Social Thinking Conference Coming to Kansas City April 18-19

by Holly F.

If you haven’t heard the term, “thinking with your eyes” you haven’t yet spent the day (or two) with Michelle Garcia Winner.  Michelle is a speech pathologist and creator of the “Social Thinking” curriculum for students with Social Thinking challenges including those with ADHD, high functioning autism, Asperger Syndrome, ADHD, PDD and nonverbal learning disorder (NLD).  Speech therapists and parents in the midwest will get a chance to experience and learn Michelle’s curriculum during a two-day core conference covering her two most popular workshops on April 18-19, 2013 at the Ritz-Charles in Kansas City.

What is “Social Thinking”?

Perhaps you have a student who doesn’t understand other’s emotions or intentions? Perhaps your student can’t predict how their actions might affect or makes others feel? If so, that student might need remediation in Social Thinking. Michelle Garcia Winner coined the term more than 15 years ago and developed the related treatment approach for improving the social and pragmatic skills of individuals with a variety of challenges. The term, according to her website, “…is what we do when we interact with people: we think about them. And how we think about people affects how we behave, which in turn affects how others respond to us, which in turn affects our own emotions.”

 

http://youtu.be/ZI7OSZdKrnE

 

Learning the program and listening to Michelle’s experience can be invaluable for improving the social communication and relationships among students in speech therapy and in the classroom. This two-day workshop includes:

 

Day 1: Thinking About You, Thinking About Me Implementing Social Thinking Concepts. Covering:

• Normal development of social skills and the social mind
• Basic treatment concepts for our “higher functioning”
• The four steps of social thinking (using clips from popular movies and TV shows to demonstrate how to help teach Social Thinking and encourage social learning)
• The Social-Thinking Social-Communication Profile

Learners will, by the end, define “social thinking” and be able to describe a set of treatment activities that align with each of the four steps.

 

Day 2: Vocabulary into the School and Home Day: A Day to Develop Team Creativity. Covering:

• Social Thinking concepts and how to apply the Social Thinking Vocabulary throughout the day
• Group work to learn how to make the information work across settings, creating one or two of their own lesson plans

Learners will by, by the end, describe how teaching Social Thinking and related skills can be done in the classroom during academic and social tasks and create a lesson plan to teach students they are part of a group.

 

Registration for the workshop is open now, and can be done via fax, website or email: workshops@socialthinking.com

Workshops begin on April 18 at:

Ritz Charles – Kansas
9000 West 137th St
Overland Park, KS

7:45 am – 8:30 am Sign In, Continental Breakfast

8:30 am – 3:30 pm Workshops

 

Don’t miss the great opportunity to see a dynamic speaker and learn a creative curriculum for addressing the unique social challenges that many students face. If you can’t make this conference, check out Michelle’s social thinking website for more great dates, including the Social Thinking Provider’s Conference. Books and other materials available on the website can help with lesson planning and implementation after the conference. For younger children, try the Superflex curriculum with a host of creative characters who help describe the challenges of Social Thinking.

 

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