Superflex... A Superhero Social Thinking Curriculum

Superflex... A Superhero Social Thinking Curriculum

By Michelle Garcia Winner

This is my second year using this social thinking curriculum with my students who have social weakness'.

"Superflex®: A Superhero Social Thinking Curriculum provides educators, parents and therapists fun and motivating ways to teach students with Asperger Syndrome, high-functioning autism, ADHD and other diagnosed and undiagnosed social difficulties how to build social thinking skills. Superflex combines a book, comic book and CD to create a curriculum that develops in each student's brain their own superheroic thinking processes that can overcome the challenges in different social situations that arrive across the school and home day.

The curriculum works best with elementary school children (grades K-5) as well as with immature older students who respond to visual books. Prerequisite books to make this tool most effective include Thinking About You Thinking About Me and You Are A Social Detective."

~Taken from socialthinking.com

I use this curriculum with students in elementary school from grades K-5.  My students really enjoy the concept of trying to think "superflex" (be just like the superhero in the comic book), and they also like coming up with their own unthinkables (comic book villains) that are not in the comic book.  They enjoy thinking of unthinkables that they see other kids being "taken over by."  Then they get to practice defeating these unthinkables with superflexible strategies that we also create.

Below is a picture of The Unthinkables...

In my opinion, the concept of this social curriculum works very well with all children.  You can come up with a superhero and villains for any area of need and it is an activity the students really enjoy doing and can relate to.  Many of my students also love to take their unthinkables home and teach their families about them and how we can defeat them so they don't take over our brains.

Creating Connections with Teachers and Curriculum: Innovative Service Delivery Models

January 14th, 2011

Presenters:  MetroESCU

This was a six hour presentation on several different service delivery models focused on embedded instruction for students, teachers, parents and speech language pathologists (SLPs).  A students plan of service and service delivery change together, based on how the student is progressing.  The following four service delivery models were discussed, and all are evidence based.

1.  Classroom-Based

This type of service delivery is individual, small group or whole group.  It occurs in the student's natural environment and uses curriculum-based interventions while serving students where they learn the curriculum with curriculum materials.  Classroom-based service delivery requires planning with the classroom teacher and other teachers.

2.  Self Contained Class/Course

This type of service delivery model uses direct services as a "period or block" of the student's school day.  An example of this may be the speech room or the classroom.  The student attends typically everyday for one "period."  The intervention is usually very intense, sometimes treated like a class, student may be graded, but is considered a restrictive placement.  This type of service delivery model should be related to some type of curriculum skills.

3.  Community Based

This type of service delivery model may have direct or indirect services.  Usually individual students work on specific situational skills, and the number and length of sessions depends on the need of generalization of the skill(s) to the environment.  It will focus on functional skills and carryover in a natural environment--targeting improvement in functional communication.

4.  Indirect/consultative/collaborative/on behalf of the student

This type of service delivery model is indirect service.  It involves, teachers, parents, assistants and other students.  This model promotes the Least Restrictive Environment and implies a great deal of collaboration among team members.

After I attended this presentation, I took time to think about they different types of services delivery models I am currently using with my students in an elementary setting.  I came to the conclusion that I need to begin trying articulation therapy as a quick pull-out, multiple repetition drill session.  Due to the high number of students my caseload, I thought it would be beneficial to try a new type of service delivery model with our articulation students beginning next school year.  Instead of pulling small groups of students who need articulation drill practice out of the classroom and in to the speech room, we will be meeting the student's outside of their general education classroom, individually, to very quickly (but accurately) drill them on their speech sounds.  It will be interesting to see the rate of progress these students will make with this type of intervention model verses the pull-out model we use this year.

How can you use your blog to develop, model, and maintain substantive, meaningful, collaborative, and reflective experiences and interactions?

November 11, 2010:  Phase III Reflection

Reflection Question (because I was absent from 11/9/2010 Phase III meeting):

I believe this Speech Geeks Blog can eventually be used as a electronic connection between Speech-Language Pathologists (SLPs) all over the world. Currently, I believe the concept of a blog is meaningful as a tool for me to reflect on different aspects of speech pathology and learn about another speech pathologists point of view and speech/language area interests via blog posts. I think the whole concept of a blog if fascinating. Ultimately, an ideal speech language pathology blog would have members from all over the world, and there would be commenting and postings happening daily. As of right now, we only have two members. I am not sure how to get other members to join. I am also not sure if focusing on the "ultimate" blog is very realistic at this point and time. I currently do not have the time in my day to learn how to use all of the parts of a blog and figure out how to add other SLPs.

Beginning this Speech Geeks Blog with Emalyn, also led to me adding her on Facebook. This is another Internet savvy tool that has become a great way for me to stay connected to speech people all over the US. I have many speech pathologist contacts from graduate school, overall the Twin Cities Metro area, and even some people out of state. It is a great way to keep in contact about what many of the districts in MN are doing. However, I think a blog would be more beneficial in the fact that you could post one question to many people and have anyone comment on it---and the only people that would see that post would be the people that really care about it and joined your blog in the first place.