MindWing Concepts Blog

It’s really exciting when a speech-language material is published that provides clinicians with a ready-to-go resource that jibes well with strategies we already have been teaching. Such is definitely the case with the excellent We Can Make it Better program recently released by Think Social Publishing and written by Speech-Language Pathologist Elizabeth Delsandro. We Can Make it Better is a set of 20+ stories in which social interactions go quite wrong due to “unexpected behaviors” by one of the characters. The materials and activities unfold in a very logical therapeutic structure that challenges students to “make it better” by deciding alternative actions for the characters, “rewrite” the story as a more positive “Second Edition” and act it out, thus providing a great context for teaching social problem solving.

To be quite honest, social problem solving has been an area that, when providing a rating each semester in my private practice’s progress notes, I have wondered if I adequately assessed or addressed. Of course we have “teachable moments” in sessions where problems arise between students, and discussions of problems in the real world, but I have been wanting for a fun material that could foster some take-home skills in this area!

It is wonderful how We Can Make It Better perfectly compliments some of the programs I am using already with students, namely, of course, Story Grammar Marker and Social Thinking. In using the program over the past several weeks, I have found the narrative context in which stories are presented is motivating and amusing to my students, and it is very easy to weave in use of the SGM as we recap the presented stories, analyze the actions of characters, and develop an alternative story script and outcome. Many Social Thinking concepts, such as “Expected/Unexpected” behaviors, “guessing plans” and “smart guesses” are also natural targets within discussions of the stories.

The picture below illustrates a simple modification to the program- using the Mindwing Universal Magnet Set as a way to plan “Act it Out” activities that follow story presentation and discussion. The character, setting, action and wrap-up icons (though you could use more complex structures also) also fit well with activities in the program such as completing the “Not So Good Board,” in which kids brainstorm what went wrong in the story.

The program’s generous number of stories (and tips on how to write your own) make it ideally suited for classroom and group programming, and the accompanying CD-ROM with stories and forms in electronic format opens many possibilities. For example, I have been able to use an LCD projector to show the stories “writ large” on the wall, an attention-grabber for our students, and PDF files on the CD can be easily inserted into programs such as PowerPoint so I can annotate our group discussions (i.e. inserting text boxes to display alternative actions that kids suggest, then making the best choice, after discussion, appear in green font). Additionally, using a Flip Video camera to record the role-plays has been a great motivator for kids in the “Act it Out” portion, and provides great feedback on scripting, body language and other nonverbals.

Even if you are only in the early phases of using the SGM, I highly recommend We Can Make It Better as a great context for developing early learners’ storytelling and problem solving skills.

My previous post discussed the narrative element of setting and the tendency of students on the autism spectrum (or with other language disorders) to leave out details about setting, causing listener confusion. One way to explore the importance of setting is to plan interventions using books with an integral setting- where the setting is key to the motivations of the characters and understanding of the plot.

One of my favorites in this vein is Donald Crews’ Shortcut, the story of a group of cousins who find themselves in unexpected danger after taking a shortcut home. Not only does the book serve as an excellent example of building suspense around a small moment in a personal narrative (great for students working on memoir), it also lends itself to being mapped both on a Setting Map and a literal, visual map to develop storytelling skills.

Working on such a map has always been one of my favorite projects I repeated every year with 4th graders studying memoir. Besides touching on an oft-repeated writing unit, the activity also hits on many other skills: map reading and making, organization, the pragmatics of a shared task, spatial concepts, complex conjunctions and of course, story grammar. Loosely, the lesson plan would look like this:

1. Read the book interactively, with predictions etc, and focus on interesting teachable points such as freight vs. passenger trains, etc.
2. Use the SGM Setting icon magnet as a visual cue with a dry erase board to brainstorm all the important aspects of the setting of the story (tracks/shortcut, road, cutoff, path, home, etc).
3. Scaffold students to create an actual map that includes all these elements.
4. Use the map for retelling practice, using the SGM throughout the process and focusing on complex sentences using conjunctions such as because, so, and when.

You can see an example of a project I created with students below, using PowerPoint.

This project could be just as easily completed with chart paper and markers, but if you are interested in going the tech route, check out my screencast on how to execute this project with PowerPoint. Enjoy!

What other books do you like to use to explore the concept of setting?

Engaging Activities for Character Traits and Social Inference

In social group interventions, we would like our students to develop a sense of each other by building “friend files” (Michelle Garcia Winner). Some of the activities I have mentioned in previous posts can be of assistance in engaging students to share straightforward information about themselves. However, we also want to build students’ abilities to make inferences about each other- for example, wearing an Apple t-shirt might indicate that the person likes computers, and could be a good conversation starter.

We can engineer opportunities to develop social inferencing skills by using some other interactive activities available for free on the Internet. In these creative activities, students have fun constructing and designing, and we later can ask, “So what can you guess about Billy after looking at what he made?”

One of my favorites is the Discovery Kids Room Maker, which allows you to design your own kids room with a simple drag-and-drop from categories such as walls, details, beds, etc. When complete, the site gives you a summary statement about your “design persona” that would be fun to share with the group, along with all the accessories that can add traits to our “friend files.”

Create a Ride is also a big hit with kids; click to select car details such as headlights, wheels, details and a fun background! I used this one with a teen group and asked the boys to design a car that they thought another boy in the group would like. This resulted in the memorable social inferencing quote: “I think he is unpredictable so I designed a car that fits his personality...”

Finally, though this makes me think uncomfortably of back-to-school, I love Lands’ End Packland Fantasy Backpack Creator. This fun, animated site lets you select a theme (such as spy or ocean) and add “pack art” to enhance the design and function of your backpack. In no time, your kids will be chatting about personal details (aka “character traits”) and getting to know each other better!

For these activities, remember that screenshotting can be a helpful step so you can refer to creations later or share with parents:
On Mac- Command-Shift-4 turns your cursor into a photo-target. Click and drag across the area of the screen you want to capture and a picture will be saved on your desktop.
On PC- Alt-Print Screen captures the screen on the clipboard. Open Paint (Programs>Accessories>Paint) and Paste the image, then you can crop as you like and save.

Any of your group members’ creations would provide a great context to continue talking about character traits. Keep adding to the Character Map in It’s All About the Story (or the SGM and other manuals) as a visual cue to help the kids think about each other!

Enjoy your designs! For more ideas on therapy materials and technology, please visit me at SpeechTechie or follow me on Twitter or Facebook. Thanks!

Many of us think of the word “avatar” and have trouble separating the idea from that blockbuster movie about tall blue people-ish beings on an alien planet.  In Avatar, the main character is disabled and uses an avatar to assume the form of an alien being and interact with their civilization. So we’re not that far off; an avatar is a visual representation of someone within an environment, usually a computerized one. Because there are many simple websites that create avatars, they actually have a place in our interventions as well! Using avatar makers with kids motivates them to visually represent and describe themselves to peers- it can be a bridge across some of the awkward verbal interactions that characterize introductory (and ongoing) group sessions. On the flip side, using avatars also helps to engage peers in attending to the character traits of their group members and building “friend files” about them.

There are plenty of simple, free web-based avatar makers, and if you don’t have multiple computers at your disposal (you can also set up a computer as a “station” in your group), the task of making an avatar to print and share with the group could also be a homework task. Check out the list below- note that I prefer ones that have some kind of accessories you can add, so you can get into traits beyond that of appearance.

• But first, you can focus on appearance by making Mii characters.
• For the chocolate-minded, make yourself an m&m!
• Become a LEGO character*
• Devolve into a “Wild Self”
• Got a group of girls? (not thrilled that this uses the word “chick” but the character does look like a baby chick).
• Especially helpful if you are using the Superflex curriculum

*Please be aware that occasionally an ad might pop up on some of these sites that you might not want your kids to focus on.  It’s a good idea to load your window before using the site with kids, then you can resize the window and scroll down if necessary.

Many of these web tools allow you to save your creations as an image, but I find it just as easy to make a screenshot and save the picture that way. How do you do that?

On Mac- Command-Shift-4 turns your cursor into a photo-target.  Click and drag across the area of the screen you want to capture and a picture will be saved on your desktop.

On PC- Alt-Print Screen captures the screen on the clipboard.  Open Paint (Programs>Accessories>Paint) and Paste the image, then you can crop as you like and save.

Any of the avatars your group members create would provide a great context for talking about character traits.  Try using the Character Map in It’s All About the Story (or the SGM and other manuals) and ask each group member to use the activity to add to their “friend files” on the map!

Enjoy making some avatars!  For more ideas on therapy materials and technology, please visit me at SpeechTechie or follow me on Twitter or Facebook.  Thanks!