In this special episode, Lindsey and fellow GT therapist, Donna Miazga, SLP, discuss how therapists can help children with their social skills in our digital age. Learn great tips on how to keep children engaged. Whether you are looking for fun activities to implement via screen sharing or even keeping your students on camera, this SPEDtalk episode provides great resources and stimulating talk.
Good morning, Facebook. How’s everybody doing today? I am so excited to be here with you for another episode of SPEDtalk. I’m your host Lindsay Kucich with Global Teletherapy. So thanks for joining us today. And we are discussing social skills in a digital world. So who is here and ready and watching? Comment and tell me if you are watching and where you’re watching from. Feel free to ask questions throughout the show, because we want to hear from you.
Lindsey Kucich:
So before we get started, take a minute right now and share this video so that everyone can watch. We want to reach as many viewers as possible. So I love seeing all of my hashtag team replay fans, and I love reading all your comments. So thank you, Tracy, Erica, Marybeth, and all of you for the feedback that you guys provide. So who else is on my hashtag team replay? If you’ve missed any of our awesome shows, you can always find them on Global Teletherapy’s YouTube channel, because you definitely want to subscribe to our YouTube channel so you can stay up to date on all the tips that we share.
Lindsey Kucich:
Also follow us on our Facebook page, our Instagram account and LinkedIn accounts. That way you can have access to all of our content, which includes resources and blogs and our new vlog. So just search for Global Teletherapy. And today I am so excited about our show. I want to introduce you to our guest. Donna Miazga is a speech and language pathologist with 25 years of experience and she has been with Global Teletherapy for the last year and half. Donna enjoys blogging and creating products all about the areas in the field of speech and language pathology, and is particularly passionate about autism and social communication.
Lindsey Kucich:
Donna has worked in a variety of settings with a very diverse caseload and she shares her creative lessons and resources on Teachers Pay Teachers and Boom Learning. So you’re going to want to check out her items just by searching for Badger State Speechy, and then today she’s going to share even more great tips with us. So let’s welcome to the show Donna, because I’m so excited to have her as our guest. Good morning, Donna.
Donna Miazga:
Good morning, Lindsey.
Lindsey Kucich:
Hi. I’m so excited to have you here and talking about such a topic that is a pretty hot topic right now because we are moving to a digital age, whether people like it or not. So, we are here and that’s what it is. So why don’t you tell us a bit about what it means to have social skills in the digital age? How do we define this?
Donna Miazga:
Yes. Well, it’s so important I think for us as therapists, whether you’re an SLP, an OT, a mental health clinician, it’s important for us to think about what our end result is here. And so I’m going to talk just a bit about what our definition is of social skills. And for me it’s any skills or competencies that support interaction and communication with other people. And it’s situations where social rules are followed. And we know that social rules are dynamic and changing. They are not formal and obvious as rules are say in a work setting or a school setting.
Donna Miazga:
So social skills are about social … following social rules and creating and maintaining relationships. And I think that’s really important for us to not get too caught up in discrete skills, but always remember that the end result is that we want to help our students create and maintain relationships. So we think about things like the reciprocal exchange of verbal language, nonverbal communication, like interpreting and using body language, facial expressions, tone of voice, so important. We think about social problem solving and the dynamic and ever changing social world. How do our students solve social problems? How do they identify them? How do they know there even is a problem? And that involves taking the perspective of other people as well.
Donna Miazga:
I think we can’t forget that social functioning is heavily influenced by a student’s ability to regulate his or her emotions and by his or her executive functions like organization, planning, reasoning. But most importantly, we are in this digital age, whether we like it or not. And this is a time of uncertainty for a lot of people, not knowing what school is going to look like when they return in the fall. But for us, we have to remember that in the digital age, we’ve got to include written and online communication.
Donna Miazga:
So we’ve got to be thinking about texts and emails and use of social media when we define social communication. And we have to make sure we’re including those materials in our practice as well.
Lindsey Kucich:
That is so important to remember those aspects of that written, not just verbal. There’s so much to learn. There’s things that we have to just learn in a traditional sense of social skills and then learning them in the virtual setting as well. That’s kind of, oh my gosh, we have to learn what to do, but not only that, how do we even teach this? Like you mentioned that reciprocal communication and the role modeling. And so there are certain considerations that just even need to go in before we even teach what those skills are, those nonverbal communication, the reciprocal communication, we have to go with, how do we teach this?
Lindsey Kucich:
So tell me about just the functions of the camera and your screen considerations for social skills before we even go into the resources, how do we even set those components up?
Donna Miazga:
That was one of the hardest things for me when I switched from brick and mortar to doing teletherapy because I’ve always loved doing social skills instruction. And I thought, how is this going to work? Because when we think of social communication, we think of talking face to face, or we might think of a group of people. We don’t typically think of communicating via the camera or via the computer. But we are in this digital age and we are in an age where people are doing online dating, online interviews, meetings for work are online. So it really isn’t that far-fetched to think that we can do effective social skills instruction online.
Donna Miazga:
So as you said, there are a few considerations that you can take in mind. And one of the things that we should think about is our camera options. So there are a lot of different teletherapy platforms. And before you enter into the world of teletherapy, you should know what your camera options are. So on Zoom, we can do side to side. So I’m here, my student is here and I like to be able to make the camera as large as possible, so that they get the closest view of my face, my facial expressions, my nonverbal communication. I’m able to see those same cues from them.
Lindsey Kucich:
So you turn your camera up really large, but especially in teletherapy, we’re not in that room. So especially when working with a young kiddo, how do you make sure that they set that camera up the same way so their screen window shows that? Do you walk them through that? Do you ask for assistance from an adult? How do we make sure that they’re set up on their side?
Donna Miazga:
That’s a great question. I think for those younger students, it’s important to have a social story. I always have some kind of image of a child looking at a computer so they have that sort of visual model, but definitely for those young squirrely kids, you’re going to need your learning coach to help you at least periodically check in and make sure that the camera is where it should be so that we can see each other. But there are so many funny things, right, that we hear ourselves say like-
Lindsey Kucich:
Well, it sounds like. We intuitively know. Like, I have bad eyesight. I’m going to make this big because I want to be able to see the person. But if we’re working with a student who has social skill deficits, they don’t maybe even know or care that we’re taking up the screen or really, they just want to play their game and so they’ve hidden us and they’ve minimized us, but we want to make sure that they just know the expectation when we are in this digital format, because even adults, think about when we transitioned with Covid, all the adults that had to switch to a distance model with their work and they’re doing Zoom meetings, I mean, we saw so many things on Facebook about just etiquette on Zoom as to, you need to be fully dressed.
Lindsey Kucich:
We shouldn’t have to tell an adult that they should have bottoms on, and not just tops. And we’ve seen all these little faux pas that have happened throughout the last few months. But so if we’re struggling as adults and we’re expecting children to just jump into one of these meetings and learn, we’re not thinking correctly, we really do need to be explicit and set up the stage for them so that they can be successful.
Lindsey Kucich:
So just something small as to where your camera goes, how to have your whole computer screen show me, show my face zoomed in where you are. I know a lot of us also have a tendency to look at our self on the screen versus looking at the other person. And then just even the eye gaze to where does that go? Does that go at the top in the camera? Do I look at your video picture? All of those things are social skills that our students that have disabilities and deficits in that area are not going to pick up on. So we really do need to give them those explicit instructions. Would you agree?
Donna Miazga:
I definitely agree. And I would add no tape over the camera to that list of instructions that our kids need.
Lindsey Kucich:
There are so many students that really feel uncomfortable with that camera. I get the posted note all the time. Do you have any tips on how to help ease that if that student is resistant to having that camera turned on, what do you recommend?
Donna Miazga:
Well, that was actually one of a very eye-opening experience for me, the first few students I had that didn’t want their camera on. And that is often how anxiety seems to manifest itself in teletherapy. So, one tip I have is before you get a new student, try to touch base with the learning coach or a teacher and see if this student has any issues with having the camera on so you can plan your session accordingly, because there’s just nothing worse than having a great session all ready for a new student and then find that they don’t even want the camera on.
Lindsey Kucich:
And it’s not just the students. Christine, thanks for joining us. And she’s like, therapists too. That might be something hard for a therapist to get used to seeing themselves in the screen. And how do you get over that? And some of it, it’s not natural for us. Some of us don’t like to FaceTime for that reason. We don’t like looking at ourselves. So do you have any tips for … to help the therapist be more comfortable with being in the video as well?
Donna Miazga:
Yeah. Well, it was hard for me at first too, and you just sort of get used to it over time. I think the biggest thing we can do is give ourselves some grace and it does take some time getting used to it, but sooner or later you do get to the point where you don’t think about it as much. I mean, the other thing for the student is sometimes it’s helpful starting off with them having their camera on, let’s say for a few seconds and then maybe you work up to 30 seconds and then maybe eventually you work up to a full session.
Donna Miazga:
So sometimes that can be helpful, just doing that in a more gradual manner. The other thing I’ve really noticed is that a lot of gen ed teachers, they don’t really mind if the camera isn’t on. And so students kind of have … don’t always recognize that different teachers have different expectations. So I think it’s important for us to explain why as therapists, why I want you to have the camera on, why it’s important for me to see your face and so I can get my social cues from you and find out how you’re feeling. So I think we do have to do some teaching with our students about that. Especially if different teachers have different expectations in the online environment.
Lindsey Kucich:
I think we could actually do an entire show on convincing you to turn your camera on during your session and manage expectations, right? So all of my therapists watching, I love seeing all of you on there. Hannah, wonderful to have you. I’d like to see. I got Christine and Sarah, Susan, thank you all so much for joining us. If you, as therapists have ever had a struggle with a student turning on their camera, put that in the comments and give us a solution, give us a tip. Let me know how you guys overcame it. All of my non therapists that are just struggling just to be in front of my camera anyways, that are watching, I want to hear what you do as to feel more comfortable because that’ll help all of us just enjoy this new learning environment because that’s our only option right now.
Lindsey Kucich:
We’re going to adjust, and this will become more adaptable for everyone. But again, really focusing on those behavior expectations and setting the stage, also normalizing that feeling of angst about it and letting people know that you might not be comfortable too. And so finding a way that both of you can be comfortable, or if it’s a large group, things like that, we want to make sure that those expectations are listed. I want to touch base on one more of the components in regards to just setting the stage for this digital learning. And you mentioned screen splitting. So can you talk a bit more about that? Because we’ve got materials and we share our screen and sometimes it can be really overwhelming and we’re not … we’re more engaged in setting up the stage than actually teaching the social skill that we’re trying to convey.
Lindsey Kucich:
And we might actually model poor social skills if we’re not prepared. So when you talk about this screen splitting or other tips, what kinds of things can you give us for guidance?
Donna Miazga:
Well, I think that using a split screen is a valuable tool in a variety of different modalities, not just social skills, but I tend to use a split screen quite a bit for social skills because on one screen I might have a YouTube video and then on another screen, I might have a PDF that has questions about that YouTube video. And if we have a split screen, it makes it a bit easier to go back and forth. The students can read the question and then if needed, we can go back and refer back to the video for answers.
Donna Miazga:
So using a split screen is a great tool and if you’re not sure how to do it, just Google how to do it either on a Mac or on a PC and give it a try. At Global, we are lucky enough to have Smart Notebook. And in Smart Notebook, you can do a dual display as well. So, just again, being aware of the tools that you have in your digital arsenal is really important and will help those social skills and other sessions go a bit more smoothly.
Lindsey Kucich:
Yes. And we want our sessions to go smoothly. We will also recognize that technology sometimes isn’t our friend. I have had plenty of tech challenges that I’ve had to overcome and not just-
Donna Miazga:
Same.
Lindsey Kucich:
And everything, right? And so Google is my friend and I Google everything. Learning how to use a Mac was definitely a challenge I had to overcome. I do utilize the split screen feature in Smart Notebook as well. Those are great resources just to make sure that your tech is set up so that way we can role model appropriate social skills. If you do get frustrated, then that’s an opportunity for you to role model to your student, how to overcome this and how to manage these emotions.
Lindsey Kucich:
So even if something does go wrong, take that as a learning opportunity for both you and the student, and we can engage them in a new unpredicted lesson of life.
Donna Miazga:
Exactly. And it’s also a great opportunity for a growth mindset lesson. Look at me, I’m figuring this out as we go along. I’m not getting frustrated. I’m okay with making mistakes and I’m learning from them.
Lindsey Kucich:
Absolutely. So besides these fabulous life lessons on social skills that we’re going to learn impromptu and we improv, what about resources that we actually can prepare for? So I know you’ve got a ton of websites that you want to share. After the show, just so everybody’s aware, you can get access to all of these names. We’ve got a fabulous handout for you that gives you some tips on social skills and access to these websites. You can access this file as long as you are a member of the Therapist Hub. And it’ll be under the files section. If you are not a member just join, search for the Therapist Hub on Facebook and then you’ll be able to get access to all of that information.
Lindsey Kucich:
So Donna, tell us about these amazing resources that you have incorporated in your lessons to help teach social skills in this digital world.
Donna Miazga:
Well, I have a ton of them and we may not get to all of them, but I also just want to say these are the ones that I use the most often. If you have others that we don’t get to, please leave them in the comments because I would love to see them. And I’m sure other people watching would love to see them, but I’m going to start with a few that I like, that I use often. The one I use a lot is Boom Learning and Boom Learning has online games that are both free and paid.
Donna Miazga:
And the great thing about Boom is you can have a free account. You’re a bit limited in some of the things you can do, but if you just want to play the Boom Learning decks with your students, then that would be … you could do that on a free account. Boom Learning has a growing arsenal of social skills materials. The three things you can search for under Boom to find your social skills materials is look for the categories of social-emotional learning, speech therapy or special education.
Lindsey Kucich:
Those are great headings. I know when I’ve gone on to the Boom Learning website, I was like, there’s so much stuff and on mental health and I’m like, there’s a lot of speech stuff on here. So, that’s really good. Those three tags, those searchable things, that’s really helpful to help narrow down those social skills. Excellent. Thank you.
Donna Miazga:
You’re welcome. So they do have a wide variety of social skills materials. My next favorite one is Teachers Pay Teachers. So you may not think of that as a social skills website and that’s okay, but there are a ton of social skills materials on Teachers pay Teachers. And again, you can get a free account on TPT if all you want to do is buy materials. If you want to create materials, then it’s a paid account. But go ahead. If you’re not already on Teachers Pay Teachers, you’re probably missing out on some awesome materials.
Donna Miazga:
They have social stories, activities, games, there are Google app materials, and it’s just growing. And a search tip on there is, let’s say, you’re looking for conversational skills. You could put conversation skills distance learning, and then you would only come up with materials that you can use online during teletherapy. And that will help with your search.
Lindsey Kucich:
That’s a really good point and that this is a new buzz word. So if you haven’t added this to Google searches or any other types of searches that you’re doing, add in distance learning, because that does narrow it down and really hones that field into that teletherapy that we’re looking for because it is different than if it’s in person versus through the computer. So that’s a really good tip as well, Donna, thank you.
Donna Miazga:
Thank you. The other so exciting thing about TPT is they’ve just recently added what they call a TPT digital overlay platform. And what that means is for static PDFs, you can open that PDF up in TPT’s platform, which is free. I mean, you pay for the resource if it’s a paid resource, but the platform itself is free. You open it up in that platform. You can pick the pages that you want to share with your students. So that is an awesome ability. You might pick maybe three pages of a 30 page PDF that you would like to share with your students and then you can add a text box, additional directions and you can share it directly with your student in Google Classroom.
Donna Miazga:
So that’s in the beta phase right now. So you’re not going to find it in all the TPT stores, but it is an awesome thing that they’re doing to help all of us, especially those who are new in online learning.
Lindsey Kucich:
No, that’s great, because I know a lot of us, we just use Adobe Reader. We don’t pay for the pro version. And so this is a really great way to still have access and still be able to manage those PDFs. We have time for about one more. I know, there’s so much but you have to get this hand out that’s going to go on the Hub, I promise. There’s so many more resources but Donn, pick your favorite one and let’s see, and anybody else that has a favorite resource put that in the comments as well because we just love to share all this great information as we’re learning this new digital world.
Donna Miazga:
Well, this is hard. I’m going to pick Toy Theater because I know that a lot of therapists are looking for … I mean, Toy Theater, isn’t a social skills website, but it is a website where you can play memory games, chess games, darts. And so if you are looking for games where you want to interact with other students and practice social skills, especially with those younger students, we’ve got to keep them engaged and keep them moving, Toy Theater is great. And Toy Theater also has online spinners, stopwatches, timers, dice, all these different things you can take to make your sessions more interactive with your students.
Lindsey Kucich:
So that’s so necessary to keep that interactive piece and that behavior management is just, if you get them engaged, then we’ll have a decrease in behavior so that they can learn. But I also like when you do the games that can really focus on turn-taking and turn-taking in the digital world is not, it’s not as easy to teach, I don’t think.
Donna Miazga:
That’s a great point.
Lindsey Kucich:
We’ve got a bit of time to elaborate on that. So Donna, give us some tips on this whole turn-taking social skill. How do you teach that digitally?
Donna Miazga:
Well, I think, I’m guilty of talking over someone on the computer, it’s something that we have to get used to. And so I think as with anything, we have to do deliberate teaching with our students about turn-taking and also give them ideas for what to do if they do interrupt or how other people feel if they keep taking turns and don’t give other people turns. But the Toy Theater website is a great way to work on turn-taking because you don’t want to play checkers with someone who doesn’t wait for … doesn’t give you a turn.
Lindsey Kucich:
Yes, absolutely. And learning how to give up mouse keyboard control, teaching that behavior expectation, social story might have to come in handy about that component of it, the whole interrupting or talking over someone, your microphone and speakers cannot typically handle two people having the same conversation. Something’s going to give. And so it would be wasted time. So really having those conversations with students is something where we don’t typically have to do in the traditional setting. These are new problems and new explanations for those kiddos, but it’ll transition into the traditional setting, they’ll learn not to interrupt when they’re in person.
Lindsey Kucich:
So I actually feel like this is a benefit if we can teach them in the digital, get them in the habit of this. And then once they’re in the setting where they’re actually in person with someone we should in theory, see a decrease in interrupting behavior and more active listening skills.
Donna Miazga:
Well, and the great thing about being in a digital setting is, it’s easy for us to put up little cues for our students too. If they’re not relinquishing mouse control, or if they’re constantly interrupting, we can pull up the white board and put a couple of cues on there and maybe use a split screen and leave those cues up for the whole session so the student has that reminder as they move along in the session.
Lindsey Kucich:
And that’s a good point too, just having a visual cue in front of them on the screen at all times, we don’t have that in the traditional setting. We might have it on the desk or we might use a hand signal, but it’s not right there in their face. So this is actually really helpful in the digital world to implement the visual cues for them. And then you can use your mouse cursor, you could hover over it, you could use a nonverbal prompt to it instead of interrupting and having to do a verbal prompt.
Lindsey Kucich:
So there’s a lot of different things that we get access to in this digital world that does help us teach social skills. And the goal of course is then to have those generalized into a non digital world for them so that way they can continue to practice these skills outside of session as well.
Donna Miazga:
That’s a great point and highlighting too, if a student is practicing a skill and you want to give them a bit of feedback, but you maybe don’t want to interrupt them, you can maybe just use your cursor to circle the reminder you have written out, or maybe highlight it. There are so many things that we have available. And I want to remind everyone too, that with social skills, using video tapes, using videos and video clips and YouTube, that’s another way that we can more closely provide social, real social scenarios to our students.
Donna Miazga:
So, we didn’t get into all the other ways and resources, but definitely YouTube is a good one for you to have in your social skills arsenal.
Lindsey Kucich:
Absolutely. Everybody has a camera now. Everybody’s taking videos. We can utilize those videos of real life, unedited situations. Pause the videos first before you share it with your students. But there’s definitely a component to that which then allows students to see different social skills in different settings since we can’t take them into the grocery store, or we can’t take them to the park anymore and playing on the playground equipment. So we will be able to do that soon, but just not right now, but we can still practice the skills and utilize videos to show them those settings and role playing.
Lindsey Kucich:
So I think those are great resources, Donna, thank you so much for sharing and being our guest today. If anyone has a question, feel free to put those in the comments, we’ll monitor the comments after the show. Make sure you’re on our Facebook page, the Therapist Hub as well, that group for therapists, so you can get access to those resources that we didn’t get to discuss today. But Donna, thank you so much for joining us on today’s show. It was a pleasure having you.
Donna Miazga:
Thanks for having me Lindsey.
Lindsey Kucich:
So everyone, I am so glad that we got a chance to wrap up season one of SPEDtalk. What? Can you believe it? So we’re going to take a two week break and then we will come back in August for season two. So if you have any topic ideas or if you want to be a guest on the show, just comment below so that way I can set you guys up. And if you have any other ideas, maybe we should change the location of where the show is. I mean, I love my couch, but season two. So put any of your creative ideas in the comments and let’s see what happens on our next show in August. Thanks for joining us today, everyone. And remember always be kind.
