Tara Grove
December 14, 2011
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Michelle entered into a private practice and eventually her
clinical services continued to evolve and expand into, “Michelle
Garcia Winner’s Center for Social Thinking, Inc.”
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Here she saw over 250 children for therapy sessions. Due to being
in high demand, she soon had to higher other therapists and
educational professionals and train them in the art and science of
teaching social thinking.
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Simultaneously she began teaching and speaking internationally as
well as self-publishing her own books
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A pioneer and visionary in her field, her work is being applied not
only to persons with autism and related disabilities, but also more
broadly to the students in mainstream classrooms and to adults in
vocational and professional settings in the US and abroad.
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Her goal is to raise awareness among administrators , educators,
and parents about the critical role that social thinking and social
skill play in every student’s life, not only in academic success, but
also for success in adulthood and life in general.
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Social thinking develops from birth, much like walking; it is
intuitively “hard wired” into most people to work at learning how
the social world works.
A milestone of infancy is called “joint attention.” This occurs
when babies naturally learn to look at people’s eyes and follow
what they are looking at to figure out what they are thinking
about. Communication usually develops rapidly once this
milestone is reached. Also evolving from this core skill of joint
attention are play skills, including cooperation, sharing an
imagination and working as part of a group.
Being able to play effectively with peers in preschool provides
children with a skill base necessary to sit and learn in a
classroom.
Students with developmental delays in social thinking do not
intuitively learn social information the way neurotypical children
do. Instead, they have to be cognitively taught how to think
socially and understand the use of related social skills.
Due to this conclusion, the systems of “social thinking and
related social skills was pioneered by Michelle Garcia Winner.
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Social thinking is what we do when we interact with people: we
think about them. And how we think about people affects how
we behave toward them, which in turn affects how others
respond to us, which in turn affects our own emotions.
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Whether we are with friends, sending an email, in a classroom or
at the grocery store, we take in the thoughts, emotions and
intentions of those around us.
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But for many individuals, this process does not come naturally.
And this often has nothing to do with academic intelligence. In
fact, many people can score high on IQ and standardized tests,
yet do not intuitively process social information and therefore do
not find much reward in engaging in social communication and
activities.
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Social Thinking strategies teach individuals:
How their own social minds work - why they and others
react and respond the way they do;
How their behaviors affects those around them;
And from this, how behaviors are affecting their own
emotions, responses to and relationships with others across
different social contexts.
For individuals being treated, the objectives of these
strategies include the ability to:
Recognize the different levels of their own and others’
social minds;
Navigate their behaviors for more rewarding social
outcomes, which include considering how others perceive
and respond to these behaviors;
Learn to adapt to the people and situations around them,
across contexts, from formal (classroom, workplace, etc.)
to casual settings (hanging out, recess, etc.).
Asperger Syndrome (AS) is primarily a deficit of social
cognition and social communication, recognizing that "social" means
the ability to adapt to people in differing circumstances and not
just those related to social interaction or social fun.
However, one of the more obvious symptoms of persons
with AS is their weakness in the development of social pragmatic
skills that make for strained social relations within their peer group
or when needing to work collaboratively in a group.
Bottom line……. they just don't "get it" in complex social
environments.
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Myth:
People perceive that the
primary treatment approach for
people with AS is to teach them
social skills within a social skills
group with neurotypical peers
serving as role models.
Fact:
While this approach allows for
integration with a range of
people, persons with AS and
those with related social
learning challenges truly need a
much fuller treatment
approach, one that explores
social cognitive/communicative
skills across a range of
functions.
They need to learn thinking
that supports the skills
required for interpreting and
producing creative expression
through reading, writing and
talking, as well as
communication skills for
personal problem solving.
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We “think with our eyes” to figure out other people’s thoughts,
intentions, emotions, plans, etc.
Our thoughts and emotions are strongly connected. How we
think affects how we feel, how we behave affects how others
think and feel. If “your friends are people who make you feel
good about you over time,” then you must learn how to make
friends and how to make other people feel good using your
actions and your language.
We think about people all the time, even when we have no
plans to interact with them. We adjust our own behavior based
on what we think the people around us are thinking. (This is
how we drive our cars!).
As part of our humanity, each of us is on a daily quest to avoid
each other’s “weird thoughts.” We constantly consider people
around us and adjust our behavior to help people have “normal
thoughts about us.”
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Most of the core social thinking lessons operate BELOW the
level of cultures, meaning that all people engage in these
thoughts and social behavioral adjustments.
How we adapt our behavior changes as we age and are in
different situations and cultures. The nuance and
sophistication of our behaviors is constantly evolving.
Social thinking is something all of us do every day, all day,
even when we are alone in our homes. To understand a TV drama
or sitcom one has to think about the character’s emotions,
thoughts, reactions, etc. Even reading novels requires social
thinking.
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Social thinking, therefore, plays into our academic world,
requiring us to think about the motives and intentions of
people we read about in literature and history.
Social thinking affects us in adulthood. To hold a job, most of
us have to adapt our own social behavior based on the
perceived thoughts of the people we work and live with.
Social thinking is abstract and difficult to discuss since it is
something we usually learn intuitively. Michelle has
developed social thinking “scaffolds.” These frameworks help
to describe some of the core ideas upon which social thinking
lessons are constructed:
 Four steps of perspective talking
 Four steps of communication
 The ILAUGH model; which illustrates the social-academic
connection.
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Students with social thinking challenges often have
mental health problems, including depression, anxiety,
Obsessive Compulsive Disorder (OCD) and other
diagnoses.
 Treatment for social cognitive deficits must also focus
on managing anxiety and depression and
understanding how social thinking is linked to these.
 Cognitive behavioral teaching strategies, such as
social behavior mapping, inform as to how people
think about each other.
By learning how other people think, our students can
understand other people’s points of view and why
specific social and communication skills are required in
different situations.
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people learn how to think
differently and flexibly they can think
anywhere. This is different from just
teaching a social skill. Individuals taught
only the “skill” often will only perform
that skill in the environment in which
they learned it.
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Michelle Garcia Winner developed the I LAUGH Framework of social
cognition to explain the multiple skills and concepts that we must
process and react to in order to succeed at social interaction and
personal problem solving.
Dependent upon implementation of the I LAUGH Model:
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Reading comprehension of literature (analyzing the protagonists
and antagonists in a story, predicting their future actions,
interpreting their meaning, etc.)
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Written and oral expression (writing to support main ideas,
summarizing, being sensitive to one’s audience, taking the
perspective of the teacher to better understand expectations, etc.)
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Self and project organization (time management, planning and
preparations, managing homework assignments, etc.)
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Playground play/hanging out
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Conversation
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Participating as a member of the classroom or a group
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The I LAUGH model approach takes six aspects of higher order
thinking and explores how each aspect contributes
communicative effectiveness and personal problem solving.
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I = Initiation of Communication (Kranz & McClannahan,
1993)
Initiation of communication is the ability to use one’s language
skills to establish social relations and to seek assistance or
information from others
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L= Listening With Eyes and Brain (Mundy & Crowson, 1997;
Kunce and Mesibov, 1998; Jones & Carr, 2004)
Many persons with autism spectrum disorders and other social
cognitive deficits have difficulty with auditory comprehension.
From a social perspective, listening requires more than just
taking in auditory information. It also requires the person to
integrate information seen with that which is heard, to
understand the full meaning of the message being conveyed, or
to make an educated guess about what is being said when one
cannot clearly understand it.
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A = Abstract and Inferential Language/Communication
(Minshew, Goldstein, Muenz & Payton, 1992)
Most of the language we use is not intended for literal
interpretation. Our communication is full of idioms, metaphors,
sarcasm and inferences. Each generation of teens creates its own
slang; kids who follow along are in; those who don’t, are often
out.
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U = Understanding Perspective (Baron-Cohen & Jolliffe,
1997; Baron-Cohen, 2000)
To understand the differing perspectives of others requires that
one’s Theory of Mind (perspective taking) work quickly and
efficiently. Perspective taking is not one thing, it represents
many things happening all at once meaning it is a synergistic and
dynamic process. (I.e. Thoughts, Emotions, Physically coded
intentions, Language based intentions, Prior knowledge and
experiences, Belief systems, Personality)
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G=Gestalt Processing/Getting the Big Picture (Shah &
Frith, 1993; Fullerton, Stratton, Coyne & Gray, 1996)
Information is conveyed through concepts, not just facts. When
involved in conversation, the participants intuitively determine
the underlying concept being discussed. When reading a book of
literature, the purpose is to follow the overall meaning (concept)
rather than just collect a series of facts.
H= Humor and Human Relatedness (Gutstein, 2001;
Greenspan, & Wieder, 2003; Prizant, Wetherby, Rubin, Laurent &
Rydell, 2006)
Most individuals with autism spectrum disorders, Asperger’s and
similar challenges have good senses of humor, but they feel
anxious since they miss many of the subtle cues that help them
understand how to participate successfully with others. It is
important for educators and parents to work compassionately and
with humor to help minimize the anxiety these children are
experiencing.
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To better understand how we take perspective in a group
environment, Winner developed the “The Four Steps of
Perspective Taking” to the process through which we share space
effectively. Imagine you are in an elevator while you think of
each of these four steps:
1. When you come into my space, I have a little thought about you and
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2. I wonder “why are you near me?,” “what is your purpose for being
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3. Since we have thoughts about each other, I wonder what you are
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4. To keep you thinking about me the way I would like you to think
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you have a little thought about me.
near me?” “Is it because you are just sharing the space, do you intend to
talk to me or do you intend to harm me?” I have to consider all these
things in order to keep me safe around people as well as to predict what
will happen next.
thinking about me.
about me, I monitor and possibly modify my behavior to keep you
thinking about me the way I want you to think about me.
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The “thoughts” we are having about each other are often tiny
thoughts that are almost at the unconscious level. However, it is
the always-present, very active thought processes of those
around us, when we are neurotypical, that allow us to constantly
regulate our behavior to make sure that most people have very
“normal” thoughts about us most of the time.
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These Four Steps of Perspective Taking are what is expected
every student does across the school day while sitting in a
classroom, on the playground or just hanging out.
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The four steps of communication involves social emotional
thought, the nuance of physical presence and visually processing
non-verbal cues in addition to language use and interpretation.
The reality is that most speech and language social treatment
programs teach students to focus almost exclusively on their
social language production, called ‘conversational skills' when
teaching students how to be more appropriately social.
Step 1: Thinking about others and what they are thinking about us: We
think about who we are near or who we want to talk to. If we are going
to talk to someone, we consider what information we may already know
about this person or what information we can infer based on the
situation.
Step 2: Establishing a physical presence: When we desire to
communicate or ‘hang out' with another, or just need to communicate
with another person, we have to establish a physical presence to show
the person that we desire their company or intend to speak to them. The
reverse is also true, if we want to avoid another person, we actively
avoid establishing a physical presence.
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Step 3: "Thinking with our eyes” As we are thinking about the
person we seek to communicate with and we establish physical presence,
our intention to communicate is only explicitly clear once we have
established eye contact with the other person. Furthermore, our eyes
help to interpret emotional responses and track shifts in thinking of our
communicative partner (e.g., joint attention) while also demonstrating
social expectation that we are listening to our communicative partner.
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Step 4: Using language to relate to others: While language is
central to all socially-based communication, it is often ineffective if the
first three steps are not in place. For example, if a student comes up to
tell you all the details about the Titanic and talks endlessly without
considering what you are thinking and approaches with awkward physical
presence and without establishing eye contact, the listener cannot help
but experience a weird thought about the communicator even if his
information may be interesting to listen to
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Social thinking is a synergistic, dynamic process, the outcome of
which affects related social behavioral responses. Linear
standardized tests cannot reveal the complexity of social thought
required to think through and engage in these complex tasks such
as having conversations, actively sustaining group play,
participating in classroom discussions and working as part of a
group in the classroom.
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To allow other methods for exploring the depth and complexity of
social thinking and related social skills, Michelle Garcia Winner
created a series of informal social cognitive/social pragmatic
assessment tasks. These tasks appear to be more qualitative in
how they capture students social processing and related
responses. See www.socialthinking.com for possible social
cognitive assessments.
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http://www.socialthinking.com/home
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http://www.corsefoundation.org/documents/SocialThinkingVoca
bularyandWebsiteOrderFormtoPurchaseMaterials.pdf