Social Thinking: Video Modeling With Adolescents

Ahh, don’t you just love working with our social thinking students? You know the ones...
- The student whose conversation topics consist of silverfish and skeletons,
- The constant “blurter” who insists he’s always right,
- The girl who constantly picks at her ear and then smells her ear wax for sensory feedback,
- The kid who will stare at you for five minutes before realizing you’ve been waiting for him to ask “How was your weekend?” back to you,
- The 14-year-old who crawls under his desk when he’s bored.

These students often provide us with the best stories to share after work because they’re just such unique individuals! But as therapists, we don't seek to remove or kill that individuality; rather we want give them some skills that they can use to navigate the real world and understand how they can be more successful when interacting with peers, teachers, and adults. But, that's easier said than done, of course! In this blog, I'm going to highlight one strategy I have used with social thinking groups, but please comment what strategies you have used that work for your students!

Sally, Please Don’t Smell Your Ear Wax

Back during my internship in a middle school, I began working with the first 3 students I described above. Once a week, they’d come somewhat hesitantly: either they believed they had no problems and did not belong in my social thinking group or they were so acutely aware of their “weird” status that talking about it made them uncomfortable. A typical session consisted of the group (attempting) to discuss a social thinking worksheet while…

• The silverfish student insisted on discussing silverfish while he drew skeletons in the margins of the worksheet.
• The lone girl in the group quickly pointed out the others’ “weird behaviors” but failed to recognize that smelling her ear wax is a prime example of oddity and social faux pas.

• The “blurter” interrupted everyone, all the time, to make a “more intellectual” comment and remind the group of why he didn't need to be there.

I quickly realized that these students were PROS at picking out the “weird” behavior in others. Identifying strange behaviors in a Mr. Bean video? Nailed it. Recognizing that Sheldon from the Big Bang Theory is being self-centered and not thinking of others? No problem! How could these students be so observant when watching other people but be totally incapable of identifying their own unexpected behaviors? I decided that the strategy of video modeling had to be attempted to incorporate real-life examples.

Ms. Hall, Are You Going to Put Us On YouTube?

For those of you who may be unfamiliar with premise of video modeling, I'm not going to go in-depth with the concept of video modeling here, because that could easily cover several posts! If the concept is new to you, I highly encourage you to make a free account with Autism Internet Modules and check out their module on video modeling (as well as all their other great modules!).

As an aside, you should double-check with your school about their policy on recording students before you engage in video modeling. At the 4 schools I've worked at in two different districts, all required parents to sign a release stating that they consent to photos and videos of their students being taken for "school purposes." I don't think you should have an issue with video modeling at most public schools, especially since you will be deleting the video after watching it with the students!

So, here’s what happened with my group when we tried video modeling...

I had only an iPad at my discretion to use as a recording device, so I set it up discreetly on a back table in a manner that would still record all three students. It wasn’t perfect, but it worked. I called for my students to come from their classes and hit record. We carried out a typical session and, as usual, each of the students engaged in some pretty unexpected behaviors.

For the next session, we watched the video I had recorded in secret the week before. I knew ahead of time that watching and discussing the video alone would not be enough - inevitably we'd get off track and it would turn into a session of each student trying to label the others as "weirder." In order to create structure for the session and access information through multiple modalities, I decided that I needed to develop a worksheet that each student could complete as the group worked through watching the video. 

You can find that worksheet available for a free download here at my Teachers Pay Teachers store.

 

 I found the session to be fairly impactful. Although the students were already aware that they engaged in unexpected behaviors once in awhile, watching how frequently they did something unexpected on the video seemed to really surprise them. For example, the female student who smelled her ear wax has no clue how frequently she engaged in the behavior. While completing her worksheet, she came to the conclusion on her own that she needed to rely more on her scented erasers to meet her sensory needs. She had been trying to phase out using her scented erasers because she was "too old for that now;" but upon realizing that her ear wax smelling habit was far more unexpected, she conceded that the scented erasers weren't actually so bad!

For the student who couldn't help but blurt, we kept a tally of every time he cut off another person from speaking and we analyzed the facial expressions and body language of those he had cut off. While not entirely convinced that his blurting had been unexpected, he did identify on his worksheet that it was clear that his blurting hurt others and made them feel unimportant. With some subtle suggestions, he decided that his replacement behavior would be to write down what he wanted to say on a piece of paper and at the end of the session he could state one thing that he had been unable to say during the session.

Overall, the students seemed to enjoy watching themselves and realizing just what they looked like when engaging in unexpected behaviors. I did have to very firmly steer the conversation away from comments like "But he's weirder," so be ready to jump in and have a firm hand to guide the conversation. We ideally want students to come up with their own solutions, but the amount of cueing and conversational steering needed will definitely vary from student to student.

Finally, don't forget to delete your video as soon as you watch it with the students! Discretion with recorded materials is always best - you don't want to accidentally upload your students onto a cloud service! 

I hope this explanation of how I have used video modeling has been helpful. There are lots of ways to incorporate video modeling into your sessions (e.g. with fluency students to demonstrate hard stuttering versus easy stuttering), so get creative and let me know how it goes in the comments!

As always, it doesn't have to be fancy, just keep it fun and functional!

• Jillian, the No-Frills SLP