Resources and Links from Social Thinking™ Providers' Convention

I am sitting at San Jose International Airport in the Jet Blue Terminal as I write this (Sunday), exhausted yet also energized and inspired from my experience at the Social Thinking™ Providers' Convention in San Francisco.  I first learned about Social Thinking in probably 2003 (?) when I was struggling to figure out what to do with all my "pragmatics" groups of students with Asperger's, High-Functioning Autism, and related issues, and found my practice totally revolutionized by the concepts and vocabulary in the curriculum.  As the years have passed, Think Social Publishing has released more and more helpful materials that hook students attention while teaching key concepts for school and life. Meanwhile, more and more dedicated educators, therapists, and SLPs have embraced the curriculum and developed their own work based on it. SLP Michelle Garcia Winner, the creator of the approach, caught up and chatted at ASHA and she encouraged me to put in a presentation proposal for this conference, so here I am.  I presented as you might expect on Web Tools and Technology Strategies that compliment the curriuclum.  It was terrific to see the synergy and references made between so many of the methodologies, particularly Mindwing Concepts (who had a huge presence here!), The Incredible Five Point Scale, and Liz Delsandro's awesome We Can Make it Better Program.

Thanks to Sheila Moreau of Mindwing Concepts for snapping this pic!

It doesn't seem like that many people were tweeting from the conference, but I was, and I made a hashtag (#stpc2011) so I could sort out all the tweets later and republish them for people who read this blog.  Janet Dudley of Social Communication Specialists found each other through the tweets (and actually met!) and she added a lot of ideas, so thanks, Janet! Hope you enjoy this "Chirpstory" and find it helpful.  I am sure I could have tweeted more links to presentations but I wanted to make sure I asked each presenter first, and here are the ones I got to.  Regarding my own presentation, I plan to spend some time this Fall describing each of these resources, perhaps as I did with GlogsterEDU.

Hope you all are having a great summer!