Subtle social struggles can be just as significant and frustrating for the social learner. Our clients, students, and patients remind us that relentless academic demands and the push for higher achievement can hamper their own personal social growth and mental health. In this course, we examine the more sophisticated social learner and how to use practical visual tools and supports to help them meet their own social goals. The emphasis of teaching is to deepen social interpretation and produce more nuanced social responses. We will describe concrete tools to foster the development of perspective taking, executive functioning, and social emotional self-management with the backdrop of protecting mental health along the way.

Students, clients, and patients who report or are observed to struggle with self-regulation, social anxiety, and depression (Neurodivergent and Neurotypcial) can be characterized as Nuance-Challenged Social Communicators. Individuals in this group may represent a range of diagnoses such as ADHD, autism (levels 1 and 2), PDD-NOS, ODD, OCD, NVLD, social anxiety, perfectionism, twice exceptional—or may have no diagnosis. This course is part two in a two-part series and will take a deeper look at how to use practical visual tools and supports to deepen social interpretation and produce more nuanced social responses that incorporate perspective taking, executive functioning, managing anxiety, etc. We will also explore teaching and support strategies to help social learners meet their own social goals as well as tips to motivate group or session participation.

Other content includes:

• Explaining how to promote emotional self-regulation using an emotion/emoticon scale
• Describing the importance of knowing that emotional expression is expected to shift with age
• Using a visual teaching support to break down the complexity of friendships (Friendship Pyramid)
• Breaking down the spirals of anxiety related to social competencies
• Teaching social awareness and expectations of others and situations
• Using a digital strategy to teach about nonverbal body language and facial expressions
• Making abstract concepts about the social world concrete using core Social Thinking Vocabulary
• Exploring the role of spontaneous theory of mind and executive functions
• Providing several practical examples of cognitive-based strategies such as the 4 Steps of Face-to-Face Communication
• Describing the meaning of “emotions are contagious”

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.

This series will explore how to work alongside students, clients, and patients who have academic and language strengths relative to their executive functions and social nuances struggles. These individuals commonly have a diagnosis of ADHD, autism level 1, OCD, NVLD, social anxiety, twice exceptional and other learning differences—or may have no diagnosis at all. Teachers and parents describe these learners as struggling with organization (executive functioning), emotion management (self-regulation), and mental health (social anxiety, and depression). We describe this group as Nuance-Challenged Social Communicators (NCSC). Nuance-based social learners tend to have subtle but significant differences and/or challenges and are the most likely to be bullied by peers and adults.

We will describe the characteristics and social emotional learning needs of this style of learner starting at four years old, across childhood, and throughout adulthood. We will explore sophisticated ideas that foster the development of an individual’s perspective taking, executive functioning, and social emotional self-management by helping the individual to meet their own personal social goals.

More specifically we will examine different aspects of emotional awareness of self and others, flexible thinking, social problem solving, and self-advocacy while guiding the audience through different assessment and teaching ideas.

These two courses also include:

• Examples of cognitive flexibility and its relationship to dysregulation
• How social problem solving and emotional expression are linked
• Strategies to promote emotional self-regulation
• Learning about one’s own strengths and relative differences and/or challenges
• Exploring social anxiety and some related teaching ideas
• Utilizing the Friendship Pyramid to explore specific strategies to teach more sophisticated greetings, and development of acquaintance-based relationships and situational friendships
• Using the Four Steps of Communication to teach physical presence
• Helping students track their own learning by tracking the evolution of their own social operating systems

Objectives

Participants will be able to:

1. Discuss how to promote emotional self-regulation using an emotion/emoticon scale and how emotional expression is expected to shift with age
2. Describe how to use visual supports (friendship pyramid, spirals of social, etc.) teach social awareness and expectations of others and situations.
3. Explain how the camera in a social learner’s cell phone can be used for teaching about their own nonverbal body language and facial expressions.

Agenda

• 1 hour
  • Making abstract social world concrete via: Core Social Thinking Vocabulary
  • Spontaneous theory of mind, executive functions, and practical examples of cognitive based strategies
• 1 hour 15 mins
  • Visual strategies: Spiral of Social and Friendship pyramid
  • 4 steps of face-to-face communication, emotions are contagious

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