Social Thinking

It is really important for professionals who work in helping professions to make sure that whatever they are doing to help their client is the best possible therapy available and are corresponding to the needs of their clients. This semester, I have to work with young adults with autism. Thus, as one of the helping professions, I have to use an empirically supported treatment and have to make sure the therapy that I am using is really working for my clients. In a research paper written by Crooke, Hendrix and Rachman with a title “Measuring the effectiveness of teaching social thinking to children with Asperger Syndrome and High Functioning Autism,” they examine the effectiveness of social thinking program to teach social skills for people with

While, the expected versus unexpected lessons allows the participant to understand that anything that they do, either it is verbal or nonverbal can leave impact on what other people think of them. Thus, they have to change their own action for the better in order to leave good impressions. In whole body listening lesson, the participants learn that people interact and listening to others using the whole body rather than just ears. Besides, in the social files lesson, participants learn how to remember and gather information about others by observe other’s action in the environment so that they can initiate the conversations. While, during the knowledge and opinion lesson, the participants learn that not all opinions/knowledge can be spoken outwardly. They learn that off-topic conversations or “data dump” facts should stay in their head and even though their opinions are right, sometimes, they do not have to be stated aloud. All of these topics are interrelated and they are intended to promote social thinking to the participants. The authors also present the differences between social thinking and social skills. Social skill is when we are teaching the children with ASD or HFA behavioral technique such as eye contact during conversation. While, social thinking teaches the children to explore other’s objective/meaning through behaviors such

Double interview is a casual valuation to assess social communication skills while involve in the act of communication. This interview allows us to analyze social communication that is always lacking in individuals with Asperger syndrome. During this interview, the clinician will ask the adolescents about topics such as their hobbies and relationships. Then, the clinician has to bring three personal photographs. The purpose of the photographs is to allow the adolescents to ‘interview’ and asking questions to the clinician. Thus, this interview can benefits the adolescents, as it will allow the adolescents with Asperger syndrome to have the ability that always deficient among the group, such as the ability to shift perspective, organize their thoughts into language, and come up with questions and follow up questions to explore other people’s interest other than their own. If they have these abilities, it can help them to improve their communication and social