Pathway Speech & Language

 Social Thinking Groups

How does your child maneuver their way

through various social situations?

These sessions involve direct teaching by

Amber Cloy, MS CCC/SLP

of both verbal and non-verbal social communication techniques and will give your children ample opportunity to interact with each other in a social environment.

 All of our therapists have received training from John Ortiz, PhD, Michelle Garcia-Winner and Carol Gray. 

Our curriculum is tailored to meet the needs of those in the group and is based on components from Ester Hess, PhD "DIR/Floortime; Ms. Garcia-Winner's "I-LAUGH" model and "Think Social"; Dr. Ortiz' "52 Practical Strategies" for diagnoses on the Autism spectrum and Dr. Jed Baker's "Social Skills Training", as well as other effective strategies we have discovered through working with these wonderful children.  You and your child will experience:

·         Theory of Mind— appreciations and an interest in others.

·         Speech and voice characteristics.  Appropriate stress placement within words, rhythm placement on the overall fluency and melody of speech.  Demonstration of clear voice characteristics.

·         Initiating a friendly interaction with a peer. Joining in on a conversation.  Saying just the right amount so the listener doesn’t get bored!

·         Rules of a conversation.  Understanding the elements of reciprocity needed to maintain a friendship. (taking turns in the conversation-not domination!)

·         Discussions on socially and emotionally inappropriate behavior in a variety of situations.

·   Accepting “No” for an answer—flexibility!

·         Resolving conflict and alternative ways of dealing with conflict.

·         Sharing and cooperating on a project.

·         The importance of non-verbal messages; eye-contact and mutual gazing, flat facial expressions or flat affect (no facial expression), body proximity.  

·         Hygiene!

During the course of these sessions, the children will also be working with Mrs. Cherie Bennett, our Social Thinking Mentor.  Ms. Amber and Ms. Cherie work in tandem when teaching all age-levels of our Social Thinking Groups. 

Following direct teaching by Ms. Amber, Ms. Cherie gently guides our students in various activities to apply what they have learned with Ms. Amber.