MindWing Concepts Blog

As I was inside during a recent heat wave here in Massachusetts, I decided to review our new Blog Index on our MindWing Concepts website. There is such wonderful information available free of charge —lessons, webinars, downloadable files and technology resources to use in combination with this developmental tool! If you are new to SGM or experienced in our methodology, take some time from your summer to browse through our blog pages. Since I was looking for resources today to use with a student for lessons involving the Complete Episode, I thought I would share these 10 with you...

As we have previously discussed in this blog, play and narrative are inextricably linked (see our post about Braidy the StoryBraid^® and overlappings with Social Thinking^®’s Incredible Flexible You Program — now titled We Thinkers! and with a new 2nd volume)! “Play Plans” within a group or individual session can emphasize social cognitive concepts that are important during play such as “sharing an imagination” but also narrative elements that are acted out or realized in the process of play. A great series that can be used to emphasize early storytelling and play skills can be found in the apps from Sago Mini. These apps comprise contextual “sandboxes” fostering exploration and experimentation as characters are moved around a setting, resulting in interactive events. Sago Mini’s line features apps that allow interaction with characters such as superheros and neighborhood friends, and settings such as space, a forest, a construction site, and a cafe.

If you’re looking for a entertaining, summertime activity to do with preschoolers or kindergarten students, get a copy of the book Where’s Spot? by Eric Hill. This book was originally published in 1980 and was the first book in the Spot series. This engaging lift–the-flap book will bring you and your students on Sally’s journey to find her pup, Spot, in the house so that he will eat his supper. It’s the perfect book to reinforce the Descriptive Sequence and focus on the Character and Setting icons using Braidy the StoryBraid After reading (or viewing on YouTube) the book, make a list of characters (Sally, Spot, bear, snake, hippo, bird, lion, monkey, alligator, penguin, turtle) with the students...

Setting is a key area of instruction for students on the autism spectrum not only because they tend not to observe the “expected behaviors” or script for a given setting, but also because they often leave out details about Setting when telling stories to others, thus resulting in loss of a point of reference and confusion on the part of their listener. Students in social thinking/skills groups or individual treatment would therefore benefit from building descriptive skills through the use of the Setting Map contained in It’s All About the Story and other SGM resources. Once again, as visual and kinesethetic learners, working with resources they can see and manipulate assists in building these skills...

Recently, I came across two books at my local library that both had the same Kick-Off: Hiccups for Elephant by James Preller and Clifford’s Hiccups adapted by Suzanne Weyn. In each, the main Character in the story has the hiccups. Maryellen Moreau has completed a workshop activity using the Preller book shown below. In the Hiccups for Elephant book, the hiccups that the elephant has is an Initiating Event (Kick-Off) for the animals in the forest who do not like being awakened by the hiccups, and each have a remedy to offer. The elephant, himself, is not seeking a remedy...

For this month’s Tech Tuesday, I will be discussing the use of a phenomenal and versatile app, Pic Collage, which can be used to make storyboards for books that can be analyzed as Complete Episode Narratives with use of Story Grammar Marker^®. Pic Collage has long been a favorite of mine, and I have written about it previously and presented with MindWing Concepts on its uses.  It seems that every time I sit down with a student, I find a new way to use this app! Pic Collage is a free app that is available for both iPad and Android devices...