Welcome
Welcome to the third edition of The Parents' Place sponsored by The Therapy Place staff. This newsletter is intended to provide parents and caregivers with some helpful information on various topics regarding their children. In this issue topics covered will include: transitions, the ILAUGH program, some helpful at home ideas for speech/language intervention and
The Wilbarger protocol.

Editor: Noelle Everts, MA CCC/SLP

ILAUGH Social Thinking Program
The Therapy Place is offering social cognitive assessments and intervention for children who demonstrate social cognitive deficits. Social cognition is our innate ability to think through and apply information to succeed in situations that require social knowledge. Social cognition is a form of intelligence that is key to learning concepts and integrating information across the entire day: in school, at home and in the community. Limited abilities for learning and/or applying socially relevant information can be considered a social cognitive deficit.

What is the ILAUGH approach?

The ILAUGH approach, which was developed by Michelle Garcia Winner, explores a variety of areas that contribute to social thinking and related skills. The ILAUGH acronym represents elements of disability that contribute to social interaction skills, personal problem solving skills and organizational skills.

Deficits in social cognition are difficult to reveal through traditional standardized assessment tools as many children with social cognitive deficits fall in the "average range" on standardized measures of expressive and receptive language. Yet, there's "still something...". These children tend to have difficulty initiating (I), listening with their eyes and brain (L), thinking abstractly and making inferences (A), understanding other's perspective (U), getting the big picture (G) and understanding humor in terms of the subtleties and timing (H). An ILAUGH assessment is designed to assess a child's individual strength and weaknesses in these areas. The ILAUGH approach provides an innovative framework to examine a child's social cognition through formal and informal testing procedures and provides intervention designed to address a child's social cognitive deficits in a group format.

The ILAUGH approach is appropriate for children who are at least 7 years old and have demonstrated average to above average cognitive skills. Those who may benefit from this approach may include, but are not limited to, persons diagnosed with Asperger's Syndrome, Non-Verbal Learning Disability, High-Functioning Autism, Pervasive Developmental Disorder-Not Otherwise Specified and attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder.

If you are interested in pursuing a social thinking assessment for your child or if you have any questions, please contact The Therapy Place at (952) 885-0418. link: www.socialthinking.com