Free Articles to Use at Home & School
Build Stronger Social Awareness
Social Thinking is proud to provide an extensive collection of free articles devoted to helping individuals build stronger social awareness and social functioning using the Social Thinking Methodology.
Browse our library of 100+ free articles and learn strategies you can start using right away. Or explore our hand-picked just for you articles below. We’re constantly adding material based on the latest research and our evolving client work—so visit our library often and stay informed!
Spaced-Out Kids Are Not Just Spaced-Out
What Teachers Need to Know, What They Can Do…and Why They Can’t Do It All!
Break Through Students’ Social Anxiety Barrier: A Strategy for Student-Teacher Communication
Social Thinking® in the World of Online Learning with More Literal-Minded Social Learners
Social Metacognition: Using Social Emotional Learning to Defeat Helplessness and Engage Hope
Help Avoid Frustration While Working From Home
Moving Forward with Your Family During the Pandemic
The Other Side of the Friendship Pyramid: Dealing with Dislike
Working with thirteen year olds can be tricky, especially when they are resistant to treatment and appear to revel in being “the most hated kid in school.” In our first-ever Aha! Teaching Moment video, Michelle Garcia Winner discusses developing the Pyramid of Dislike thinksheet to help a client realize it will be tough to make new friends when he spends most of his attention on the people he dislikes.
Anxiety and Social Competencies (The Spirals)
Based on our growing experience, it appears that some of our students have high levels of anxiety, but also have solid social knowledge. For these students, we still find that helping them through their anxiety has a lot to do with helping them explore and practice their social competencies. The Social Thinking teachings helped to put this all into context. Thus, these same lessons have shown to be helpful to them as well. In this article, we will review of concepts that led me to create what my students now call, The Spirals (i.e., Spiral of Social Success and Spiral of Social Failure).
All the Zones are OK! Tips for Managing the Zones You’re In
The Zones of Regulation was created to help individuals manage the feelings they experience by identifying their shifting emotional states as existing in different “Zones”. It is important not to label one Zone as "good" and another "bad", rather that ALL Zones are OK as long as we MANAGE our Zone and express ourselves through behavior that is as adaptive and pro-social as possible given the situation and the student’s self-regulation abilities.
Taking a Deeper Look at Whole Body Listening: It’s a Tool Not a Rule
Listening with your whole body involves integrating all of the body senses (sensory processing), along with executive functioning (self-control of brain and body), and perspective taking (thinking of others and what they are saying). This is not an easy task. Many children do not fully understand what is expected of them or may not be able to meet the expected demands when it comes to listening. In teaching whole body listening we are providing a tool not a rule. We know this concept will continue to be challenging for many people but through this teaching we can encourage all individuals to expand their idea of how they listen to what is going on around them in a more meaningful manner.
Become Closer with Social Distancing
Times of stress and hardship can drive us apart—but they often can also bring us together in positive ways we never imagined. The “social distancing” now required by the COVID-19 pandemic can actually foster better real-time communication and forge stronger, supportive relationships through flexible thinking, mindfulness, and socially smart technologies. Here are five ways to overcome the spiral of negative thinking, take control of what you can control, and positively contribute to the social emotional well-being of your community, as well as your own.
PDF download available to print and share.
Social Metacognition: Using Social Emotional Learning to Defeat Helplessness and Engage Hope
We don’t learn helplessness—it’s an innate brain default. We do learn how to create hope in our minds to avoid feeling helpless. By using language and metacognition in an internal dialogue, we can teach our social minds to push toward social emotional learning for new ways to handle ourselves in a range of situations. Aspects of the Social Thinking Methodology® provide pathways for creating and sustaining hope in our lives.
Remote Learning Tips & Resources
This is a continuously evolving document developed by www.quadprep.org, updated regularly as they sift through appropriate digital resources and at home activities that will stimulate critical thinking and engage with all aspects of your student’s intellect and interests.
- Books & Games
- Online Training
- Free Webinars
- Article Library
- Digital Books
Books & Games
Teachers, speech-language pathologists, clinicians, behavior specialists, and parents are using our expansive collection of curricula, books, games, and posters to teach social competencies to social learners ages 4 and up.
While our deeper work is for individuals with social learning challenges (autism spectrum levels 1 and 2, ADHD, twice exceptional, social communication disorders, etc. or no diagnosis,) our work is also being adopted into mainstream classrooms and workplaces around the world to improve social emotional learning for all.
Online Training
Social Thinking has helped more than 1 million educators, clinicians, and families teach social learners essential life skills including social-emotional learning and self-regulation. Wherever you are in your professional career or level of understanding as a caregiver, we can help.
Browse our entire collection of Online Training options, taught by our experienced practitioners and clinicians.
Free Webinars
Explore how to teach a variety of core Social Thinking concepts—for free. Browse our entire webinar collection and discover strategies to help people of all ages develop social competencies, self-regulation, social skills, social-emotional understanding, flexible thinking, and more!
Our webinars are not pre-approved for credit by continuing education organizations. However, all participants can download and print a Certificate of Completion.
Article Library
Social Thinking is proud to provide an extensive collection of free articles devoted to helping individuals build stronger social awareness and social functioning using the Social Thinking Methodology.
Browse our library of 100+ free articles and learn strategies you can start using right away. We’re constantly adding material based on the latest research and our evolving client work—so visit our library often and stay informed!
Digital Books
eBooks make it easy for children to explore social-emotional strategies to become stronger social problem solvers.
Build social awareness and vocabulary with Social Thinking and Me—a powerhouse of social knowledge to help children in upper elementary and middle school become stronger social problem solvers.
Teach social awareness and self-regulation with Superflex. Kids around the world are having fun learning strategies and practicing new skills to boost their “Superflex powers."
New & Best Selling
Social Thinking Frameworks Collection | A Set of 26 Social Thinking® Teaching Frameworks
The social world is vast and complex, kids are complicated, and there’s so much information! Here’s where you’ll find the best of the Social Thinking® Methodology distilled into a two-set collection of our 26 core teaching frameworks for helping social learners unpack and figure out how to navigate the social world in a concrete, visual way.
You Are a Social Detective! Explaining Social Thinking to Kids, 2nd Edition
Boost kids’ observation and clue interpretation skills in social situations. Expanded and revised, this 2nd edition provides an all-new structured approach to observation, illustrations that reflect a broader range of inclusion and diversity in characters, and lessons for deeper learning.
The Zones of Regulation: Tools to Try for Kids | Regulation Strategies to Focus, Calm, Think, Move, Breathe, and Connect
A choice rich, portable, strategy card deck to help kids ages 5-10 metacognitively explore and practice over 50 self-regulation tools at home, in school, or in therapeutic and community settings.
Hey Warrior: A Book for Kids About Anxiety
Empower children to manage their anxiety by learning that it comes from a place of protective strength within their brains—the amygdala—a tiny but fierce personal “warrior” that prepares us to fight or flee danger, even when we don’t need or want its protection!
The Zones of Regulation
A Curriculum Designed to Foster Self-Regulation and Emotional Control
We Thinkers! (Ages 4-7)
Our premier social emotional learning series for helping social learners ages 4–7 develop foundational social competencies.
Superflex (Ages 7-10+)
Dive into the foundational products in our Superflex series to teach children the fundamentals of self-regulation and give them a world of characters to make social learning fun.
Tweens & Teens
Help tweens and teens navigate their social worlds, develop strong social competencies, deal with flirting and dating, and manage social anxiety.
Young Adult & Adult
Learn strategies to foster social competencies, relationship development, and independent living skills while helping individuals experience deeper well-being.
New Social Emotional Topics Streamed Live Every Month
Navigating Across School, Home, and Screen Landscapes using the ILAUGH Model: Part 1: The Social-Academic Brain: The Role of Initiation and Listening with One’s Eyes and Brain
Monday, February 1, 2021 | 9:00 AM PST
Navigating Across School, Home, and Screen Landscapes using the ILAUGH Model: Part 2: Thinking Socially Through the Lens of Abstract Thinking, Understanding Perspectives, Gestalt Thinking, and Humor
Tuesday, February 2, 2021 | 9:00 AM PST
Strategies for Adults with Subtly Significant Social Emotional Learning Challenges
Saturday, February 20, 2021 | 9:00 AM PST
Social Detective, Superflex®, and Friends Take On Social Emotional Learning: Teaching the Concepts with Fidelity: Part 1: Me in the Social World—It All Starts with Social Self-Awareness
Thursday, March 4, 2021 | 9:00 AM PST
Social Detective, Superflex®, and Friends Take On Social Emotional Learning: Teaching the Concepts with Fidelity: Part 2: Using Social Competencies to Navigate in the Social World
Friday, March 5, 2021 | 9:00 AM PST
Social Thinking Vocabulary and Strategies: Part 1: The Social World: Practical Vocabulary and Concepts for Teaching How It Works
Friday, April 16, 2021 | 9:00 AM PST
Social Thinking Vocabulary and Strategies: Part 2: Strategies and Concepts for How to Navigate to Regulate in the Social World
Saturday, April 17, 2021 | 9:00 AM PST
Assessing Social Competencies Using Social Thinking® Informal Dynamic Tasks: Part 1: Assessing Social Competencies with Practical Assessment Tools and Tasks
Monday, May 3, 2021 | 9:00 AM PST
Assessing Social Competencies Using Social Thinking® Informal Dynamic Tasks: Part 2: Exploring Socially Based Executive Functions & Tips for Assessing Different Developmental Ages
Tuesday, May 4, 2021 | 9:00 AM PST
Our Newest Webinars
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Must-Read Articles
Spaced-Out Kids Are Not Just Spaced-Out
What Teachers Need to Know, What They Can Do…and Why They Can’t Do It All!
Break Through Students’ Social Anxiety Barrier: A Strategy for Student-Teacher Communication
Social Thinking® in the World of Online Learning with More Literal-Minded Social Learners
Social Metacognition: Using Social Emotional Learning to Defeat Helplessness and Engage Hope
Help Avoid Frustration While Working From Home
Moving Forward with Your Family During the Pandemic
