Teaching Theory of Mind: A Curriculum for Children with High Functioning Autism, Asperger's Syndrome, and Related Social Challenges Paperback – December 21, 2018

I purchased this curriculum last year and have used it regularly with my clients. It is easy to follow the activities from start to finish (12 weeks) or simply pull from as needed for clients/students with challenges in social learning. The success I have seen using this book for small group instruction over the past year is amazing. It comes with many tools including flashcards, skills poster, checklist, and activity guides. I recommend "Teaching Theory of Mind" to many professionals as an effective curriculum for teaching children how to interact with others successfully.

Yes I am actually using it for my research with a high functioning autistic class. The students and teacher are loving it as well. So many things that we are not conscious of throughout a day of reactions and responses!

Great book. Great make and take flash cards with copy right- rights.

As a teacher who works with children on the Autism Spectrum, this book has been a helpful addition to my class. The 12 week curriculum guide had everything I needed for teaching Theory of Mind. My personal favorite item was the “Caregiver Letter” which I would copy and send home to reinforce the skills taught. I feel a child is most successful when skills taught at school can be carried on into the home setting. I was also a fan of the picture flash cards, they showed realistic facial expressions as oppose to the over dramatic faces you often find in similar materials.

The material presented is clear and immediately transferable to meet the needs of students struggling with social issues

Teaching social skills to children with exceptionalities is tricky and finding resources that are catered to their needs is always a challenge. This book is very helpful and offers a 12 week break down of the program to ensure you are covering the material in a series of steps that proved beneficial to my students. I have been a classroom teacher for 12 years and this is the first resource, that I have found, that has outlined Theory of Mind in such a user friendly approach. My students use phrases that they have learned while doing the curriculum, such as "follow the path" and "checking in" to help them increase their awareness of social experiences.

I've used this curriculum with individual clients and in social skills groups. Each lesson is planned out in detail and includes materials and instructional relevance for each skill. My clients enjoy the visual nature of many of the activities and love acting out social situations. We use the social seven rules in our group and families reinforce these rules in other settings. I was able to take data at baseline and completion of the program to identify skills that required further instruction.

While one-half of this manual presents quality instruction, the latter half leaves much to be desired. Anticipation of emotional cues, spotted by reasonable taxonomies of facial musculature, helps build empathy. However, no sound basis is shown (although hinted, by inclusion of Ekman's work on the Facial Action Coding System, or FACS) as a guideline for which facial features denote classic expressions. By comparison, someone in one part of the country may refer to Coca-Cola as "soda," while the same beverage is called "pop" in another region. The constant is Coca-Cola. In "Teaching Theory of Mind," there is no constant variable or statistically sound reason for a "knowing" glance, for example. What IS a "knowing" look? Is this facial expression defined in any way than in the pictures or a possible guess? No, and this fault results in my poor evaluation of 50% of the book's utility. HOWEVER, I can incorporate the FACS with teaching theory of mind, using a well-researched clinical model. This is my suggestion for future buyers.