DAY 1

SOCIAL THINKING FROM THEORY TO PRACTICE:

THE ILAUGH MODEL AND SOCIAL THINKING VOCABULARY

ABOUT THE SPEAKER

Michelle Garcia Winner is a speech language pathologist who specializes in students with social cogn-
itive deficits. She runs a clinic; authored numerous books, speaks internationally and developed the
term “social thinking” along with the related treatment approach. Michelle’s goal is to help educators
and parents appreciate how social thinking and social skills are an integral part of students academ-
ic, vocational and community success. She was honored with a “Congressional Special Recognition
Award” in 2008.

Garcia Winner is known for her very practical strategies to help with social and academic success, her
good sense of humor and strong compassion for those with these learning challenges. Her work is
focused on what knowledge and skills we need to teach to help individuals be as socially self-responsi-
ble as possible throughout their lives, including their adult years.

WORKSHOP DESCRIPTION
Designed to understand the inner mind of persons high on the Autism Spectrum (Asperger Syndrome,
PDD-NOS or High Functioning Autism), with ADHD, Non-Verbal Learning Disability or with no working
diagnosis but they fit the clinical picture! Participants will learn not only functional treatment strategies
that can be used both at school and at home, but they will also better understand why these students
react and respond the way they do.

On this day we will introduce the ILAUGH model of Social Cognition which helps to demonstrate how
social processing difficulties impact not only social skills but also the ability to work as part of a group
and to focus on specific academic tasks such as written expression, reading comprehension and org-
anizational skills for many of our students. The ILAUGH Model is an acronym for core evidence-based
social learning concepts which are usually points of relative weakness in the person with social learning
challenges. ILAUGH stands for Initiation of Communication, Listening with Eyes and Brain, Abstracting
and Inferencing, Understanding Perspective, Gestalt Processing and Humor & Human Relationships. As
the ILAUGH Model is reviewed, practical treatment strategies are explained to benefit students across
a range of functioning and can be used in the mainstream classroom.
We will then review how to teach abstract social lessons with more concrete language and treatment
by exploring the evidence based “Social Thinking Vocabulary” and related lessons. These lessons are
easily applied in the home, community and schools; research has supported the use of Social Thinking
Vocabulary as a method to help teach generalization of concepts. The teaching concepts can be used
not only for persons with social learning challenges but for all kids.

LEARNING OBJECTIVES:
1. Participants will be able to explain the difference between learning a social
concept and a social skill.
2. The participants will be able to define the acronym ILAUGH to explain
aspects of social cognition and how each of these links to different treatment ideas.
3. The participants will be able to explain why a person with social skill deficits has
academic problems in the classroom.
4. Participants will be able to explain how we teach students to be aware of if their body,
eyes and brain are perceived to be in the group, using social thinking vocabulary.
5. Participants will be able to describe “Superflex” and the “Team of Unthinkables!”
6. Participants will be able to differentiate between a singular imagination and shared
imagination and how the later contributes to social conversational skills.

DAY 2

SOCIAL THINKING – EXPLORING DIFFERENT LEVELS OF

THE SOCIAL MIND TO HELP UNDERSTAND TREATMENT NEEDS

WORKSHOP DESCRIPTION
Social Thinking explores how we assess how our students’ ability to process and respond to socially
based information in more naturalistic situations. On this day we will explore how people with similar
diagnostic labels can have very different social functioning abilities and why this is important for treat-
ment planning. Using videotaped clinical examples of a range of different students engaged in a variety
of activities we will explore:
 • The Cascade of Social Functioning: define the relationship between social attention,
social self-awareness and literal interpretation of language for making treatment choices
for our verbal students.
• Become familiar with the Social Thinking- Social Communication Profile to assist with
treatment and life planning for students 8 years old and older.
• Learn different holistic social assessment strategies by exploring at least 5 different
Informal Dynamic Social Thinking assessment tools.
• Discuss how this all relates to treatment and prognosis.

LEARNING OBJECTIVES:
1. Explain why those with weak social attention are more literal in their
interpretations of language.
2. Define 3 characteristics of each of the 4 different levels of the
Social Thinking – Social Communication Profile.
3. Explain why some treatment programs work for one level of ST-SCPTM
functioning and are not as effective with another functioning level.
4. Describe how one’s perspective taking skills are explored through
the Thinking with your Eyes and Double Interview Social Thinking Assessment tasks.
5. Explain why standardized assessments may not truly represents a student’s
actual ability to function as expected.

INTENDED AUDIENCE FOR DAY 1 AND DAY 2:

Teachers, speech-language pathologists, parents, social workers, learning specialists, marriage family
therapists, autism specialists, occupational therapists, counselors, paraprofessionals, physical therapists,
psychologists and psychiatrists, clinical and educational administrators, physicians, nurses, nurse prac-
titioners, advocates, other family members and caregivers of students with social and communicative
challenges.