If you saw Thomas on Channel 's Born Naughty on Thursday, you will have seen that he has impaired perspective taking, he cannot put himself in others' shoes (Theory of Mind). I tried the first session of Social Thinking on him where I lay on the floor of the classroom while still talking. This usually promotes gasps, stares and makes the average 10 year old feel very uncomfortable ......and think I'm slightly weird. I then get up and we discuss my behaviour and their reaction. Thomas, however, didn't notice I had laid on the floor and when I got up and asked what he thought of my behaviour he said 'Nothing', I asked if he thought it was odd, he replied, 'No!' Normally, we go onto discuss expected vs unexpected behaviour and how these make people feel. It's a great way of introducing children with social communication difficulties to the idea that there is a point to conforming to expected behaviour.
The best person to tell you more about this is Michelle Garcia Winner, the founder of Social Thinking:
Small Talk Speech & Language Therapy use Social Thinking as part of their daily work
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