Title: The Evolution of Superflex 2.0: Reimagining and Redefining Teaching Social Concepts
Description: The original Superflex® curriculum was developed alongside students and clients who were highly motivated to learn social concepts through their love of superheroes. This fact remains true today. And while many schools and families found the original curriculum and storybook helpful, some taught the materials incorrectly, using a behavioral or corrective manner. Flash forward 15+ years where we’ve learned so much about how to write lessons and curricula that are clear and concise enough to help people teach social information in the manner in which it was designed. In 2018, we started our journey of updating Superflex by getting critical and constructive input from families, neurodivergent advisors, professionals, administrators, and students. This helped us create the new Superflex® Curriculum Series (Social Detective + Superflex), which has 35 step-by-step lessons. This series reflects refinements in core teaching and lesson structure to be user friendly to both educators and parents, while also providing clear metrics for implementation fidelity for researchers. As a result, the Superflex/Detective series was part of a multi-site, multi-state randomized controlled treatment (RCT) pilot study in Tier 1 classrooms and clinic groups (lab) in SY2022-23. While the results are still in a preliminary stage, this short talk will give an overview of some highlights of what’s new, why the evolution occurred, and key research findings.
Bio: Pamela Crooke, PhD, CCC-SLP, is Chief Curriculum Officer and Director of Research, Content, Clinical Services, and the Social Thinking Training & Speakers’ Collaborative at Think Social Publishing, Inc. She served as a clinical faculty member of three universities and worked as a speech-language pathologist in the Arizona public schools for 15 years. Pam is a prolific speaker both in North America and abroad, and has co-authored five award-winning books related to Social Thinking with Michelle Garcia Winner. Their book, You Are a Social Detective! 2nd Edition (2020), won the 2021 Creative Child Magazine Preferred Choice Award, the 2021 Mom's Choice Gold Medal Award, the 2021 Best Book Awards Finalist, and the 2022 International Book Awards Finalist. They co-authored the companion You Are a Social Detective! Teaching Curriculum and Support Guide, (2022). She and Winner collaborate on writing articles and blogs that appear on the Social Thinking website and in a wide array of publications. Her current research focuses on using practice-based research to examine how professionals and parents use frameworks and strategies within the Social Thinking® Methodology.
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