Make Social Learning Stick!

Make Social Learning Stick

Make Social Learning Stick!Therapists and Parents as PartnersBy Elizabeth Sautter, M.A. CCC-SLPAt Communication Works, we’re passionate about partnering with parents and caregivers in the treatment process. When it comes to social learning, many children struggle to carry over learned skills from therapy or school to their home environment. Parents and caregivers are in a perfect position to help practice and facilitate those skills and help make them stick! As therapists, we want to give parents the awareness and knowledge as well as the tools and strategies to help embrace teachable moments and guide your children. We understand how busy parents are and strive to enlist your help without making stressful demands on your time. We try to make things easier by offering specific, “no-fuss” activities that fit within the family’s natural routines. This was my motivation for writing the book Make Social Learning Stick! How to Guide and Nurture Social Competence Through Everyday Routines and Activities.Whenever possible, we try to support the things parents are already doing and to piggyback onto those activities, such as reading bedtime stories, doing chores, or eating dinner. As an example, if we’re working on conversational turn taking in therapy, we can show the family how to use a “talking stick” (a spoon or spatula) at the dinner table. Family members pass the talking stick around the table to facilitate taking turns as each person describes their day. If we’re working on “wh” or “wonder” questions (who, what, when, where, etc.) with a child and we have made a visual prompt to facilitate this in therapy, we will make a copy of that visual and send it home with parents to use at the dinner table as well.If a child has an event coming up (a graduation, birthday party, holiday, etc.), we like to brainstorm with the parents and offer examples of details the parent can share with the child about what is expected during that event. This is called priming or social briefing. For example, if a child is planning to attend a graduation for the first time, parents can explain about caps, gowns, and diplomas (and why students toss the caps into the air) as well as how much sitting still and listening time the child can expect.  If the child hasn’t yet attended a July 4th celebration, we talk with parents about preparing the child for a big crowd and loud noises. Together, therapists and parents come up with specific topics to review with the child, like the type of behavior expected in a crowd and how to make the event more enjoyable and comfortable for the child, perhaps by bringing earplugs or asking for a break when feeling overwhelmed.By providing simple suggestions for teachable moments, we hope to make parents feel comfortable being a social facilitator at home and in the community.  For example, if we are working with a child on increasing observational skills and understanding nonverbal language, we talk to the parents about setting up a time to take their child out for a snack and do some “people watching.” We teach the parents how to play “social detective” with their child and identify how the other people in the coffee or snack shop are related, how they are feeling and possibly what they are talking about.  When we teach a skill such as sequencing during a therapy session, we show parents how to practice this skill by sequencing out the steps for something you might be doing at home such as baking cupcakes or making a birthday card. If we’re focusing on self-regulation strategies like calm breathing, we show parents how to practice by placing a teddy bear or book on the child’s belly and watching it go up and down. We’re always thinking about how parents can help their child practice a targeted skill at home. We also provide handouts with information or reminders in your personal binder to share with other family members.Each time a child works with a CW therapist, parents are brought into the individual or group session for a portion of the time, and either the therapist or the child(ren) show what they have learned. Then the therapist and parent brainstorm about ways to practice this new skill at home, always trying to keep activities easy and manageable. Without overwhelming parents, we strive to provide the reasoning behind a particular activity as well as specifics about how to carry it out at home. Social learning is a 24/7 process, and kids need support to be able to bring learned skills into the home and community. If professionals and parents don’t collaborate, the child misses countless opportunities for practicing essential social communication skills. With the right tools and knowledge, parents can serve as both coaches and cheerleaders for their children and become the glue that makes the learning stick!***Elizabeth Sautter, M.A. CCC-SLP is co-director and co-owner of Communication Works (cwtherapy.com) a private practice in Oakland, California, offering speech, language, social, and occupational therapy. She is the co-author of the Whole Body Listening Larry (socialthinking.com) books. Her most recent book is Make Social Learning Stick! How to Guide and Nurture Social Competence Through Everyday Routines and Activities (aapcpublishing.net). She can be reached at makesociallearningstick@gmail.com or follow her: website, Facebook, Pinterest & Twitter.