The Prentice School Bi-Annual Conference - A Day with Michlle Garcia Winner

A Day with Michelle Garcia Winner

Workshop Topic - Organized Thinking: Dealing with the Dreaded Homework Assignment and Everything Else a Student Wants to Postpone

This workshop focuses on executive functioning skills and related practical strategies to track and tackle homework and other deadline-based duties. The vast majority of students with social cognitive deficits have immense difficulty developing organizational skills to manage the increasing complex expectations of life in upper elementary, middle, high school and into their adult years. Organizational skills can be mammoth overwhelming tasks for even the most intellectually sharp students with social cognitive deficits. The impact of poor organizational skills is immense, affecting one’s outcome in school as well as at home and work. Weak organizational skills are poorly understood and often written off as pure laziness on the part of a “smart” student. Relatively little support is given to teach students to develop these critical skills that carry over into their future jobs and home-life as adults.

This workshop is not a general description of the issues. Instead, Michelle Garcia Winner will guide the audience to explore the key concepts and then provide explicit strategies to help teach these complex ideas!

About the Speaker

Michelle Garcia Winner is a Congressional award winning speech-language pathologist who specializes in treating students who are experiencing social and communication challenges. Internationally recognized as a thoughtful and prolific writer in the area of social thinking/social skills, she travels around the world speaking on a multitude of topics relating to social thinking, and repeatedly receives accolades for her educational, energetic and enthusiastic workshop presentations.

The heart of Michelle’s work is illuminating the often elusive and intangible world of Social Thinking, and developing practical strategies that can be easily used by parents, educators and service providers, across different environments, to teach the Social Thinking required for the development of real social skills. Her goal is to raise awareness among administrators, educators and parents about the critical role that Social Thinking and related social skills play in every student’s life, not only in achieving academic success, but also for success in adulthood and life in general. Michelle directs a clinic in San Jose, CA, where she works with clients, trains other professionals and consults with families and schools. www.socialthinking.com