ILAUGH Group
The ILAUGH social thinking program 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. The approach is utilized in a
small group setting of three to four children. 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
Social Thinking Deficits
Is this child a candidate for referral?
(Yes-if any of the following are present)
-
Does
not initiate appropriate social interactions or sustain
social interactions -
Has
difficulty working in groups -
Does not easily process the meaning of spoken messages
-
Does
not observe/take into account other’s social cues due to
limited eye contact -
Has
difficulty attending in large groups; needs more
direction -
Is
limited in the ability to infer meaning, problem solve
and predict academically and socially -
Very
literal in interpretation of all materials -
Difficulty recognizing and incorporating other person’s
perspectives into how to regulate social relationships -
Difficulty understanding the perspective of characters
in literature
-
Has difficulty talking about other people’s topics of
interest
-
Makes off topic remarks or over focuses on details or
topics of interest
-
Attends to details, but misses the underlying concept of
assignments/stories/pictures -
Has a good sense of humor, but may miss the subtleties
of humor
-
May not understand the difference of being laughed at or
laughed with
-
Doesn’t understand when” too much” humor is “too much”
A child who exhibits these difficulties may be appropriate
for a social thinking assessment. The assessment includes
both standardized and informal tasks which look at a child’s
ability to take another’s perspective, initiate asking for
help, topic initiation and maintenance and overall
organization. Upon completion of the evaluation, a
comprehensive assessment complete with findings and
recommendations will be forwarded to the client, as well as
the referring physician.
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