Tag Archives: communication skills

Pick of the Week: Clue Cards – 5 games in one to teach socioemotional skills

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Clue Cards teaches students how to interpret social situations, read facial expressions, and understand metaphorical forms of speech. This week, you can save 15%* on Clue Cards – just enter promo code CLUECARDS when you check out online! Play 5 different games to teach inferencing, faces and feelings, body language, exploring Wh- questions, and a variety of common idioms!

Therapists, teachers and parents can uses the cards and games included in this set to help students perceive and understand the details of social presentation. Because the cards are flexible and adaptable, they can be used with both younger and older children, with mild or sever socioemotional difficulties. There are instructions for 5 different games along with 100 reward chips, targeted for players ages 6–16.

  1. Get a Clue: Players find “clues” in social situations and make inferences based on those clues (15 Social Situation Cards).
  2. Faces and Feelings: Link expressions with associated emotions (20 Feeling Cards, 20 Faces Cards).
  3. Body Language: Matching photos and captions, children explore body language for clues about thoughts and feelings (24 Photo Cards, 24 Caption Cards).
  4. The 5 W’s: Analyze 10 social scenes by asking “who-what-where-when-why” questions (10 Social Scene Cards, 1 Spinner).
  5. In Other Words: Learn the idioms and proverbs that often pop up in social conversation (30 Idiom Cards, 30 Idiom Definition Cards, 26 Proverb Cards, 26 Proverb Definition Cards).

*Offer lasts through March 1, 2016 at 11:59 PM EST. Be sure there are no spaces or dashes in your code CLUECARDS at check-out! Not valid on past purchases.

Pick of the Week: Should I or Shouldn’t I?

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New from the Social Thinking team, Should I or Shouldn’t I? encourages players to think about their own behavior choices and compare how their perceptions match—or don’t—those of others. The game is built on the idea of perspective-taking and explores social behaviors from different viewpoints to help develop understanding of how these affect relationships with others. The object of the game is to have players think about their own thoughts and behaviors and those of others in various situations. This week, we’re featuring both the Middle/High School and Elementary School editions as our Pick of the Week with a 15% discount to your order. Just enter in promo code SHOULDI3 to redeem your savings at checkout.

The brand-new Elementary School edition fosters important discussions about social situations that elementary-aged students ages 8-11 may encounter at home, at school, and out in the community. Between the ages of 8-11, the social demands placed on kids begin to change. Teachers expect kids to be more socially aware of others and be more independent in monitoring their own social behaviors. Kids of this age are also expected to successfully navigate unstructured social experiences such as recess and lunch. For many, this is difficult. As kids move through grades 3-5, play also changes from being imaginative to being competitive. Kids “hang out” more, which often translates into increasingly sophisticated conversations where group members must figure out other people’s motives and intentions. Overall, social nuance becomes much more complex.

This game gives kids a chance to explore this shifting social landscape and learn how their own views compare/contrast with the way their peers view things. The Prompt and Challenge cards address a wide range of age-matched situations that arise at school, during down time together, or in the community. However, it is always wise for parents or therapists to read through the cards and remove those that may be inappropriate for any of the players or that are mismatched to their level of social functioning or social understanding.

 

The Middle/High School edition is designed to give preteens and teens a fun and motivating way to improve their social sense, practice taking the perspectives of others, and discuss relevant teen issues in a nonjudgmental setting. Questions posed on the Prompt and Challenge cards address a wide variety of teenage-related situations, such as interacting at home, at school, at a friend’s home, the mall, the grocery store, at a party or the library, at the movies or on a date.  For some alternative ways to play, check out Sam Blanco‘s set of Modified Instructions for the Middle/High School edition of this game.
Each edition can be played 1-on-1 with a therapist or in a group of up to 6 players. Each set includes: 100 Prompt cards to practice perspective taking; 50 Challenge cards that help generalize learning; 6 sets of Voting Cards; 6 copies of the 5-Point Behavior Rating Scale; and a Teaching Guide that provides in depth instruction for preparing students to play and meeting the unique needs of each individual learner.Should I or Shouldn’t I? will be perfect if you are looking for structured activities to teach complex social skills to elementary school-aged and teens with autism or other developmental delays. Don’t forget—this week only, you can save 15% on your order of the Should I or Shouldn’t I? Elementary School Edition or Middle/High School Edition by entering in SHOULDI3 at checkout.