feelings, reactions, and responses. Social Behavior Mapping, a core teaching framework within the Social Thinking Methodology, is a visual template that helps users figure out the hidden social expectations based on what is happening and the people present. It also outlines a fundamental social concept we call the Social-Emotional Chain Reaction: what others do or say in a specific situation affects how we think and feel, how we think and feel impacts how we respond to that person, which ultimately impacts our own feelings – and vice versa.

We start by teaching individuals to determine the situation from their perspective (where am I + what is happening + who is present). Knowing the social situation allows one to figure out the spoken and unspoken expectations based on the people and what is happening. Over time, we gradually extend the learning to teach the full Social-Emotional Chain Reaction. Social Behavior Mapping makes the complicated process of how we all affect one another’s thoughts, feelings, and actions visual and concrete. SBM also helps to stimulate discussions about social responsibility to one another.

The Book

The book Social Behavior Mapping has been around for over a decade, but we recently updated the introduction with our current thinking. The latest edition includes:

• 50+ completed Social Behavior Maps (SBMs) for practical everyday situations that happen at school, home, and in the community (these compose the majority of the book and are unchanged in this edition). These maps are examples for you to reference when helping your student or client fill out a blank map, but the expectation is that these templates will inspire you to explore the social learner’s personal social goals so that instruction is relevant and meaningful to them.
• 1 blank map template that can be photocopied and used again and again.
• A description of the Social Emotional Chain Reaction (SECR), the foundational concept taught in Social Behavior Mapping.
• The 10-Step Visual fidelity and teaching guide.

10 Steps to Teaching Social Behavior Mapping with Fidelity

Sit back and learn best practices for teaching Social Behavior Mapping from Dr. Pamela Crooke in this 30-minute video. Follow along with the 10-Step Visual Guide to teach this framework with fidelity. If you're interested in the dry-erase poster used in the video, explore it here.