The Metamorphosis Project 2016 Learning Conference July 18‐21 Mountain Brook High School MB‐S16222 Social Thinking... Out of the Therapy Room, and into the Classroom Tuesday, July 19 8:00‐9:00 a.m. MBHS Our presentation will explore how to implement the basic social thinking concepts into the general education setting. Collaboration is key here! The presenters are a second grade classroom teacher and a Speech Language Pathologist who are dedicated to using the social thinking curriculum to improve social thinking for not only the special education population but for the general education population as well. We will use video clips, lesson plans, and plenty of examples to show others how we have made this curriculum work for our students. We believe our presentation is different because we will have the classroom teacher present on how using the social thinking model with fidelity has improved behavior and social relationships in her classroom. Our presentation will explain how this model helps the special education students generalize skills. We will show the audience how the social thinking lessons can be incorporated into a therapists already busy schedule. We will break down the lessons, show how to implement them, and provide book and game suggestions to go with each lesson. These lessons will keep EVERYONE engaged. After our initial plan is introduced, we will go into much more detail about how this program looks in our school. This is a rotating schedule where the Speech Language Pathologist spends time in "morning meetings" the first nine weeks of school. This is a time built into the school day where social relationships are fostered. The Speech‐Language Pathologist giving this presentation goes into each kindergarten through second grade classrooms a minimum of four times the first nine weeks teaching the following lessons: 1. Whole Body Listening 2. Accepted Classroom Behavior 3. Using your Social Filter 4. Being a good friend (how our behavior impacts others). Each grade is taught or reintroduced to these concepts, and the lessons are different depending on the grade level. After the first nine weeks, the Speech‐
Language Pathologist consults with the classroom teachers on how to implement more social thinking lessons into the classroom. We want to show how collaboration is imperative. We want to display how using social thinking fosters expected behavior and allows students to develop empathy. Finally we want to explore how developing these social thinking skills encourage more appropriate social behaviors that will impact these students for his/her lifetime. We want to develop the whole child and we believe Social Thinking will continue is a large piece of the pie.