Social Thinking Concepts and Vocabulary for Early Learners Developmental Ages 4-7

Teaching Social Thinking concepts & vocabulary to children ages 4-7

Alarming statistics reveal that nationwide at least 250 children are suspended or expelled from preschool daily, three times the rate of expulsions in K-12 grades. Many of these children are melting down and labeled as disruptive, aggressive, or “behavior problems” because they don’t understand what’s going on around them or may not have awareness or understanding of how to play, learn, and work in groups with their peers.

Throughout our 25+ years of research, practice, and teaching, we’ve found that when children as young as four years old learn the mechanics of why and how we use our social minds to foster social and emotional awareness and self-monitoring—it helps them develop deeper insights and foundational social competencies that follow them throughout their lives. That’s why classrooms, schools, and hundreds of thousands of interventionists around the world are teaching our award-winning curricula and resources to their early learners.

The Social Thinking Methodology provides specific vocabulary and developmentally based curricula, lessons, strategies, and activities—created especially for children ages 4-7. Components of the Social Thinking Methodology unpack how the social world works and why for interventionists (educators, therapists, parents & caregivers) and their early social learners, so that all children can have access to understanding and learning how to navigate the social world and move toward improvement in their own social goals.

Explore our broad range of products, online courses, and free resources for teaching practical concepts, vocabulary, and strategies to help guide social learners in some of the most significant learning of their lives.

How to Ask for Help

Why It’s Hard & How We Can Help

Watch for Free

Browse all Free Webinars

Award-Winning We Thinkers! Series

We Thinkers! Volume 1 Social Explorers Deluxe Package

We Thinkers! Volume 1 Social Explorers Deluxe Package Ages: 4-7 Our premier social emotional learning package for children ages 4–7 helps develop foundational social competencies. The multiple award-winning We Thinkers! Volume 1: Social Explorers includes five storybooks and a thorough unit-by-unit curriculum. The storybooks correspond to and support detailed lessons for teaching five evidence-based concepts that establish a common social vocabulary for early learners and are fundamental to all social experiences. These practice-proven materials are designed for both neurotypically developing children and those with social learning differences and/or challenges to strengthen perspective taking, self-awareness, and so much more. The We Thinkers! series is loved around the world by kids, parents, and professionals alike! Learn more

$124.99

We Thinkers! Volume 2 Social Problem Solvers Deluxe Package

We Thinkers! Volume 2 Social Problem Solvers Deluxe Package Ages: 4-7 Building on the core social concepts and vocabulary introduced in We Thinkers! Volume 1: Social Explorers, multiple award-winning Volume 2 provides the structure, curriculum, storybooks, and support materials to teach executive functioning and social problem solving to neurotypical children ages 4–7 in a classroom setting, as well as to Neurodivergent students who might have social emotional learning differences and/or challenges. Includes our groundbreaking Group Collaboration, Play and Problem Solving (GPS) Scale, observation and scoring tools, and related differentiated play activities. Five storybooks introduce five Social Thinking® Vocabulary and concepts: hidden rules and expected and unexpected behavior, smart guess, flexible and stuck thinking, size of the problem, and sharing an imagination. Use only after Volume 1! Learn more

$179.99

We Thinkers! All-In-One Bundle

We Thinkers! All-In-One Bundle Ages: 4-7 Now for the first time in one great-value bundle! Multiple award-winning We Thinkers! is our premier social emotional learning series for helping social learners ages 4–7 develop foundational social competencies. These practice-proven, evidence-based materials are designed for both neurotypically developing children and those with social learning differences and/or challenges to strengthen social perspective taking, self-awareness, executive functioning, social problem solving, and so much more. Learn more

$274.99 $304.98

Foster Social Emotional Engagement & Build Social Thinking Vocabulary

You Are a Social Detective! Explaining Social Thinking to Kids, 2nd Edition (Storybook)

You Are a Social Detective! Explaining Social Thinking to Kids, 2nd Edition (Storybook) Ages: 5-10+ A multiple award winner! The social world is a big, complicated place that requires us to constantly figure out hidden rules in situations to help us make sense of how we are all interpreting and responding to each other’s actions and reactions. Expanded and revised, this award-winning 2nd edition storybook provides an all-new structured approach to observation, illustrations that reflect a broader range of inclusion and diversity in characters, and lessons for deeper learning. Learn more

$29.99

You Are a Social Detective! Teaching Curriculum & Support Guide

You Are a Social Detective! Teaching Curriculum & Support Guide Ages: Adult You Are a Social Detective! Teaching Curriculum and Support Guide is just the tool you need to bring this important social emotional learning (SEL) into the classroom. Help your students become Social Detectives with this easy-to-use curriculum that fits into your current teaching day. This curriculum provides 10 structured lesson plans and visual tools to support building students’ social attention, social interpretation, and self-awareness—the foundation for social emotional learning for everyone. Learn more

$35.99

You Are a Social Detective!: Curriculum Guide + Storybook (2-book teaching set)

You Are a Social Detective!: Curriculum Guide + Storybook (2-book teaching set) Ages: 5-10+, Adult Bring social, emotional, and academic learning for children ages 5-10+ into your classroom—and save 10%! This bundle includes the award-winning storybook, You Are a Social Detective! 2nd Edition and its new companion Teaching Curriculum & Support Guide, an easy-to-use curriculum that fits into your current teaching day. The storybook introduces students to core social emotional learning (SEL) concepts, and the curriculum provides 10 fun, structured lesson plans and visual tools to support building students’ social attention, social interpretation, and self-awareness—the foundation for social emotional learning for everyone. Learn more

$59.99 $65.98

Visual Supports for 10 Key Social Thinking Vocabulary Concepts

Visual Supports for 10 Key Social Thinking Vocabulary Concepts Ages: 4+ These colorful visual supports (11” x 14”) promote the active use of 10 Social Thinking® Vocabulary concepts that lay the foundation for social emotional learning using the Social Thinking® Methodology. They are a visual way to show abstract elements of the social world in a concrete manner. As you introduce each of the 10 concepts, display the corresponding visual support (mini-poster) as a reminder to think about the concept. Set of 10; not sold individually. Learn more

$24.99

I Get It! Building Social Thinking and Reading Comprehension Through Book Chats

I Get It! Building Social Thinking and Reading Comprehension Through Book Chats Ages: 4-9 Reading comprehension is more than decoding words. In fact, it depends less on language comprehension and more on a student's social thinking ability. Use this innovative resource to leverage children’s love of stories while teaching core Social Thinking® Vocabulary and concepts to strengthen reading comprehension. This book presents an organized teaching approach called Book Chat that helps kids explore social context and unlock character perspectives and emotions within a story. It’s loaded with recommended storybooks aligned with specific Social Thinking concepts, as well as ideas and examples for writing IEP goals for learning social emotional concepts through reading. Learn more

$28.99

Make Social and Emotional Learning Stick—2nd Edition

Make Social and Emotional Learning Stick—2nd Edition Ages: 4-11 Parents and teachers! Here are 185+ user-friendly, adaptable activities, demonstrations, and rehearsal opportunities to support social emotional learning in early learners in diverse social settings—from the dinner table, to the school setting, to the greater community. Using contributions from numerous social learning experts, this handbook helps build social emotional competencies with a focus on consistency, modeling, play, and practice. By making a "social learning diet" part of everyday life, social learners develop verbal and nonverbal language, listening skills, understanding of hidden rules, perspective taking, emotional self-regulation, and more. Learn more

$21.99

Cultivate healthy emotional and intellectual development & organized thinking skills

Raising an Organized Child

Raising an Organized Child Ages: 4+

Frustrated parents who are tired of chaos will find concrete, actionable guidance for raising an independent, self-assured, and organized child. Dr Korb defines the neurodevelopmental abilities that are critical for organization and shows parents how to develop their children’s organized thinking skills.

Learn more

$16.95

The Whole-Brain Child

The Whole-Brain Child Ages: 8+ This book explores the role different parts of our brains play in managing our own behavior. The authors, a neuropsychiatrist and a parenting expert, illustrate how teaching children about their brains can help them learn to cultivate healthy emotional and intellectual development, in addition to self-management, in order to foster balanced lives that include healthy relationships, success in school, responsible behavior, and positive self-regard. Written for use with children, in language and images they can understand, this book explains and visually depicts simplified neurology paired with 12 concrete metacognitive strategies to help children learn how to better control their actions and reactions. Learn more

$17

The Whole-Brain Child Workbook

The Whole-Brain Child Workbook Ages: 8+ Based on their best-selling book, The Whole-Brain Child, internationally acclaimed neuropsychiatrist Dan Siegel and brain-based parenting expert Tina Payne Bryson have created a companion workbook to apply the metacognitively based whole-brain principles. The workbook presents a unique, interactive approach that allows readers to not only think more deeply about how the ideas fit their own parenting (and or teaching) approach, but also develop specific, practical ways to implement the concepts with children. Provides dozens of practical, age-specific exercises and activities to help children learn to better manage their own minds. Learn more

$24.99

Best-Selling & Award-Winning The Zones of Regulation Series

The Zones of Regulation: A Curriculum Designed to Foster Self-Regulation and Emotional Control

The Zones of Regulation: A Curriculum Designed to Foster Self-Regulation and Emotional Control Ages: 4+ New updated emotions illustrations! This popular, easy-to-use framework and award-winning curriculum teaches strategies for managing emotions and sensory needs to individuals ages 4+. Rooted in cognitive behavioral therapy, the framework uses four colors to help individuals identify how they are feeling in the moment given their energy, emotions, and level of alertness, creating a colored system to guide them to metacognitive strategies and tools to support regulation. Help students learn how to understand and regulate their emotions, manage their sensory needs, and become more self-aware and skillful problem solvers. Learn more

$59.99

The Road to Regulation & The Regulation Station: Understanding and Managing Feelings & Emotions | 2-Storybook Set: The Zones of Regulation Series

The Road to Regulation & The Regulation Station: Understanding and Managing Feelings & Emotions | 2-Storybook Set: The Zones of Regulation Series Ages: 5-11 A multiple award winner! Two award-winning storybooks engage children ages 5-11 in learning The Zones of Regulation framework and curriculum. The first, The Road to Regulation, describes and explains four different emotional zones and how we feel in each of them. Through an imaginary adventure to “The Regulation Station,” the second storybook introduces the use of “tools” (strategies) to help students identify ways they can manage their different feelings at school and home. Learn more

$49.99

Get Started with Ages 5-11 Bundle | The Zones of Regulation Series

Get Started with Ages 5-11 Bundle | The Zones of Regulation Series Ages: 5-11 Ready to start teaching The Zones of Regulation to children at developmental ages 5-11? This award-winning bundle includes 4 easy-to-use products to get started: The Zones of Regulation curriculum, two storybooks that bring curriculum lessons to life, and a multisensory regulation strategy card deck, which includes over 50 direct instruction tool cards. Use all products together to maximize social learning at home and school. Learn more

$121.99 $134.97

The Road to Regulation Poster | The Zones of Regulation Series

The Road to Regulation Poster | The Zones of Regulation Series Ages: 5-11 Adapted from the colorful layout in The Regulation Station storybook, this 24” x 18” poster is a flexible, real-time reminder of the four steps needed to (1) recognize your feelings, (2) identify your Zone, (3) choose a tool, and (4) use the tool to help regulate your feelings experienced across different situations. Use it at home, school, or clinic to review information with children while reading the 2-Storybook Set and to support lessons from The Zones of Regulation curriculum. Learn more

$16.99

Tools to Try Cards for Kids: Regulation Strategies to Focus, Calm, Think, Move, Breathe, and Connect | The Zones of Regulation Series

Tools to Try Cards for Kids: Regulation Strategies to Focus, Calm, Think, Move, Breathe, and Connect | The Zones of Regulation Series Ages: 5-10 A choice rich, portable strategy card deck to help kids ages 5-10 metacognitively explore and practice over 50 regulation tools at home, in school, or in therapeutic and community settings. The award-winning 4" x 6" two-sided strategy cards are divided into 5 categories that describe strategies to focus, calm, think, move, breathe, and connect developed from lessons in the popular The Zones of Regulation book. Learn more

$24.99

Empower children to manage their anxiety & social problem solving

Hey Warrior: A Book for Kids About Anxiety

Hey Warrior: A Book for Kids About Anxiety Ages: 5-12+

Empower children to manage their anxiety by learning that it comes from a place of protective strength within their brains—the amygdala—a tiny but fierce personal “warrior” that prepares us to fight or flee danger, even when we don’t need or want its protection! Wonderful illustrations and keen insights gently teach children how to be the boss of their brains and let their warriors know when to stand down and relax through positive thinking and breathing exercises. By understanding the physical science of anxiety and why their brains produce it, children can then learn to master it as a positive, friendly superpower.

Learn more

Sorry, this product is currently out of stock

Hey Awesome: A Book for Kids About Anxiety, Courage, and Already Being Awesome

Hey Awesome: A Book for Kids About Anxiety, Courage, and Already Being Awesome Ages: 5-12+

Hey Awesome explains how the same brain that can make a child feel anxious sometimes, also comes with amazing strengths. This book also includes powerful tips for children on how they can manage their anxiety. First, we let them know how awesome they are, then we give them what they need to feel it for themselves.

Learn more

$24.99

When My Worries Get Too Big! A Relaxation Book for Children Who Live With Anxiety

When My Worries Get Too Big! A Relaxation Book for Children Who Live With Anxiety Ages: 5-9 The thought of "losing control" can cause major problems for children who live with anxiety. Now, parents, teachers, and students have a helpful tool that provides young children with the opportunity to explore their own feelings with parents or teachers as they experience and react to events in their daily lives. Engaging and easy to read, this award-winning and illustrated children's book is filled with opportunities for children to participate in developing their own self-calming strategies to feel relaxed and ready to focus on work—or play. Learn more

$18.99

Starving the Anxiety Gremlin for Children

Starving the Anxiety Gremlin for Children Ages: 5-9 Help kids ages 5-9 understand and manage their anxiety with this engaging and imaginative workbook. Readers are introduced to the anxiety gremlin who feeds and grows on their anxious feelings, and the more anxious they feel, the more powerful it becomes! Packed with puzzles, games, and coloring and drawing activities based on Cognitive Behavioral Therapy (CBT), this practical and fun book helps children learn strategies to minimize their anxieties by reexamining how they think and act--and empowers them to give the anxiety gremlin the boot. An excellent resource for parents and professionals. Learn more

$21.95

Starving the Anger Gremlin for Children

Starving the Anger Gremlin for Children Ages: 5-9 An excellent resource for parents and practitioners, this creative workbook helps kids ages 4-9 understand and manage their anger. Meet the anger gremlin—a pest whose favorite meal is your anger, and the more he eats the angrier you get! There's only one way to stop him: starve him of angry feelings and behaviors. Based on cognitive behavior therapy (CBT) principles, this book provides fun, engaging activities for teaching young children how to control their anger by changing how they think and act. Packed with stories, puzzles, quizzes, and coloring, drawing, and writing games for developing this critical social skill. Learn more

$21.95

Browse all Products

Strategies to Build Social Competencies

The Social Thinking Methodology provides evidence-based strategies to help people ages four through adult develop their social competencies, flexible thinking & social problem solving to meet their own social goals and improve:

Our Methodology

What People Are Saying About Social Thinking

Parents & Families

Testimonial Thank you doesn’t seem enough for all that your teachings have done for me and my family! They have been a lifeline for me to re-connect with my 9-year-old. Everything you publish is 100% applicable. Keep up the amazing work!

Parent of 9 year old

Elementary School

Testimonial Social Thinking has completely changed the environment of who we are as a whole. Thank you for providing us with such rich social and emotional resources. The impact that your resources make are life changing and early intervention is key. Your curriculum is truly amazing! I bought into Social Thinking about 9 years ago and will use this as long as I am in education.

Natalie, Resource Teacher

Schools

Testimonial I appreciate how the Social Thinking Methodology links social intent/thinking and the common core or school based standards. This connection, and the understanding that exists, is so crucial to every member of a student's school community.

Peggy, 3rd Grade Teacher

Mental Health & Clinicians

Testimonial The Social Thinking Methodology is the philosophy that I ascribe to professionally. It serves as my guide through assessment and intervention.

Greg, School Psychologist

Speech Language Pathologists

Testimonial I love how realistic the approach is, and doable! Based on real clinical experience adaptable to individual needs/strengths. Great that all the vocabulary is simple, easy to understand, and not full of professional shop talk.

Amy, SLP

Parents & Families

Testimonial Social Thinking’s program has given me the much needed tools to communicate in a meaningful way with my 9-year-old son. Thank you. The stress level in our house has decreased along with the meltdowns. He is able to come out of the meltdowns much more readily.

Tammy, Mom of 9 year-old boy

Adult Clients

Testimonial I am a professional, high-functioning 37 year old woman diagnosed as being on the spectrum two years ago. The Social Thinking Methodology is by far the most helpful resource I have encountered. It would not be an exaggeration to say that it changed my life. Your concrete examples are extremely helpful.

Autistic Adult

Browse Product Catalog