Tool Tuesday: Thought Balloons!

A thought balloon is a very valuable tool. It provides a visual scaffold that opens doors to that “landscape of consciousness” that is characteristic of the later stages of the narrative developmental sequence (stages 4-7). As such, it’s the gateway to perspective-taking!

I’ve become enamored with Story Grammar Marker’s thought balloon icon, accessed among other ways through MindWing’s Digital Icons Set and The Critical Thinking Triangle in Action. Working with neurodiverse clients, this icon provides a key cue toward using mental state verbs and adeptness with reading others’ thoughts and intents that can translate (or be used directly for) real-life situations. It’s also easy to add a digital thought balloon to any visual support, which I have written about here in the past.

The thought bubble came to mind (heh!) when assisting a graduate student this week as she planned her Halloween-themed session. On Epic! Books for Kids—don’t miss, free for educators—she chose “The Halloween Costume Contest,” a simply structured, fun book that can be analyzed at Action Sequence and above. When reviewing the book, I immediately noticed the role of the thought balloon:

In the case of this book, the characters’ thought bubbles show them imagining possible costumes, a good direct link to executive functioning via Sarah Ward and Kristen Jacobsen’s concept of Future Thinking. This will be wonderful for my graduate student’s client because she has been practicing the Get Ready-Do-Done method of task execution during a weekly craft.

Below are a couple of other Halloween-themed books available that feature word or thought balloons. I often access picture books on YouTube and read them with the sound off and video paused, using the arrow keys to advance “pages.”

• “A Very Brave Witch” A young witch does not fear humans the way other witches do, and explores a nearby town, finding a friend!
• “Sir Simon, Super Scarer” Filled with word balloons, so much of this book provokes discussion of Simon’s thoughts as he endeavors to be the best professional ghost ever. A good opportunity to use the digital thought balloon technique linked above, or some post-its! Happy Halloween!