There is a tendency to think that mature adults with social emotional learning challenges have very limited motivation or ability to improve—whether or not they have been previously diagnosed (e.g., autism spectrum level 1, personality disorders, ADHD, or brain injury). This type of thinking is inaccurate. Those individuals who adopt a growth mindset are able to continue learning social emotional information throughout their lives, as long as enough structure is provided for them through concrete teaching to detect and interpret the abstract social world and related responses. When presented with a blend of emotional support, strategies to manage anxiety paired with active discovery of new concepts, they become 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 treatment* 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:

• Experiences of adults with subtle but significant social emotional learning challenges
• Why sadness and anxiety are to be expected and accounted for in the treatment journey
• Why the process of developing social competencies requires metacognitive learning
• Social is a perception: What are some of the many factors we may perceive as relative weaknesses in persons with subtle but significant social learning challenges?
• Key factors when working with adult social learners
• How our maturing social expectations lead to harsher social judgments of others
• Examining the recurring perspective-taking loop within the process of sharing social space or interacting
• Getting vs. taking perspective and the use of popsicle sticks to build client narratives and/or help them explain problems encountered or successes experienced
• Demonstrations of how we use metacognitive learning and treatment frameworks within our methodology with mature adults
• Working with adult social learners to develop treatment goals
• Four steps of communication to establish the intention to appear “social”
• What’s it take to create a friendly face?
• What’s your role in the communicative process: information informer or social relator?
• Strategies to avoid getting stuck on negative feelings
• Helping adult social learners manage their vulnerabilities while validating their success step by step

*Treatment refers to using conceptual and strategy-based frameworks to help individuals improve their social competencies.

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 the three steps within the Social Thinking®–Social Competency Model that guide clients to produce increasingly sophisticated social responses.
2. Describe how popsicle sticks can be used to help get perspective of the individual with social emotional learning challenges.
3. Describe a tool that can help clients become increasingly aware of their daily journey experiencing both positive and negative feeling.

Agenda

• 1 hour and 20 minutes
  
  • How are mature adult clients with compelling subtle but significant social emotional learning needs perceived by many in the general public?
  • Key factors in working with mature adults using metacognitively based learning and strategies
  • Exploring how the mature social world works by examining how social emotional 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
  
  • Use of treatment frameworks to clarify how the social world works to help provide feedback on how adult social learners are working in the world
  • A strategy to facilitate being perceived as friendly by others
  • 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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