| Michelle Garcia Winner, MA, CCC/SLP |
Abstract:
Michelle’s newest workshop allows parents and educators to learn more about teaching social thinking and related skills to students. We will explore how social thinking concepts develop the infrastructure for students to meet the educational standards, demonstrating how key these concepts are to reading comprehension, written expression, etc.
We will define many social thinking concepts and how to apply the “social thinking vocabulary” across the school and home day. Conference participants work in teams to develop new creative social thinking lessons to fit their teaching environment. The focus of the day will be on making the teaching realizable across a variety of environments with the focus on helping students to carry the concepts out of the treatment room and into their real lives. The social thinking lessons will be taught in the order they are being introduced in Michelle’s new book, “A Social Thinking Curriculum for School Aged Students” due out in November 2005.
Furthermore, we will explore how to work as part of an educational team. How do we share the workload when helping these kids?
This workshop is intended as a more advanced course for those who have attended my workshops called: Social Cognitive Deficits Across the School and Home Day: The ILAUGH Model of Social Cognition; The Nuts and Bolts of Starting Social Thinking Programs: Practical Strategies for Assessment and LIFE; and Thinking About You Thinking About Me, or for those who have read Michelle’s books.
Learning Objectives:
- The participants will be able to explain how social thinking concepts can be weak even in students who are not diagnosed with autism spectrum disorders.
- The participants will be able to explain how social thinking skills impact a student’s ability to work towards the educational standards.
- The participants will be able to describe how teaching social thinking and related skills can be done in the classroom during academic and social tasks.
- The participants will create 6 different lesson plans to take into their educational environment.
- The participants will be able to define the different roles of the treatment team, encouraging team members to work together while sharing the educational load.
- The participants will be able to describe four social thinking concepts that would help all students in the school, and not just those diagnosed with a social learning disability.
Biosketch:
For the last 8 years of her 23-year career, Michelle has owned a private practice in San Jose, CA called Michelle G. Winner’s Center for Social Thinking, Inc., where the needs of persons with social thinking challenges are the focus. Michelle and her team of therapists continue to pioneer functional treatment and assessment strategies to better understand this abstract form of a learning disability that typically impacts those with Asperger’s Syndrome, on the autism spectrum, with non-verbal learning disabilities and or ADHD. Her clinic serves persons from preschool to retirement.
In recognition that there is a huge range of functioning within persons with the above labels, Michelle focuses most specifically on those with near normal to way above normal verbal intelligence. Her work helps students, parents and professionals to understand how a social deficit can also impact achievement within the classroom environment. Michelle strongly encourages schools and families to work collaboratively together.
In addition to giving workshops internationally, Michelle continues to work with clients, do assessments, consult with families and schools and create materials for use by parents and teaches. Her three books and treatment video are highly regarded in the field. In May of 2002, her work was acknowledged in TIME magazine. You can learn more about Michelle’s work and philosophy on her website: www.socialthinking.com |
Referral Network 