FALL 2010 STARTS SEPTEMBER 13 -- DECEMBER 17TH
Early Registration : September 1st. Save $150.00
**Please send an email for an updated schedule to info@talkingplayhouse.com**
If you are a new family, please make a "meet and greet" appointment
in order to find the best match for your child.
How to develop new pathways in the brain when certain areas appear underdeveloped is a complicated and tedious road to hoe and yet it is one of the most life-rewarding efforts one can embark on. It takes courage, willingness, indefatigable effort, patience, and an inordinate amount of time and tenacity to help the brain change itself.
According to brain fitness expert and neuroscientist (widely seen on public television) Dr. Michael Merzenich, "Brain Plasticity" refers to the brain's ability to change…the brain is not static; that it responds to circumstances, to new learning...." He purports there are science-based guidelines for choosing daily activities that are likely to engage the brain for positive change." Dr. Norman Doidge, author of "The Brain that Changes Itself" says "… It (the brain) doesn't simply learn; it is always 'learning how to learn.'"
Evidence-based practice for over 25 years in autism has led me to understand that this is true. While I pull from a variety of resources to exercise and develop the social brain (some are listed below), the real change results are in the consistent and daily practice of a multi-modal approach--largely executed by parents with their child.
The weekly sessions allow the lesson plan to be taught to the students in my groups with an emphasis in social project based learning whenever possible. The Parent Training is designed to give parents the tools to use daily for practice so that the information is shifting, beyond the superficial level of talking and knowing of working memory into the long-term memory of the Hippocampus for generalization.
A brief overview of goals at the Playhouse will help you to understand the current practices to change your child's social trajectory by helping the brain learn and change itself.
- Enhancing the brain for social interaction.
- Organizing the brain for time management, homework, school, physical environment, schedules (dressing, etc.)
- Developing Executive Functions for sequencing, impulse control, memory, problem solving, decision making, categorizing things, follow complex directions, & associative memory.
- Creating compensatory visual tools for coping with challenging areas.
- Using problem solving systems for managing conflict and resolution.
- Understanding accurate perceptions from information we receive and how to use them during engagement.
- Utilizing pragmatic language from idioms to abstract reasoning.
- Making sense out of an implicit world of inconsistent rules.
- Understanding hidden social rules and agendas.
- Exercising the various areas of the brain to enhance cohesive thought and action.
- Reading nonverbal cues in our environment.
- Understanding the space and bodies around us and how to navigate accordingly.
- Utilizing voice modulation (tone, volume, pitch) to garner positive impressions.
- Sharpening predictive skills.
- Monitoring our own behavior for awareness and change.
- Exercising flexibility in thought and practice.
- Adjusting our lenses: changing behavior based on reading the social cues -- verbal, nonverbal and vocal tone.
- Using verbalizing to build visual images to aid in gestalt thinking, perceptions, sequencing, writing development and social interactions.
- Moving knowledge from working memory to long-term memory.
- Acting and theatrical games to carve deeper memory pathways stored in the amygdala and hippocampus.
- Storytelling to make connections to past experiences and enhance storage of new social information.
- Focusing on emotions: reading (nonverbal), responding (language), and exhibiting (facial expressions and gestures,etc.)
- Creating positive discipline behavioral systems that work at home and school.
- Reinforcing expected behavioral techniques with visual cue cards (It's a Visual World© KueKards copyright The Talking Playhouse.)
* Social Skills Groups, Writers' Workshops, Lindamood Bell's®, Verbalizing & Visualing®, Organizational Life©, Parent Consultation, Social Skills/Speech & Language Assessments, Positive Behavior Planning Children to Adults
The Talking Playhouse, A Place for Social Learning offers therapeutic training for adults, children and their parents to develop skills and/or retrain how we use our social skills, how we think socially, how we organize our thinking to shape our work, environment and social engagements. And, how we enhance our ability to cultivate and manage abstract thinking during writing and social pragmatic language interactions.
Coursework includes curriculum drawn from Michelle Garcia-Winner's Social Thinking©, Mel Levine's Schools Attuned© & Social Cue Cards from Talking Playhouse's "A Visual World©," theater transformational and sensory techniques to enhance role playing rehearsals and other evidenced-based techniques to increase social cognition. Activities including team based projects, outings, team building exercises, theater games, etc. The Talking Playhouse works with school districts to train staff who may be working with children with Nonverbal Learning Disabilities, Asperger's, ADHD and High Functioning Autism.
New families: If you are a new family, please make a “meet and greet” in order to find the best match for your child. Please see below schedule grid for details.
All classes are conducted by a therapist with specialization in Social Cognitive Therapy.
Please see below for registration process.
Classes to review are:
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**Organizational Life (executive functioning exercises, logistical organization for homework, tasks, bedroom, binders, scheduling.) **Writing Sensibilities (incorporating Lindamood Bell's (tm) Visualizing and Verbalizing (tm) with writing techniques for children who have difficulty with abstract thinking and organization challenges.
**Social Groups (Social Qs & Socialology)
**New Parent Workshops
**Hellooooooooo Hollywood
Summer 2010
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TITLE
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AGE
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Description
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SOCIAL-O-LOGY
email for schedule
**grouped according to availability
min. 10 days
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4-7th grades
(grouped within 24
months of age.)
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**NEW (classes will be broken out by age)
Mixing Carol Dweck's "Mindset" (growth mindset) methods including her new software program "Brainology" to help students, 2nd grade and thru high school, understand how to change and create social brains for social interactions. This course is designed to empower students with the tools to understand how they have the power to change their own behaviors.
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WHAT'S MY LINE?
email for schedule
**grouped according to availability
min. 10 days
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2nd - 4th grade
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**NEW
(CONFLICT-RESOLUTION)
Through a series of fun games and real life anecdotal social stories, we will be teaching students how to deal with a variety of problem-solutions scenarios and give the toolkit necessary to productively use language to solve problems with peers and siblings.
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Helloooooooo Hollywood:
Movie Making & Playhouse Theater Games-
2 weeks
(flex scheduling)
email for schedule,
plz. include your black out dates
(min. 10 days)
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2nd grade - H.S.
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Theater Games inspired by the greats from Showbiz, including transformational and sensory games to bring out empathy and perspective taking not to mention getting your child in touch with how they can use their voice, body, mannerisms, etc. to become an actor with different personality traits.
The connection between acting and understanding the social perspective has been widely written about. PLAYHOUSE THEATER GAMES track includes movie making to facilitate in observations of social behavior and to give your child a sense of artistic exploration.
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ORGANIZATIONAL
LIFE®
Enhance image memory, writing & abstract thinking.
This is a "must take" course for students with imagery, abstract thinking & Executive Functioning challenges.
10 sessions minimum
email for schedule
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4th grade-College
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This course focuses on setting up, or fine tuning strategies & systems for organizing the student at school. We will build executive functioning skills re: time management, sequencing, navigating the big picture (gestalt thinking), and identifying how to solve the organizational challenges. Limited to 6 students.
Parent Training included.
If you are interested in a 2-week-long intensive v. 1x all summer, plz. indicate.
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WRITING
SENSIBILITIES®
Flex Scheduling
(min. 10 days)
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3rd Grade- H.S.
Email for schedule
Please include your
"black out dates."
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"Writing Sensibilities" is a workshop to help students become competent, happy writers and better social partners. We will use specific techniques, customized for students with abstract thinking and EF challenges, to comprehend more of what they read in order to facilitate their writing and conversation. Our visual tools are specifically designed to understand these challenges and to guide students systematically through the laborious process of abstract thinking and reasoning.
Our goal is to improve the executive functioning and abstract thinking processes needed to produce written work successfully. We will use tools such as Inspiration© software, customized visual webs created specifically for the mind that is challenged by abstract and organizational thinking. The concepts taught in this course will help students with their Executive Functioning skills--a suite of cognitive abilities needed to improve social skills, conversational skills, reading, writing and expressive language.
Price varies depending upon group size
($85.00 per session)
Must attend two
additional parent training TBD
If you are interested in a 2-week-long intensive v. 1x all summer, plz. indicate.
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Lindamood-Bell® Visualizing & Verbalizing®
min. 10 days
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3rd Grade-H.S.
Min 8 sessions,
Plz. email for
schedule and include
your black out dates.
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Growing The
Social Brain:
Pre-School Intensive
Includes Kinder-Readiness
Parent Training:
How To Facilitate Playdates All Summer To Enhance Kindergarten Readiness Skills
How To Work With Teachers To Maximize Social School Success.
min. 10 days
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Ages: 4- 5.5
**now grouped
according to availability
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Growing the Social Brain:
Pre-School Intensive
Includes Kinder-Readiness
Parent Training:How To Facilitate Playdates All Summer To Enhance Kindergarten Readiness Skills
How To Work With Teachers To Maximize Social School Success.
Social Skills Play, Games & Building This is a discovery & continuing course for those that want more in social engagement using structured play. Students will learn the fundamentals of Social Thinking© Michelle Garcia Winner© vocabulary, RDI©, problem-solving strategies and other related social skills methodologies to build an arsenal of pragmatic language, behaviors and systems to better navigate their social world.
Parent Training is designed to give parents a crash course in perspective taking vocabulary and positive parenting practices to achieve social success. It will include an overview of information to ensure school success and a sneak peek into challenges down the road both, academically and socially. We will demystification many of the areas related to social cognitive challenges.
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Growing The
Social Brain:
Preparing for the new school year
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Ages: 6-7
**now grouping
according to availability
(min. 10 days)
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Students will learn the key "Social Thinking©" social language from Michelle G. Winner's program to build perspective taking skills and problem solving techniques.
This intensive parent training program for school and home is designed to create tools that help you achieve target behaviors successfully.
Parents will learn how to use positive parenting discipline skills with "Social Thinking©" language to improve their child's self esteem and obtain goal behaviors. We will give you a sneak peek into challenges down the road, both academically and socially for kindergarten and first grade as well as general demystification of areas related to social cognitive challenges.
Parent Training included.
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