Saturday, April 30
11:00 AM – 12:30 PM
Multi-Interest

Session 32

Pamela Crooke, PhD, CCC-SLP

Level of Instruction – Introductory – Turquoise I & II

Is it still enough to simply infuse and model good social “skills” in our classrooms?  After all, generations of students have mastered the social world without a specialized social (or emotional) curriculum. Interestingly, administrators, teachers and staff are reporting a spiral downward in the baseline skills of students entering into schools around the globe – both in general and special education settings. Surviving the boring moment, suppressing the blurt, and knowing how to join the group should be considered as critical for success in school as language arts and math. But we aren’t there yet.  The educational standards, when viewed with the right lens, provide a pathway for justifying targeted strategies for those students who excel in their science smarts, but struggle with social smarts. In this brief talk we will explore why it’s not enough to simply teach social rules and basic skills for some individuals with social learning issues. Instead, many of our students need a deeper reason for why we are all expected to use social skills and share physical space effectively. We will explore hands-on activities for tackling the skill, as well as the thinking. The Social Thinking® methodology is an evidence based practice that allows for exploration of the basic underpinnings of the social mind, while providing ideas for teaching common sense strategies for negotiating the ever-changing social world.  Skills needed by ALL students not only in achieving academic success, but also for success in adulthood and life in general.