Autism & Sharing Social Skills Insights

I always though parenting three kids would be interesting, but I never thought it would be so “May you live in interesting times” interesting.  But anyone who’s ever taken on this parenting gig knows that  being a mom to three kids with entirely different social skills profiles -- one intensely thoughtful teen girl, one exuberantly autistic tween boy, and one explosively extroverted seven-year-old girl -- means boredom is … not an issue. This gig is fun! And maddening. And so, so rewarding. 

It also provides constant opportunities to learn, to look back on what we’ve done and experienced; to think about what went right -- and what went not-so-right. To share those experiences with other parents who might need advice, or to learn from other people -- not just parents -- who might have advice to offer themselves.

That’s why I’ve been writing online about parenting and autism since 2003 here at www.squidalicious.com, as BlogHer’s contributing editor for parenting children with special needs since 2009, and as co-founder and senior editor of Thinking Person’s Guide to Autism since 2010. Sometimes to vent, mostly to share information, Borg-style -- though the collective and hive mind that is the Internet.

Over those years and through many posts -- and I just passed 2,500 entries on this site, if you can believe it -- my writing has been autism-focused, or autism-sibling focused, but not always. I’m too much of a distractible geek, and my life and kids are too interested and complicated, to keep everything tuned to a single channel.



This. Is. Neurodiversity.

Lately I've been interested in how iPads can foster social skills both formally & informally (including investigating apps for all ages & abilities, for their stated purposes and beyond), how we can learn from autistic adults able to articulate their past and current social experiences, how to handle exchanges between kids with differing quirky behaviors when one kid finds the other kid’s quirks bothersome, how to teach others to not talk about our children and their disabilities as though those children are not present, how to empower our kids to stand up for themselves … the list is a long one, and this is just a sampling. I'd enjoy hearing your perspectives as well.

Underlying everything I talk about, however – the root of all social understanding, and what I try to keep in mind and also teach my kids to understand -- is the idea that Behavior is Communication. This seems like a simple concept, and it is fairly logical – but it takes effort, because we are taught to pay attention to what people say, rather than consider what their behavior may be saying. 

But understanding how behavior influences communication makes fruitful social interactions so much easier. I can’t really expect my son Leo, who like so many autistics often struggles to produce spoken language, to have a successful spoken social exchange if his lunch is overdue -- he’ll be both hungry and off-routine. This means the energy I want him to use for social interactions is instead getting transformed into anxiety over his empty belly and the broken social contract regarding the time at which that belly gets filled.  I can’t expect Leo to simply do what I say at that point, and tell me what he wants, if his behavior is indicating distress so significant it undermines his ability to speak.

 It's unreasonable for me to insist Leo tell me what he needs in such scenarios, and I need to both understand that, and know how to help an agitated autistic boy return to a calmer place. Maybe, then, we can resume exploring supporting his social skills. 

I realize my writing on this site has been spotty of late. I'm going to try to be better about that. In the meantime, I want to get to know more about you, or your kids if you have them. And I want you to understand what I’ve learned from thirteen years of parenting mine.

Michelle Garcia Winner Conference May 8 in Redwood City

This is a fundraiser for SEPTAR, the Special Education PTA that I helped found, as well as an opportunity to build real skills for interacting with people like my son:

SEPTAR and Belmont-Redwood Shores Special Ed PTA present:

Michelle Garcia Winner: Implementing Social Thinking Concepts and Vocabulary into our School and Home: A Day to Develop Team Creativity

Friday, May 8th, 9 AM - 4 PM
Community Activities Building (CAB)
1400 Roosevelt Ave.
Redwood City, CA 94061

NOTE: Tickets are discounted $85.00 through TODAY, April 15th; $100.00 after. Lunch and workshop materials are included in the ticket price. Participants will also have an opportunity to meet with local service providers.

Buy your tickets online:
https://www.brownpapertickets.com/event/57237

Michelle Garcia Winner, MA, CCC-SLP, specializes in the treatment of individuals with social cognitive deficits: those with diagnoses such as autism, Asperger Syndrome and nonverbal learning disorder. She began teaching social thinking in 1995 to brighter students when she went to work for a high school district as the districts speech language pathologist. Social Thinking was born out of necessity as a way to reach those bright but socially clueless students that needed more information than just what social skill to use. They needed to know why they should bother to use that skill.

Michelle entered into private practice in 1998 (part-time) and then full time in 1999 due to community demand. Both parents and school districts wanted her to work with their students.

Her clinical services continued to evolve and expand, Michelle Garcia Winners Center for Social Thinking, Inc saw over 250 children (preschool through adults) in 2008 from the Silicon Valley area of California for weekly therapy sessions. Over the years, to meet demand she has hired and trained a number of educational/speech and language professionals in the art and science of teaching social thinking. Simultaneously she also began a company called Think Social Publishing, Inc to handle the growing demands of speaking internationally as well as self-publishing her own and now others books.

In 2008, Michelle also co-founded with Dr. Pamela Crooke, a non-profit dedicated to social thinking for the Silicon Valley Region of California, called Teach SOCIAL Silicon Valley. The word SOCIAL is an acronym for Social and organizational concepts in individuals across a lifespan.

As Michelle has observed the concept of Social Thinking take off across the United States and other countries, she also found she had less and less time for clinic management. She realized she was serving both a local and a national/international community that was growing quickly.

Michelle decided to close her Michelle G Winners Center for Social Thinking, inc. in August of 2008 and give the option to her trained therapists to open a social thinking clinic that they manage within the non-profit, TSSV. 100% of her employees agreed they wanted to start this new clinic, which officially began in Sept, 2008.

While Michelle is not on the regulating board of TSSV (given it would be a conflict of interest), she will continue to offer trainings to the clinical staff of TSSV through monthly grand round meetings. She will also serve on the advisory board.

Thus, from September 2008 onward Michelle will work for Think Social Publishing, Inc. DBA, Social Thinking along with colleagues Stephanie Madrigal and Dr. Pamela Crooke. Social Thinking will run a small (no-growth) social thinking clinic. This will allow these therapists to continue to work with clients, while also serving as a training facility to professionals who come to learn how to apply the core concepts of social thinking from around the world.

In doing this, Silicon Valley will continue to have and expand an excellent clinic in their community to not only help clients and their families but to also train educators from local schools. This also allows Michelle to continue to focus on developing and sharing new treatment ideas as the concept of social thinking expands and matures for parents and professionals to apply world-wide.

The heart of Michelles work is illuminating the often elusive and intangible world of social thinking, and developing practical strategies that can be easily used by parents, educators and service providers, across different environments, to teach social thinking and social skills.

A pioneer and visionary in her field, her work is being applied not only to persons with autism and related disabilities, but also more broadly to students in mainstream classrooms and to adults in vocational and professional settings in the U.S. and abroad. Her goal is to raise awareness among administrators, educators and parents about the critical role that social thinking and social skills play in every students life, not only in achieving academic success, but also for success in adulthood and life in general.

Michelle is internationally recognized as a thoughtful and prolific writer in the area of social thinking/social skills. She travels around the world speaking on a multitude of topics relating to social thinking, and repeatedly receives accolades for her educational, energetic and enthusiastic workshop presentations. She has been invited to train psychiatrists, psychologists, counselors, parents, educators and government policy makers on the importance of social thinking.

Michelle has written several books on social cognitive deficits and social thinking, and has released training videos/DVDs for educators and parents.

In 2008, she was presented with an Award of Special Congressional Recognition for her pioneering work.

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This course meets the qualifications for 6.0 hours of continuing professional development credit for Speech-Language Pathologists as required by the California Speech-Language Pathology and Audiology Board. SLPs can record their own hours using the ASHA Verification of Attendance form towards their ASHA CEUs. This will provide the equivalent of .6 CEU (PDP54).