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The Superflex Series: A Helpful Resource
There are so many benefits to having shared vocabulary to talk about social skills!
The Superflex Series highlights a great example of this. The first book within the series (‘You are a Social Detective’) is particularly helpful for younger children to grasp the concept of social skills. It presents our different skills as kinds of “smarts”—whether it be friend smarts, play smarts, or maths smarts.
By presenting social skills as social smarts, it places the growth of social skills within a workable therapeutic space and enables our clients to better clarify their goal-setting. It also helpfully provides a common framework and vocabulary for parents, caregivers, teachers, and other relevant communication partners to reflect on the specific elements of a social situation with our clients who are working on their social skills.
Amidst the greyness and vagueness of social situations, it is vital to work on social skills through concrete concepts. ‘You are a Social Detective’ provides a tangible process for analysing social situations, including the place (where someone is), the people around them, and the actions happening around them. Through these three concepts, the client can make an educated guess and devise a plan within the relevant social situation. Within this framework, the client can also use shared vocabulary to reflect on their plan with trusted caregivers. These include:
- Using your ears and eyes to listen and think
- Expected and unexpected behaviours, which either lead to calm or uncomfortable thoughts and feelings in others
- Hidden rules, such as the rules people don’t usually express openly
Although it can feel challenging (and at times isolating) to work specifically on social skills, providing a common language broadens the concept of social smarts to all people, which is more likely to encourage real-time application in contexts that are functional for our clients and subsequently increase the opportunities for generalisation and progress!
Eastside Speech is a vibrant private speech therapy practice centrally located in the Eastern Suburbs of Sydney.
Operating since 2001, our team of dedicated speech pathologists are passionate about helping the world to communicate better.
The practice is an approved NDIS service provider. We are registered with Medicare and are able to see clients using the Chronic Disease Management referral scheme. All our therapists are PROMPT trained.
