The Social Thinking
curriculum is a curriculum founded by Michelle Garcia Winner intended to help
students with “social-cognitive disabilities” develop theory of mind.
When I was given
Social Thinking worksheets for a few days in my Social Skills class, I didn’t
understand the worksheets. However, when they were explained to me, I found
errors in logic and found it to be ableist (discriminatory towards people with
disabilities). Because I found it to be widely praised by parents and educators,
but found that many autistics pointed out problems with or only used it to
understand how neurotypicals think, I decided to share the problems I found in
it.
The reason Social Thinking gives
for doing things is because they are expected, even though sometimes expected
behaviors don’t solve a problem (this will be discussed further in part 4).
Also, sometimes expected behaviors do work, but not just because they are
expected. For example, being calm when something minor happens is expected, but
the reason why it works is because having too much emotion can overpower your
ability to think rationally and solve problems. It calls positive or neutral
thoughts people have when you do something expected “normal thoughts”, and
negative thoughts people have when you do something unexpected “weird
thoughts”. When Michelle Garcia Winner
cleared up confusion involving the term “weird thoughts”, she said calling
students “weird” is hurtful, but still thought it was okay to use the term
“normal thoughts”. Yet being normal is not intrinsically good, and being weird
is not intrinsically bad.
Social Thinking considers
neurotypicals to have no real social problems because their social errors are
within the bandwidth of normal social behavior, are considered part of being
human. However, the fact that they make mistakes shows that they do have social
problems, though it is easier for them to solve them. Also, autistics are
humans too, and our social mistakes are part of our humanity. Social Thinking
considers neurotypicals getting overwhelmed by social demands, and facing
anxiety and depression as a result, not to be due to a social learning
challenge because it is just part of life. By that logic, autistics getting
overwhelmed by social demands do not have social learning challenges because it
is part of their life.
Social Thinking lists Schizoid
Personality Disorder as a diagnosis related to social thinking challenges.
However, schizoids tend to be very capable of theory of mind, to the point that
they describe it as “reading people like a book”. They tend to use this ability
to imitate other people’s behavior, so that people don’t misinterpret the way
they react and they appear “normal”. Since they are indifferent to praise
and/or criticism, it might be that Social Thinking’s claim is incorrect, and
that caring about what other people think about you is not needed for theory of
mind.
Social Thinking teaches that if you
are being bullied, you should change your behavior. However, bullies will find
anything to pick on someone about. If someone changes their behavior in
response to bullying, oftentimes the bullies will make fun of them for changing
their behavior. Also, the bully’s prejudices are what cause the bullying in the
first place.
Social Thinking says you have to do
Whole Body Listening in order to listen and to show the social group that you
are listening. However, Whole Body Listening can be problematic to those with
sensory issues or those who become anxious if they are not stimming. For
example, I have to move my legs in order to avoid getting anxious, so if I am
sitting, I shake one of my legs. According to Whole Body Listening, doing that
(or moving any of your body parts, for that matter) is not okay.
Social Thinking says that students,
when having a conversation, reading a book, and doing organizational skills,
have to figure out the big picture first and then plug in the details. However,
when I try to do that, I am completely lost and can’t help but notice the
details. I can’t connect and evaluate details to form a whole concept like I
normally can do, so they seem separate. I have to scan each detail before figuring
out the big picture. In fact, many other autistics have to do this, and it
works for them!
Social Thinking says the reason
students with “social-cognitive deficits” get overwhelmed by homework loads in
middle school is because of their “social-cognitive deficits” (Winner, n.d.).
However, in middle school (at least in the United States), there are 30+
students in each classroom, way too many for the teacher to pay attention to
each of their needs. Additionally, there is more busy work given to students than
homework that actually helps them learn. Social Thinking focuses on the rewards
involving status that you get when you complete homework, even homework that
seems ridiculous. However, homework was intended to help a student practice
what they learned in school, though now the original purpose of it seems to
have been lost. Students don’t learn much from most of their homework nowadays.
Maybe part of the reason I had trouble in job interviews is because I do not look people in the eye when they are talking. I get lost in the details of their face, voice and the environment around us instead of hearing the other person.
ReplyDeleteI will never forget my first interview out of college with a man who sat at a desk of some large corporation in the SF Bay area and all I could remember from that interview was how blinded I was by the horizontal blinds illuminated by sunlight behind him. Those lines stayed on my eyes for minutes after I left that interview, which of course did not grant me a job.