Giving kids the social skills they need to succeed
by Hope Notaro, M.A., LMHC & Tim Couto, M.A. A common difficulty among the kids we work with is starting and maintaining conversations. Most of our clients are boys and we know that male social interactions tend more toward doing things together rather than chatting. When you consider that on top of this, the kids who come to us tend […]
» Read moreA couple of weeks ago, I received a newsletter from The Asperger Autism Network (AANE). AANE’s newsletter is excellent and I make a point of reading it as often as I can. In this installment, one article in particular caught my eye. AANE is embarking on a fundraising drive to update and expand their training center and they’re going to […]
» Read moreSimply put, there are two types of books about specific social/cognitive issues that publishers market to parents and professionals. Entries from both categories attempt to answer a couple of very broad questions. The first category is one that I’ll call the “What’s the deal with ______?” genre. These books try to provide the reader with information about the characteristics, underlying causes, […]
» Read moreThere are some big changes coming at Academy MetroWest. The biggest is the impending retirement of our co-director and co-founder, Gary Steinberg. Gary’s career with the Academy started in the late 60’s. His uncle founded the Academy back in the 1950s as a self-defense program for children. It shifted its focus over the years to concentrate on cooperative physical activity […]
» Read moreOn Friday, May 18th, Academy MetroWest Director, Bruce Sabian, had the opportunity to sit down for a radio interview with Mark Altman, President of MindSetGo. MindSetGo is a business that helps children, adolescents, and adults learn to enhance their communication skills and differentiate themselves. The talk focused on social skills, child development, and Academy MetroWest. The interview aired on WCRN […]
» Read moreI used to work with a teenager who had a long-term plan for dealing with his social skills challenges. When things were going well, he was able to make some good connections with the other members of his group. When things weren’t going well, he took it hard. One day, he and I were talking after he had gotten into […]
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When I heard the learn’d astronomer, When the proofs, the figures, were ranged in columns before me, When I was shown the charts and diagrams, to add, divide, and measure them, When I sitting heard the astronomer where he lectured with much applause in the lecture-room, How soon unaccountable I became tired and sick, Till rising and gliding out I […]
» Read moreFor the past few years, the membership in one of my Monday groups has remained consistent. It’s a group of 5th and 6th grade boys, some of whom have been in the group since 1st grade. These boys are a cohesive bunch but they can be pretty contentious. A former colleague of mine had a funny way of describing groups […]
» Read moreA few years ago, I was going through some kids’ files and noticed a pattern in the results on the Wechsler Intelligence Scale for Children or WISC. The WISC is a commonly used test of cognitive functioning consisting of 10 subtests, which yields a full scale IQ, as well as 5 indexes that provide scores in more specific aspects of […]
» Read more“Attention deficit hyperactivity disorder is real. Don’t let anyone tell you otherwise.” Thus begins ADHD Nation, a challenging, thought-provoking book, written by Alan Schwarz, an investigative reporter from The New York Times. Taken as a whole, this eminently readable book traces the development of the ADHD diagnosis, the discovery and growth of medications aimed at treating it, and the emergence […]
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