Thinking About You, Thinking About Me: Philosophy and Strategies for Facilitating the Development of Perspective Taking for Students with Social Cognitive Deficits

by Michelle Garcia Winner

Students with social cognitive learning deficits face enormous challenges not only in their day-to-day relations with the world around them, but also in the fact that few professionals, educational or medical, understand the core of these student's deficits. One fundamental deficit relates to perspective taking - the ability of one person to consider the point of view and motives of another. Although this sounds like a simple process, it is in fact a hugely complex task that is crucial to successful interpersonal relations, and is a skill that anyone with a social cognition disability will struggle with. This book addresses the different ways this problem can present itself, the current thinking on how to approach the problem and a wealth of exercises and activities that can immediately be applied to the student. Illustrated with clear diagrams and tables, and with photocopiable handouts, this accessible text will be invaluable for anyone assessing, living with or teaching children and adults with this most abstract of all learning disabilities.

Genres: Autistic Spectrum Disorder, Nonfiction, Psychology, Parenting, Adhd, Education, Teaching

304 pages, Paperback

First published September 1, 2002

About the author

Michelle Garcia Winner, MA, CCC-SLP, is the founder of Social Thinking and a globally recognized thought leader, author, speaker, and social-cognitive therapist. She is dedicated to helping people of all ages develop social-emotional learning, including those with social competency challenges. Across her 30+ year career she has created numerous evidence-based strategies, treatment frameworks, and curricula to help interventionists foster social competencies in those they support. Michelle's work also teaches how these competencies impact a person's broader life, including their ability to maintain relationships and their success in school and career. She continually retools her methods based on the latest research and inspiration from the clients she sees in her San Francisco Bay Area clinic.

Reviews

[Anne · Rating 5 out of 5]

This book was written for clinicians who teach social thinking (or pragmatic speech) to children and adults. As a layman though, I got a lot out of it. The big picture is that in order to communicate effectively, the speaker needs to be able to take in the other person's perspective. This is something that is an organic development for most children, but can be challenging for people with Aspbergers, NLD, autism, etc. Just describing the problem is helpful, but Winner also provides practical suggestions on how to build perspective taking skills, how to read non-verbal cues, and the hidden rules of conversation.

[Sorrowka · Rating 3 out of 5]

Thinking About You, Thinking About Me is obviously an intriguing title. Mostly it's suitable as a reference book (in my opinion; also I saw this book cited in other books). It defined ground theory of which aspects plays important roles in predicting other's mind and modify our behavior. Furthermore, the author showed some handouts and examples of the children.

[Cathy Campbell · Rating 5 out of 5]

Great resource on helping children and adults understand how their behavior impacts others and some strategys for effecting these behaviors. This information was new to me. I wish I would have known it years ago.

[Melissa · Rating 4 out of 5]

Excellent...real life situations as we see them, not as we philosophically are supposed to see them.

[Abdullahi]

not yet read but the title more likely

[Christine · Rating 5 out of 5]

This book was so helpful to me as a parent and layperson. It's full of practical advice about how to help children improve their perspective-taking abilities. Highly recommend!

[Zzz · Rating 5 out of 5]

I liked this book. for social thinking.

[Aimee · Rating 5 out of 5]

A great resource for anyone who works with individuals with social cognitive learning challenges! This book focuses on the skill of perspective taking.

[Briana]

“Theory of Mind” Practical useable strategies; some for groups, some for individual

[Kayla · Rating 4 out of 5]

For a class!

[Briana · Rating 3 out of 5]

This book was very much written for clinicians, so a little disappointing as a teacher that things were not more simply laid out. But, Winner has other great resources for teachers that I am excited to explore.

[Linda]

A great resource for professionals and laypeople alike.