Person Files

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The school year brings transitions, changes, and the opportunity to meet new people and make new friends. In our social groups at Communication Works, there are often new children joining the groups or some coming back from a summer at camp or traveling. Seeing new faces in a group brings the opportunity to practice getting to know people, recall what you already know about someone, or simply “catch up.” Michelle Garcia Winner (www.socialthinking.com) provides an excellent tool, called a Person File, to help store information about people we’re getting to know or gather new information about people we already know. She defines Person Files as memory files that we store in our brain about the various people we meet. These Person Files can consist of another’s interests, beliefs, reactions to emotions, dislikes and likes, etc. From the information we've gathered, we can then have an easier time conversing about a topic that we know is interesting or meaningful to that person. This helps with building connections. For example, if you discover that someone likes the same things you like, such as soccer, Harry Potter, and video games, this person is probably a good friend candidate. When we discover that we have things in common with someone and develop a deeper relationship with them, we can then refer to these files as Friend Files and continue to store information about these friends in our brain. For example, if you know that person had a big soccer tournament, you can store that information and remember to ask about the tournament when you see them next.In our social groups we teach students how to gather information to put into their Person and Friend Files by asking questions (e.g. “wonder questions” in which we wonder about another person’s activities or preferences). We also focus on observing and making “smart guesses” (e.g. it’s a smart guess to think someone might like Star Wars if they are wearing a Yoda t-shirt).  This gathering of information can take place through a simple activity such as interviewing each other. It can also be more complex, with activities like creating a talk show or making a comic strip about the new people that the students are getting to know.  Two great apps for making a comic strip or story are Pic Collage (http://pic-collage.com/) and Strip Designer (www.mexircus.com/Strip_Designer). More information about Person Files can be found in Michelle Garcia Winner’s books Thinking About You, Thinking About Me and Think Social!