Social Language
Social language is at the core of communication
Difficulties in Social Language often present as the following, the child
- Does not pick up on other people’s moods / feeling (e.g., may say the wrong thing at the wrong time)
- May not detect or respond appropriately to teasing
- Has difficulty “joining in” and maintaining positive social status in a peer group
- Doesn’t follow jokes, puns, sarcasm, metaphors.
- Takes ambiguous language seriously
- Says the wrong thing at the wrong time in the wrong tone of voice; can’t hold a conversation following normal expectations
- Tuning out to highly verbal, noisy classroom situations.
- Gets left behind in busy classrooms. Incomplete work answers. Doesn’t have the answer to the verbal questions.
- Has difficulty dealing with group pressure, embarrassment, and unexpected challenges
- Has trouble setting realistic social goals
- Has trouble evaluating personal social strength and challenges
- Doubts own abilities and prone to attribute success to luck or outside influences rather than hard work
These may include children have difficulty with:
- Executive Functioning
- Cognitive Flexibility
- Language Skills
- Emotion Regulation
- Social Skills
- Sensory/motor Difficulties
We have experience teaching concepts that help children with High Functioning Autism, Asperger’s Syndrome, Nonverbal learning disability, ADHD and general social and behaviour challenges.
Social Thinking Goals include:
- Reading between the lines
- Learning about our behavior
- Self-monitoring
- Friendships
- Being part of a group
- Understanding and interpreting emotions
- Perspective taking
These specifically address:
- The areas of deficits by explicitly teaching skills that lack
- A framework which teaches components that are required in order to think socially
- Practice through active participation in activities
- Teach perspective taking skills
- Knowing when to talk and when to listen
- Knowing when to be honest and when not to be
- Knowing how to position your body to participate effectively in conversations
- Knowing what questions may be awkward or inappropriate to ask
