Climbing the Social Detective Ladder - Ep. 053

 We know how important it is to teach our clients to read social cues. But that’s so much easier said than done! Making the implicit explicit can be a real challenge for us.

 Here’s how Episode 53 can help:

You’ll find

• Several strategies for using books and video clips to teach social skills
• Ways to teach clients to understand what it means to “notice” social clues
• An explanation for parents about what it means to be a social detective and why it’s critical

 The list of strategies is available on the Free Resource Library at thespeechumbrella.com

--- Useful Links ---

Episode 52
socialthinking.com
Gonge Riverstones

Music: Simple Gifts performed by Ted Yoder, used with permission

--- Transcript ---

Some detective shows, like Psych and Sherlock Holmes, show how good these detectives are at noticing things. But they never show what they notice about people. And to be a good detective. You have to know what motivated the people, what the people were thinking. And it's the same thing with all of our situations. It's what you notice about people that helps you figure out how to get along in the world. That's why Michelle Garcia Winner, calls that being a social detective. Welcome to the speech umbrella, the show that explores simple but powerful therapy techniques for optimal outcomes. I'm Denise Stratton, a pediatric speech language pathologist of 30 plus years. I'm closer to the end of my career than the beginning. And along the way, I've worked long and hard to become a better therapist.

Join me as we explore the many topics that fall under our umbrellas as SLPs. I want to make your journey smoother. I found the best therapy comes from employing simple techniques with a generous helping of mindfulness.

[00:01:01] Choose Your Books Wisely

Today's podcast is a followup to the last episode that I called, "Choose Your Books Wisely".

That episode was all about choosing books that work really well for teaching clients how to infer or how to be social detectives. And we're going to take a deeper dive into that today.

Being a social detective is being able to look at all of the nonverbal cues in the context of a social situation and figure out what's going on. Some people say that the words we say make up only 7% of communication. And the other 93% has to be inferred. So you gotta be a social detective if you're going to get along in this world.

 Let me tell you who this approach is for. These are the kids that can understand and retell you a basic story. The basic story means they can tell you about the character, a little bit about the setting. They can tell you about the problem the character is having, their feeling about it, their actions they take to solve a problem, and the resolution. And they are also starting to move into being able to do a more complex story, that the character has to make repeated attempts to solve their problem because the first thing didn't work.

They also are beginning to think about thinking. Which just means they can say things like "I know", or "I remember". They may not be really great at that yet, but they need to be able to have the capability to think about thinking in order to do what we're going to talk about today. In order to be a social detective and to infer, you have to think about thinking.

I'm going to do a really quick review of what makes a great book for inferencing, in case you didn't catch the last episode. The story needs to have a clear story arc, no side trips into irrelevant topics, multiple opportunities for being a social detective, for inferring things, and humor on the absurd side.

 Since last episode, I ran into some information about why this absurdity worked so well. It's the unexpected. Children learn new words when their curiosity is excited by something that is unexpected. So those books that hit the sweet spot? They have all of these things with a little bit of that unexpected. If you want a list of books that I love, they're on my free resource library and I'll update that continually, as I find more books I love.

I know I have some parents listening, so speech therapists, hang on there. I want to talk real quick about why inferencing is so important. One of the tests we give to clients who have autism, consists of lots of pictures of people in different social situations. And we asked them. What are they thinking? What would they say? And good social detectives, people with good social competency, these are no brainers. These are so easy to answer. But it's really, really hard for some of our clients because they can't pick up on those social cues. Social competence is how you make and keep friends, how you get along at work, how you get along in the world.

[00:04:00] Noticing People Is Important

I find it interesting that some detective shows, like Psych and Sherlock Holmes, show how good these detectives are at noticing things. You'll see how they show a series of flashbacks with critical things to solving the mystery kind of circled. They do that in their post editing and it's like their mind goes so fast over all these things, and then they solve the mystery. They put it together.

But they never show what they notice about people. And to be a good detective. You have to know what motivated the people, what the people were thinking. I mean, it's the people that committed the crimes, right? And it's the same thing with all of our situations. It's what you notice about people that helps you figure out how to get along in the world. That's why Michelle Garcia Winner, who founded social thinking.com calls that being a social detective. I've borrowed that term from her.

 Lacking the ability to do this, lacking the ability to inference, it's not just an occasional annoyance in someone's life. It's such a critical life skill. It can have really long-term consequences, if you can't do it. And the cool thing is we can work on it. We can build social competency. And one of the ways we do that is my making the implicit explicit. Making what is implied, easy to figure out an easy to understand.

You might've clued into already that this is a little bit more than just reading a bedtime story. You're going to have to ask them questions. By asking questions, you can help your kids connect the dots. Okay. Speech therapists, you're back with me now? You've chosen a great book. You ask them a question about why a character does something. And the response is, "I don't know".

 How do you as a therapist or a parent help them move past that non-committal shrug that reflexive, "I don't know". Or simply, I really don't know, even if I think at about a really hard. How do you move them past that to figuring out those things that are implied, but not stated directly.

That's what we're going to talk about today.

[00:06:00] How to Teach Noticing

 In 2020, I went to a social thinking conference where I learned some great things about helping clients inference. This is what I learned. You want to help the client set the stage in the context. Don't skip this. You may notice these things. You don't even know that you're noticing these things. You're not aware of them when you watch a video or a movie or you pick up a book.

But our clients aren't used to noticing these. So make them really obvious. Talk about where the characters are. Talk about what's happening. Talk about who the characters are. You're setting the stage.

And as you read, or as you watch the video, stop and ask, "What did you notice?" Or "what do you think the plan was?" And then, your follow-up question is "What makes you say that?" This is the goldmine question. This is where they're connecting the dots with whatever they noticed and their conclusion. What was it that they noticed that made them draw that conclusion?

 Here's some additional questions that can deepen their understanding even further. You can ask, "What was unexpected?" Remember when I talked about the unexpected in the humor and absurdity? Here's where that's important. So they notice, what happened that they didn't expect? What surprised them?

You could ask what was expected? You could ask, what could he have done differently? How would he have felt if he had done that? You can ask, what is she thinking about? How was that thought making her feel? Okay. That's one of my favorite questions because a lot of our clients don't understand that it's a thought that makes them feel a certain way. And lots of times their feelings are so strong that they have really big reactions. And helping them to think about a thought that made them feel that way can help them understand they don't need to have a huge reaction to a small problem. You can ask what a thought is making her feel that way?

Now, these are obviously some really deep questions, and if you get in deep water, go back to, "what did you notice?", "What do you think the plan was?" And "what makes you say that?"

These questions are really, really great for kids who already have a little bit of that social competency. Let's think of being a social detective as climbing a ladder. The higher up you are on the ladder, the more you're able to make these inferences. These questions I just covered, are really great for those kids who are already on the ladder. But you've got some clients who don't even have a foot on the bottom rung.

And so they can't answer these questions. They can't answer, what is she thinking about? They can't answer, what was unexpected? So, what are we going to do now?

I've got some great ideas for you, so let's dive into that.

[00:08:37] 8 Ideas To Get Them Started

I've got eight ideas to help these kids get the foot on the bottom rung of the ladder.

Here's the first one. Just check and make sure that the book you're reading or the video you're watching is not too complex. I often find that I've just chosen something too complex. If they're not being successful, check that.

Number two. Get out a piece of paper and a pencil and make a list. Actually write down or draw pictures of who the characters are, where they are and what's happening.

Remember when I talked about detective shows? They make a board and they put the suspects up there and all the things that have to do with the mystery? This is what you're doing. You are making your board. And it makes it more visual to them, easier for them to draw connections when they don't have to hold it all in their mind. It's written out there. It's drawn out there.

 Number three. As you're going through and asking them what they notice, make a list of what they noticed. Make a list of what you notice. You're providing the model. Now they've also got that to refer back to.

Number four. If they say they don't notice anything, which can happen, have them put their finger on a picture in the book and tell you what they're pointing to. I've had this happen where a client, put her finger on a picture in the book, but her eyes were looking everywhere around the room. I was thinking, " she's pointing, but she's not looking". So I had to actually teach her to look at what her finger was pointing to. Once they're pointing to something and looking at it, then have them tell you what they notice and discuss the significance of it. That's really teaching them how to notice. Some kids don't even really know what it means to notice. At first, they might point to something that seems very irrelevant to the story because they're just learning, so do your best to talk about the significance. Model pointing to something significant. And as you practice this, they will start to notice and look at and point to the significant things like pointing to someone's facial expression and noticing that they're happy or sad, things like that.

Number five. Act out the story with props. Now parents, this is great because you've got siblings you can draw in and maybe dress up clothes and things like that. Me, I'm just trying to make, do sometimes with just me and the client and we're playing several parts. But they love this. Kids love to act. So take advantage of that. Again, it helps them get the story in their brain.

Number six practice retelling the story. And I just mean the main parts of the story. Which is again the character and the setting and the problem. And the feeling and the action or repeated actions to solve the problem and then the resolution. And I recommend getting physical with this. Meaning, put some carpet dots or some markers on the floor. .

You can model this first. Model telling each part of the story as you walk from one carpet dot the other. I've even been using some river rocks that kids jumped to. They're these plastic molds that are really cool. Anyway, one of my clients loves to jump from one rock to the next rock, as she tells each part of the story. It just makes her laugh. And she does better. Because she's more interested in it.

Number seven. Make a really short list of things to say, instead of saying, "I don't know". And make it a goal or make it a game to not say, "I don't know", and use one of these responses instead. My list of what to say instead of, I don't know, is really short. Now, just so we don't get confused here. We're talking about lots of lists here. So you've made a list of. Who's in the story and where they are and what's happening. And you've made a list of what you've noticed.

Now you've got this list of what to say instead of, "I don't know." And the first thing on that list is, "Let's look at our list." So by that, I mean, look at the list of, who the characters are and where they are and what's happening and what you've noticed. So if you've got a question that they don't know how to answer, refer back to the list of the things you noticed.

You could also say, " Let's look at the words in the book because the words can give you clues." And if they're readers, you can use that. Or they can say, "Let's look at the pictures in the book. And see what you can notice from that." Notice what someone did or notice their emotion and that can help them draw those conclusions and make those connections.

And number eight. Model out loud thinking. So what do I mean by that? You're gonna say your thought process out loud as you're thinking it.

[00:13:02] Let's See How This Works

 Let me show you how that works. There's a Frog and Toad story about how they can't stop eating cookies. They think they should stop eating cookies because they might get sick, but they can't stop. So if the question is. Why didn't they stop eating the cookies? Then this is how I would do this out loud thinking.

I might go.

I wonder why frog and toad didn't stop eating the cookies. Let me look at our list here. It says, they thought the cookies were the best cookies they'd ever eaten. I think they didn't stop eating them because they tasted so good. I think they wanted to eat them all.

And then you can stop a moment and talk about it with your client. You know, like when you have cookies at home, do you want to stop at just one? How many do you want to eat? Do you want to eat them all? And that leads them to understanding why Frog and Toad didn't stop eating the cookies. That's an example of out loud thinking. It's showing how you connected the dots in your brain.

In summary, here's a quick list of what you can do to help your kids be better social detectives. As you read books with them or watch little short video clips, you can say, " What did you notice?" "What was unexpected?" "What makes you say that?"

You can check the complexity of the book. You can make a list, a written list. Or draw pictures of the setting, meaning the characters where they are and what's happening. You can also list anything that you notice. You can practice putting your finger on a picture and talking about what you notice and why that's important.

You can act out the story. You can practice retelling the story. You can make a list of things to say, instead of, "I don't know." And you can model out loud thinking.

[00:14:47] Why Do These Strategies Work?

Why do these strategies work well? There's four reasons of why they work. One, they help with memory. So the list-making, they don't have to hold everything in their brain. The repeated retellings helps them understand that story.

And two, it helps with noticing. The children who struggled to be social detectives, aren't good at noticing. Helping them put the finger on a picture in a book helps them understand how to notice.

Three. You're helping extinguished that reflexive "I don't know" habit. Sometimes it just becomes a habit. And instead of doing the work of thinking, they go back to the, I don't know, because that's what they're used to saying.

And four, your making connections. Because we know what fires together, wires together. So adding in acting, adding in a physical movement gets those neurons fired in their brain and they remember things better. They become better thinkers.

I know that's a lot to remember. You can go to my free resource library and I've got a little sheet listing all the things you can do to help your kids or your clients move up that social detective ladder. You can find that at thespeechumbrella.com / free.

I hope you try these methods and if they work for you, let me know. If they don't work for you, let me know. I'd love to have feedback on how this works for you. Drop me a line at [email protected]. I'd love to hear your thoughts on this.

Thanks for joining me today. I always appreciate the time you take to listen to my podcast. And next episode, I'm going to be reviewing, Raising An Organized Child by Dr. Korb. Thanks for listening. Talk to you next time.