Theory of Mind Interventions to Develop Social-Emotional Skills: From Infancy Through Adolescence (Westby HS 063440)

Course overview

Featuring Carol Westby, PhD, CCC-SLP: Internationally-renowned expert on Theory of Mind, play assessment and development, language-literacy relationships, and the developer of the Westby Play Scale! Children with Theory of Mind (ToM) deficits lack social-reciprocity and perspective taking and struggle to make inferences about what others might do, think and feel. They have poor self-awareness and emotional regulation. Thus, they perceive the world they live in to be unpredictable putting them at a social and academic disadvantage. Your challenge as a therapist working with these children is to help them develop effective social-emotional functioning. Join Theory of Mind expert, Carol Westby, PhD, CCC-SLP, and discover the developmental stages of ToM from precursors in infancy through higher-level thinking in adolescence. You will learn how to identify the patterns of ToM deficits and ToM developmental levels to effectively match intervention strategies to the child's specific needs. Through video examples, children's books and movies and pictures you will learn to design and implement strategies to develop the social-emotional underpinnings of ToM. Skills that you will be able to implement immediately... - Assess development of ToM from infancy through adolescence - Engage children in emotional sharing and joint attention - Foster autobiographical memory and ability to think about the future - Improve the vocabulary and sentence patterns necessary for ToM - Identify multiple contextual cues to improve ToM - Develop intrapersonal ToM to regulate behavior and emotions - Determine which profiles respond to specific interventions using current research