There is a tendency to think that mature adults with social emotional learning differences and/or challenges have very limited motivation or lack social goals. This type of thinking is inaccurate. Those who adopt a growth mindset can continue learning social emotional information throughout their lives, as long as structure and concrete teaching is used to detect and interpret the abstract social world and related responses. When presented with a blend of emotional support and strategies to manage anxiety, they are often highly motivated to learn how the social world works as they figure out how to navigate more competently within it.

Armed with over 20 years of experience and a range of teaching frameworks and strategies developed within the metacognitively based Social Thinking® Methodology, we explore some of the many ways we can gain perspective on our clients’ very real social emotional learning needs and provide them with knowledge, tools, and strategies to help them learn, step by step, how to better meet some of their own social goals.

During this journey we explore:

• Personal experiences of adults with subtle but significant social emotional learning differences and/or challenges
• Why sadness and anxiety are routinely reported as obstacles in their lives
• Why the process of developing social competencies requires metacognitive learning
• Social is a perception: Exploring factors that impact how we all perceive one another
• Examining the recurring perspective-taking loop within the process of sharing social space or interacting
• Getting vs. taking perspective and the use of visual supports (popsicle sticks) to build client narratives
• Demonstrating of using metacognitive teaching frameworks
• Exploring the Four steps of communication
• Describing roles in the communicative process: information informer or social relator?
• Examining strategies to avoid getting stuck on negative feelings
• Managing vulnerabilities while validating their success step by step

Who Should Attend

The Social Thinking Methodology is used by a wide variety of professionals, including speech-language pathologists, special and general education teachers, social workers, counselors, clinical and school psychologists, occupational therapists, behavior specialists, and school administrators to name a few. It’s also used by family members and caregivers across settings.

Objectives

Participants will be able to:

1. Describe steps within the Social Thinking®–Social Competency Model that guide client towards increasingly sophisticated social responses.
2. Describe how visual supports (popsicle sticks) can be used to get perspective of the individual.
3. Describe a tool that can help clients become increasingly aware of their daily journey experiencing both positive and negative feelings.

Agenda

• 1 hour and 20 minutes
  
  • How do mature adult clients with compelling subtle but significant social emotional learning needs report begin perceived by others?
  • Key factors in working with mature adults using metacognitively based learning and strategies
  • Explore how the social world works by discussing how expectations change with age and how to acknowledge the recurring perspective-taking loop
  • Use of concrete manipulatives to promote narrative language and describe multiple points of view in problematic social situations
• 10-minute Break
• 1 hour and 40 minutes
  
  • Using visual teaching frameworks
  • Exploring our shifting roles as communicative partners
  • Learning to manage negative emotions rather than get stuck in a negative mindset
• 30-minute Previously Recorded Q & A

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