Inside Out

Children and young people with diagnoses such as high functioning autism, Asperger's syndrome, PDD-NOS or nonverbal learning disabilities often have difficulty with "social cognition: communicating effectively and solving personal problems. For such students, these are skills that cannot just be absorbed from experience but need to be taught. In her accessible book Michelle Garcia Winner offers teaching techniques to help students identify and overcome their weaknesses, leading to the acquisition of skills such as initiating conversations or activities; listening and attending; understanding abstract language; taking others' perspectives; seeing the big picture and using humor. Winner demonstrates how to break down these skills into manageable concepts and suggests methods of teaching them so that the student can truly understand not just what to do but also why. Clearly written and easily readable, the book contains many photocopiable worksheets for teachers' use, and will be indispensable to educators and therapists working with young people with social-cognitive deficits.