How to grow perspective taking skills…

Working on perspective taking skills and point of view can be tricky for my students.  It is not an easy social language concept to put yourself in someone else’s shoes and think about how they might feel.  This is a skill that is embedded in both the academic curriculum as well as in real life social interactions!  With Spring in full swing here, I printed these fabulous flower templates from Tracee Orman’s template packet that I have, but you could freestyle your own flower templates too.  My social thinking groups came up with different problem scenarios and wrote one in the middle of each template.  Next, we decided who the people are that would be part of the scenario and write them on the back of the petals (see picture below).  After that, we flipped the flower back to the front and on each petal, wrote what the person might be thinking or feeling based on their point of view in the scenario.

You can also work this social activity backwards and write the perspectives on the petals and have the students come up with a matching problem.  You could also have them  identify who might be thinking or feeling the thoughts written on each petal by making smart guesses (inferencing).  When your flowers are finished, this would make a great Spring themed social thinking bulletin board too!

How do you work on perspective taking skills?  Share here!

Egg-cellent Social Language Ideas!

picture by Eric Britz

We are in the midst of Spring break (yay) and Easter is right around the corner.  I have been seeing lots of posts about targeting articulation and language using plastic eggs, so I thought I would add my two cents on ways to work on social language!   The colored eggs are perfect to work on Zones of Regulation ® with my students too.  The red(pink), yellow, blue and green eggs align to each zone, but just as there are no wrong emotions, there are no wrong colors either, so if you have a few orange, teal or white eggs, no worries. Ask your students to come up with what emotions they think might align with these colors. Don’t be surprised at how creative and insightful they can be!

We also prep by reviewing books or videos as a refresher to what each zone might look like.   I made an interactive book, Calm Down, that I use with my younger elementary friends as part of this prep.  We can then brainstorm ways to calm ourselves down when we are in the red, yellow or even blue zones.   My students can dictate or write down these strategies on pieces of paper and put them into the corresponding colored eggs.

 

You can put different strategies in any colored egg and have your students choose one, read the strategy and then match it to the zone.   For your students who are comfortable and accurate with these concepts, you can extend this into a “good egg/bad egg” game and have the kids decide if the strategy in the egg is a good solution/expected one or an unexpected strategy.  For example, if you are in a red zone (angry, furious, out of control) and the strategy says to go take a walk and calm down, that’s an expected solution. However, if the strategy says to scream in someone’s face until you feel better, that’s definitely an unexpected solution.  How fun would it be to put the “good eggs” in a basket, and the “bad eggs” in a little trashcan? You can further tease out the social language concepts of consequences and how other people might feel or think about us when we have unexpected reactions.

Have you seen those cute emoji eggs in the dollar stores?  Me too, but if you can’t find them, just make your own with a sharpie!  You can draw different mouths on both sides of the bottom of the shell, different eye and eyebrows on the top of the shell and rotate to get more choices per egg.  You can give your students the chance to draw their own egg emojis and have their peers guess which emotion they drew and identify the clues they used to make those guesses.  Hello non-verbals!  If you give them an emotion, ask your students to identify scenarios that might elicit that emotion (write or draw a picture) and stuff them in the eggs.

You can also fill the eggs with tiny objects or picture clues that all relate to one concept or idea.  For example, a tiny cake, a candle, a ribbon, a deflated balloon=birthday party! This is a fun way to work on gestalt thinking and help our kids connect the details to the big picture ideas.  The quicker or the less clues they need to make a smart guess, the more “points” they earn (it doesn’t have to be a tangible reinforcer, my kids are competitive enough to just want to beat the previous number of guesses)!  I don’t deduct points for a wrong guess, but we do stop and talk about what made them make that guess, and it gives me insight to where the breakdown might be.

Lastly, you can use the eggs and a basket to work on conversation skills.  Each person gets two of the same colored eggs (one gets blue, one gets green, etc..).  I write a CC (connecting comment) or a ? (ask a question) on all of the eggs indicating what the student needs to add, and I tape a picture of the topic on a basket.  We go around the table until all the eggs are in the basket and we have maintained the topic so that everyone has asked a related question and made a connecting comment.  I’ll play too and throw in an off topic comment or ask a totally unrelated question to see if my kids catch me!

I hope you found some egg-cellent ideas to work on social language concepts with your students this Spring!  What are some other ways you use plastic eggs?

Escape Speech Room Boredom

I love a good puzzle and a challenge, so naturally my curiosity was piqued when my son came home after a Breakout adventure with his friends.  These adventures are themed rooms where you are “locked” in, such as a jewel heist or the CDC during a Zombie outbreak, until you solve several clues. They are elaborate and creative fun and the group has to work together, or nobody gets out alive  wins the challenge. After thinking about how cool this idea is, my second thought was why not try this in speech?

One of the skills that I find I need to address over and over again with my social language students is the concept of working in a group successfully with peers.  There are so many social concepts to scaffold prior to working in a group such as sharing personal space, whole body or active listening skills, turn taking, maintaining a topic,  perspective taking, emotional regulation, executive function and more!  However, we are requiring even our Pre-K kiddos to master this skill pretty quickly in the school setting.  These skills are also embedded in the common core under the Speaking and Listening strands  Working cooperatively is a life skill and if our kids can’t learn to develop these skills in their early years, how do you think college, jobs or even living in a community is going to go?  Not well.

Out of this skill set, my Connect the Dots: Cornucopia Caper group work product was born! I wanted a fun way to work on a tough social skill with my upper grade students.  It’s always good to shake it up a bit to avoid boredom, right?

I created a print and go packet of activities perfect for November social groups with seven puzzles and challenges to solve.  I set up a secret mission for my students and they must work together to solve all of the challenges (logic and physical) to “escape” the speech room.   I have included templates for group rules and a rubric for data collection on this skill set.

Setting up for success

There are “How to Use” instructions included as well as mission descriptions for your students and an instruction guide/answer key for the SLP in each section.

7 challenges to solve

Your students need to work together to solve each puzzle,  like this Pilgrim’s Peril physical challenge  (the construction paper is the Mayflower and the floor is the ocean, all must share space to stay on the boat for thirty seconds).

Pilgrim’s Peril

The missions can be completed in one or even over two sessions, if the students work together.  There are two HELP cards included for the SLP to intervene if they cannot figure out a puzzle or are having difficulty working together.

Cipher codes to break

Puzzle it out together

The last mission is the “key” to escape and they receive a mission accomplished clue as the meet each challenge. These use these clues to solve a riddle.  I also tell my students, because they tend to be very literal thinkers, that when I tell them they are working to find the key to escape the speech room, this doesn’t mean we are actually locked in the room.  This reduces anxiety just a bit before we start the activity.  If the idea of a timer frustrates your students within the challenges, you don’t have to use it, it’s just a suggestion to move the activity along.  The goal is successfully working together, not beating the clock.

I hope this has given you a fun idea to try when practicing the social concepts of working successfully in a group !  This product is the first in a series, so check back soon for Holiday Hijinks, the next in my Connect the Dots series!

How do you work on the social concept of working in a group successfully with your students?

 

 

 

Social language and Literacy (part 1)

I love to read.  My  perfect day would be spending it in a library filled to the 3rd floor with real books, comfy reading nooks, unlimited coffee, tea, and hot cocoa,  and with a librarian that looks like George Clooney…ahhh.  So it is no surprise that I use books often in speech therapy, particularly social language therapy with my kids.  There are many options for younger students, such as picture books ,Cynthia Rylant’s Henry and Mudge series,  or any of Peter Brown’s books  (You Will Be My Friend is one of my favorites) that align beautifully with social language concepts!  I have a Pinterest board for stories HERE that you are welcome to peruse.

The social language concepts of prediction, inferencing, point of view and emotions are embedded in stories.  What does this look like?  Let’s start with the covers.  Having our students make what Michelle Garcia Winner refers to as a “smart guess” based on a title or picture, is the first step.   Helping our kids look for clues in pictures or words, “think with their eyes”, and then making a leap to guess what the story might be about is hard work for those with social language impairments.  Don’t gloss over this step, remember our students are not incidental learners!

The next step is to read through the story together, stopping to make a guess about what might happen next.  Prediction and listening comprehension go hand in hand.  If there is novel vocabulary, pause the story and talk about what they think those words might mean (hello context clues!).  You might ask your older students keep a personal dictionary, like this freebie from Natalie Snyders,  as we read to help them in discussions along the way. Your younger students can use a composition notebook to journal pictures of story vocabulary if they are not yet strong writers.

I laminate a large heart, thought bubble and word bubble to use with our story too.  We use these templates to talk about what a character might be thinking, feeling or saying in the story. With my older elementary students, you can compare and contrast character’s emotions and expand the conversation into point of view. Venn Diagrams are great for this!  We talk about identifying the problem and possible solutions in the story (there might be more than one), and can extend this skill to explaining which one would be the best solution.These skills are embedded in the Common Core curriculum from K on up, by the way (take a look at the ELA standards for literacy).

With my younger students, we draw pictures to sequence and re-tell the story.  They love to act out the stories and what a great opportunity this is for learning to work in a group, negotiating, sharing personal space and turn taking!  We also brainstorm after we read the story, and talk about what expected or unexpected situations occurred.  Did the characters act in predictable or unpredictable ways in response to these situations?  This provides an opportunity to talk about expected/unexpected behaviors and help our students connect their personal experiences to the characters.

This is not a one time lesson.  I use stories over several sessions, and can extend the social language concepts over a month of speech.  These are great lessons to use during push in groups or whole class lessons as well. Pre-teaching these skills before you take them into a whole class will give your students the vocabulary and practice to participate in whole group instruction more successfully too.  I created a packet of ten templates that you can use with any story to work on these concepts HERE in my TPT store.

What stories or author’s do you love to use in therapy?  Share here!

Puppies, Prediction and Cars…

I am a dog lover, so when puppy commercials come on TV, I get drawn in immediately. Subaru has a series of car commercials airing now that just suck me in. every. single. time.  They feature a family of Golden Retrievers (The Barkleys!) and their adventures in driving. There are no words in the commercials (duh, they are dogs) BUT they convey a message in each one very clearly. For my students with social language impairments, too much language muddies the processing waters, so these are perfect!  I have downloaded the series onto my social language Youtube channel playlists HERE .

Beyond the complete cuteness overload, they are fabulous tools to work on the social language concepts of predicting and inferencing for my students!  The eight commercials convey social scenarios (for example: the mom getting her hair done) and are great to use to identify emotions, prediction, point of view and humor, all in about thirty seconds. Don’t forget about expected and unexpected concepts too (a puppy in a car seat-whaaaat?). These would be great to use with Playposit (you can read my blog post on how to create your own therapy activity by embedding questions into video clips HERE ).

Do you use commercials to teach inferences or other social language concepts?  I love using Dorito’s Super Bowl ads  and kid’s movie previews!  Please share your favorites here!

Theory of Mind and Cognition

My metacognitive skills have been getting quite a work out lately. Thinking about thinking is exhausting, but it’s one of the many things I find amazing about our brains!  These past few weeks have been full of opportunities to talk about Theory of Mind with a variety of my favorite SLPs. If you haven’t downloaded this FREE ToM assessment, click HERE (you’ll thank me later)!   We have been chatting about how our kids with language impairments, ASD, mild cognitive impairments and Down Syndrome perceive sarcasm, tone of voice, perspective taking and Theory of Mind tasks differently.  I started googling to see what research is out there, particularly in regard to children with DS.

I came across a few articles (including THIS one) that speaks to beginning research on Theory of Mind in kids with mild cognitive impairments vs. children with Down Syndrome, functioning in the same cognitive range.  The preliminary findings suggest there is a difference in perception, and that while both groups have the desire for social engagement, children with DS have a more difficult time taking on another person’s perspective and switching their behavior because of it.

I see four very verbal boys with DS and feel that this may be a piece to some of the social behaviors they struggle with.  They understand that sometimes their choices are not making others happy, but have a hard time changing their behavior to affect others in a positive way.  They get stuck and often it’s written off as ‘stubbornness’ that people assume is part of DS, but I suspect there might be more to it than that.

I use a LOT of visuals and activities that center around emotions and problem solving strategies in our therapy sessions.  Giving language to feelings helps keep my boys from shutting down as often and gives them the tools to talk about what happened (after the event, not in the moment).  That’s the first step.  I then try to get them to connect other people’s feelings, what others might be thinking and how what we say/do can change that.  This is a BIG cognitive jump and isn’t going to happen in a few sessions, it’s an ongoing goal.  I try to follow a visual template when we talk through an event, like this one:

*If it’s too much visual information on one page for your student,  fold it in half or cut the steps apart to sequence one at a time.

I also printed out these cute clip art emotions I bought from Whimsy Clips to use when working on problem solving, emotion identification and Theory of Mind activities. You can find them HERE or use actual pictures of your students.  A visual representation of someone physically leaving a social scene can help our kids connect the idea that when everyone doesn’t have the same information, you may have an incorrect perception based on what you do know.  I cut out the people and glue them to upside down solo cups to make them moveable on a table, but you could put Velcro buttons and use a flannel board, magnetic tape to use on a white board or craft sticks to make a moveable puppet show.  As low tech as these are, you can use them in a million ways in therapy!

Do you work on ToM and social language with your students that are not on the autism spectrum?  Share your thoughts here.

Off to see the Wizard…

It’s spring break here (finally!) and even better,  it actually feels like spring too. Harry Potter is in my near future ( yes, my geek flag is flying proudly on this one) and I couldn’t be more excited!  Before we head off to see the wizard, I wanted to share a great idea from one of my friends at school.   She took the problem/solution page I created and blew it up on a poster maker and hung it inside her classroom door.  It looks like this:

 

She taught the parts of the process:

 identify the problem,
figure out who can help you
what can you do on your own?
what’s the size of the problem 
the solution you decided on  
This version also includes a question to ask, “do I know what to do next time?” and
a feeling chart before and after the problem/solution was identified.

But the best part?   The students now manage their issues on their own or together!!   They lead each other to the poster and through the process (particularly the size of the problem) successfully.  The teacher is now a teacher and not a referee (although she will step in if needed) and the daily drama has been dramatically reduced. Yay!!  The goal is for the kids to internalize this thought process and be able to take it with them through life.  Awesome job Ms. Burns!!

No big deal or is it?

*graphic courtesy of  www.mycutegraphics.com

My task this week has been to develop a problem solution page for students with social language impairments. As I tried to boil down what was necessary and what was just clutter, an image began to form in my mind. What is it that we want to help our kids learn when they are going from crisis to melt down throughout the day? This cycle exhausts parents, teachers and the little (and not so little) people involved, leaving everyone tired, frustrated and a bit cranky. If we are constantly in fight or flight mode, we aren’t really available for learning anything new.

I thought back to the days of when one of my children was caught in this cycle. I couldn’t reason with him in the moment (tried, failed, learned), but as I started to see patterns in his behaviors, I knew I could start a conversation prior to or well after an event. While it didn’t cure the emotional outbursts, being able to identify what a problem is or isn’t was a place to start. Then we figured out who can help me with a problem. The ultimate answer to this question is the child, but this takes a lot of practice to have that awareness when the going gets tough. Next, we figured out what I can do (or what I can control). This is hard work! And the last part, which isn’t really the last part, is figuring out a solution.

To this practical experience, I added a visual thermometer to help kids decide if the problem is BIG, medium or small. It was also important to add some emotional language to talk about how the child feels, both before and after a problem. Giving language to feelings is a powerful tool for all of us! Is it going to be like magic pixie dust and work the first time? Nope. But to quote the wonderful Dory, “Just keep swimming.” Repetition is our friend!

Click here for the  link to my problem/solution forms on TPT

Now you don’t have to use my format, get creative and make something that works for you!!  Beyond using these for individual students, here are some other suggestions:

• making a problem/solution cookbook for a classroom to collaborate on problem solving/solutions with their peers. It helps to know that everyone has problems they struggle with and sharing this information might spark some great solutions for everyone!
• You can also connect the idea of problem solving to the world around us. An example would be to use it for Martin Luther King Jr. Day next week to talk about what problems he experienced and what his solutions were.
• You can also extend this form to talk about characters in literature and how they handled problems/solutions (think CORE!!).