Social Thinking Vocabulary

Think with Your Eyes. This is a statement used in lieu of telling a student to use good eye-contact or look
at me. The concept of thinking with your eyes is also relevant in problem solving and perspective taking.
For instance, children learn that they use their eyes to figure out others plans. It also helps us figure out what
the "group" plan is.
Expected/Unexpected Behavior. We teach that social and communicative expectations are contextually
sensitive. In fact, for every situation there are a set of expected and unexpected behaviors that generate
different types of thoughts. When a behavior is expected for a situation it encourages us to have good or okay
or normal thoughts and feelings; when a behavior is unexpected we tend to have uncomfortable or weird
thoughts* and related feelings. *(Note: This is not the same as thinking a person is weird. Instead, we have
a weird thought based on the behavior within that situation.)
Be a Social Detective: This concept is addressed by teaching students to read the situation and infer what
actions to take based on the situation. Social inferencing is at the heart of determining what to say or do and
occurs at a rapid-fire pace in everyday social communication as well as when comprehending text. We break
down the process of inferencing by teaching students to become aware of words and nonverbal cues to take
what you (think, know, see and hear) to make a guess. We try to be Social Detectives to figure out clues to
help us make smart guesses about a social situation. When we make smart guesses we are using what we call
our social smarts- detecting hidden rules.
Whole Body Listening. This refers to the concept that when we pay attention to others, it means our hands,
feet, heart, brain, fingers, eyes, and everything pay attention to what other people are doing. If we are moving
our bodies, it is a message to others we are not listening.
Body in the group/ Brain in the group- where our body is one of the ways we decide who is in our group.
Therefore, the location of each persons body, relative to the group, helps everyone else figure out who is in
the group. Even if you are physically in a group, sometimes your brain spaces out and you no longer are
paying attention to what is going on- that is what is described as your brain being out of the group.
Flexible Thinking (Superflex)- Being able to interpret verbal and non-verbal information based on different
points of view or even in different places takes flexibility. When one has a rigid brain (Rock Brain), one wants
to follow a rule all the time and cant adapt his or her behavior to that situation. We call this being stuck.
Being a flexible thinker, or Superflex, means that we are able to make a better choice about how we act.
Red, Yellow and Green thoughts- We also talk to the kids about using a social filter. There are some things
that you can think but should never say (red thoughts). There are yellow (caution) thoughts that you need to
think about who you are saying it to and where to make sure you dont offend someone. Finally, green
thoughts are fine to say to anyone, anywhere.