Kinder Kids

What will my child learn with Social Thinking Programs?

Children will develop social competence, and achieve the foundational blocks to develop their social brain through:

Social awareness
Social smarts
Flexible thinking
Shared and collaborative participation in groups
Develop problem solving skills & creativity
Self-regulate behaviour
Meeting social goals developing self-confidence
Sharing imagination and developing perspective taking
Develop levels of play
Develop negotiation skills

Social thinking is the internal overall process that helps through diverse executive functions of the brain to analyse, describe and categorise the different social contexts. This helps us to adjust accordingly to select which social skills are required to respond to the situation while considering how the behaviours may affect the people involved in a specific situation.

Constantly teachers, parents, members of the community focus on the child’s behaviour and these children that may either show a low and/or overactive social profile are tagged specifically and send for interventions to improve their “social skills”.

As a Psychology Family Clinic, we have been part of that journey providing assistance with interventions based on upskilling kids socially. Furthermore, being trained and reading the latest literature on Social thinking programs in the past three years and how working on Social Thinking Programs provide better outcomes and lasting improvements.

Emotional Growth, is offering group and individual interventions based on The Social Thinking Curriculum developed by Michelle Garcia.

As Social Thinking is the umbrella term that extends children development based not only on behavioural skills but expanding their thinking capacity with a focus on developing their understanding on themselves and being able to transfer this onto understanding others.

For further reading:

www.socialthinking.com

Why do we use Social thinking?

Because it keeps us connected to others, helps us share space
effectively, think flexibly and act collaboratively – Nancy Tarshis.

EARLY LEARNERS

PRIMARY LEARNERS

What is the social mind?

Research from neuroscience have interwoven the interdependence
between mental and behavioural studies to explain how people relate to
each-other and how they form mental representations about members of
their social groups helping them understand the social world that
surrounds them and plan and execute adequately plans through their
interactions.

What is Social thinking? And Why teach Social thinking versus Social Skills?

Interpersonal neurobiology bridges the gap between biology and social sciences. We are wired for connection and as humans we are born predisposed to engage with others with our social brain. The development of the brain happens only in relationships and there is a bidirectional causality between the growth and shaping of neural networks and the social experiences.

As observed social skills are just a part of the larger process, an important component of the social mind. Social skills are made up of a series of behaviours that are known and used in social situations, however having solely social skills such as a repertoire of behaviours rehearsed and well intentioned does not reflect the relevance of the social brain.

How does Social Thinking develop?

A child evolves through interaction with others in the immediacy of
their family, school and community and gradually learns values, beliefs
and skills that help him or her to immerse themselves in their cultural
environment. Through these relationship, they learn how to respond
effectively to the social expectations and develop a sense of self.

For further reading:

www.kidsmatter.edu.au

Why is the development of social competence so crucial to children?

Social competence is important as it provides children with skills to adjust to different environments and form positive and enduring relationships with their peers. Social competence is reflected through having a sense of understanding on other’s perspectives, resolving conflict, communicating efficiently, learning from their mistakes, and understanding changes in social interactions. Social competence is a foundational skill, as it contributes to the learning process to achieve academic success and supports transitions to higher levels of schooling.

How is social competence linked to academic performance?

Firstly, when a child hasn’t built the foundational blocks of social competence to read the social cues, make sense of what’s going on in the group, shift social activities, follow the social threads of communication while trying to keep up with the class tasks in parallel of having a conversation with their peers, this child may become stressed and anxious; leading to lower their academic concentration and performance and if this becomes a constant, then it lowers their school-motivation, as they will not experience the tasks as enjoyable.

Secondly, schooling is a social environment and we need to have our social brains switched on as children need to negotiate with their peers, understanding their thoughts and feelings, sharing effectively the class space, floor or circle time, learn to play in collaboration, do school group projects, understand stories, characters, movies, books and develop reading comprehension, later on write essays and offer opinions. These skills are fundamental in the learning process.

Social thinking develops one’s self understanding which later on develops understanding other individuals. By understanding others, we develop competencies such as empathy, social relatedness, social inferences, moral values, social expectations, and other peoples intentions and beliefs.

If we think about reading comprehension, children would be faced with understanding stories, characters, situations and predicting possible endings. These skills will only grow in complexity throughout the schooling years. Children that have social thinking ability will be able to decode, understand and respond effectively to the different academic tasks that are proposed by the teacher under the key academic criteria. This will allow them to place themselves in the characters role and make summaries about interpretation of the narrative, which will enhance their academic performance.