Another Thanksgiving Lesson

I am going to be posting a bit about my great experience at ASHA (just got back and I am soooo tired, and still have laryngitis), but this is time-sensitive. SpeechTechie pal Katy Fleming, whom I work with at Bigelow Middle School, sent me this resource via email. She is right-on in noting that video can be used as a great way to engage students to discuss expected and unexpected behaviors, in this case the ones that we call "table manners." Katy also refers here to one of my favorite tools, The Incredible 5-point Scale, a variety of useful versions of which appear in Autism Asperger Publishing Company's The Social Times series, also by Kari Dunn Baron. Thanks, Katy!!

With Thanksgiving next week, I've been using my groups to talk about "table manners" and rude behavior. I found this video on youtube (kinda gross) and we used the Manners Social Times issue ... absolutely LOVED the "Rude Behavior 5 point scale".

5 being Extremely Rude

4 Offensive

3 Unsettling/Disturbing

2 Small Issue

1 Polite ....

You will love to hear that we discussed "farting loudly" and the "unplanned fart" for about 15 minutes.

Other behaviors discussed were: racist jokes, yawning loudly and then blowing your breath on others, unwanted topics of discussion, etc.

If you are looking for other lessons regarding the Thanksgiving holiday, there are some great specific social thinking ones in Michelle Garcia Winner's Worksheets book.

Have a great Thanksgiving!