About our Curriculum:
The most robust Social-Emotional Learning Curriculum anywhere
One Curriculum for an Academic Career
Skills progress sequentially to keep you
supplied with lessons for years AND new
materials are added monthly.
Who Can Use Everyday Speech?
The Social-Emotional Learning Platform is a curriculum for anyone teaching social pragmatics or social-emotional learning.
- Speech-Language Pathologists
- Social Workers/Psychologists
- Teachers (Regular and Special Education)
- Applied-Behavior Analysts
- Guidance/Adjustment Counselors
- Parents
Students of all ages can use the materials, however we recommend that students begin with a moderate understanding of language to be able to benefit from the dialogue used in the video lessons and printable materials.
Everyday Speech Curriculum Summary
Pre K - High School
Video Modeling is the foundation of our curriculum
The gold-standard in interventions for social skills, Video Modeling is an evidence-based strategy using video recordings to model a desired skill. This technique has been shown to quickly improve and maintain new social skills. Our videos teach a full array of social competencies to improve school adjustment, cope with the ever-changing social environment, navigate emotions, make informed social decisions to solve problems, and understand prescribed social rules.
- A meta-analysis of 26 different studies found Video Modeling had a 53% improvement rate from baseline to intervention phase on enhancing social and communication skills for children with ASD. [1]
- Video modeling was a fast and effective tool for teaching perspective-taking tasks to children with autism. These results concurred with previous research that perspective taking can be taught. [2]
- Video modeling led to faster acquisition of tasks than live modeling and was effective in promoting generalization. [3]
- Video modeling was an efficient technique for teaching relatively long sequences of responses in relatively few teaching sessions in the absence of chaining procedures. [4]
- Nineteen studies published between 1985 and 2005 suggested that video modeling interventions are effective in teaching a variety of skills to children with autism. [5]
- Results suggest that video modeling is an effective intervention strategy for addressing social-communication skills, functional skills, and behavioral functioning in children and adolescents with ASD. Results also indicate that skills are maintained over time and transferred across persons and settings. The results suggest that video modeling strategies meet the criteria for designation as an evidence-based practice. [6]
Citations:
[1] Qi, Chiq & Lin, Yi-Ling. (2012). Quantitative Analysis of the Effects of Video Modeling on Social and Communication Skills for Children with Autism Spectrum Disorders. Procedia - Social and Behavioral Sciences. 46. 4518-4523.
[2] Charlop-Christy, M. H., & Daneshvar, S. (2003). Using Video Modeling to Teach Perspective Taking to Children with Autism. Journal of Positive Behavior Interventions, 5(1), 12–21
[3] Charlop-Christy, M.H., Le, L. & Freeman, K.A. J Autism Dev Disord (2000) 30: 537.
[4]D’Ateno, P., Mangiapanello, K., & Taylor, B. A. (2003). Using video modeling to teach complex play sequences to a preschooler with autism. Journal of Positive Behavior Interventions, 5, 5–11.
[5] Delano, M. E. (2007). Video Modeling Interventions for Individuals with Autism. Remedial and Special Education, 28(1), 33–42.
[6] Bellini, S., & Akullian, J. (2007). A Meta-Analysis of Video Modeling and Video Self-Modeling Interventions for Children and Adolescents with Autism Spectrum Disorders. Exceptional Children, 73(3), 264–287.
The Social Learning Curriculum was designed based on the following tenets:
Developmentally Sequenced skills allow for a continuum of learning as students age. All of the skills, goals, and units are ordered developmentally and sequentially. Users progress rapidly by building upon previously taught skills. We provide the roadmap. Follow it closely or flexibly by selecting individualized lessons.
Generalize Skills Across Settings, Contexts, and People. True learning occurs when learners make the crucial connection that a new skill applies to many situations and areas of their life. Our materials are carefully constructed to give students the practice they need to push new skills into multiple settings, in varied contexts, and with new people. [1]
Lesson Progressions follow “Introduce, Practice, Apply, Review.” Based on an interpretation of Bloom’s Taxonomy (2001), which provides a framework for categorizing educational goals along a hierarchy of learning, students move from simple to complex, concrete to abstract as concepts are taught, practiced for mastery, applied to new situations, and finally reviewed.
We Make The Unseen Seen. The thought bubbles, inner monologues, and emojis embedded into our videos provide a never-before view of others’ inner feelings as social moments unfold. Long-awaited connections are finally made, that actions do impact others’ feelings, a concept that launches theory of mind skills, perspective taking, and empathy.
Strengthen the Theory Of Mind Mechanism. The term theory of mind refers to the understanding that everyone thinks and feels differently from ourselves. This is crucial to social development because thinking about how someone thinks is required for accurate perspective taking. When others’ thoughts and feelings become the foundation for how we act, we are fully functioning social beings. [2] [3]
Train New Cognitive Processes. Our video modeling lessons follow a purposeful pattern as we deconstruct social scenarios into a step-by-step process, similar to instances where learning occurred through observation and imitation in cognitive modeling studies. In these studies, learners produced rapid learning, significant transfer to untrained tasks and even greater retention over time. [4]
A Method Based in Twenty Years of Research
We developed our teaching method based on the following underlying skills needed to succeed socially and emotionally: understanding theory of mind, predicting multivariate outcomes, and recognizing social consequences.
Successful social interactions require a stable theory of mind mechanism for perspective taking. The term theory of mind refers to the understanding that everyone thinks and feels differently from ourselves. With the knowledge that everyone has unique thoughts, feelings and needs, we become more driven to figure out what those thoughts, feelings and needs might be. We constantly gather the outward social cues offered from the situation and the person to understand others’ perspective. When our guesses at what someone else is thinking and feeling becomes the foundation for how we act, we are social. [2] [3]
That’s why everything we show on video displays a window into the brain of others’ inner thoughts and feelings. Through this consistent connection, learners begin to link their own words and actions with others’ thoughts and feelings.
Almost every social decision is multivariate. Social decisions require analyzing more than one outcome at a time. To do this, we must predict the impact each option will have on others. Being social is the constant anticipation of what is likely to happen. Sinha et al. at MIT postulate that impaired social skills are in fact deficits in prediction skills [5].
That’s why our videos model the incorrect and correct way to perform the social skill. It allows learners to view and analyze different outcomes that result from each behavior, strengthening the brain’s predictive and inference skills needed for socializing.
Every social decision we make has second- and third-order consequences for the future.
For example, the way a child behaves at recess one day impacts future bids to play at recess on subsequent days. In order to imagine the consequences so that good social decisions can be made, one must observe how those consequences play out in the minds of others.
That’s why we play out the consequence for every interaction. Our videos visually show the cognitive process that occurs when one asks before acting, ‘What will people think if I say this statement versus that statement, or if I act this way versus that way?’
Citations:
[1] Vermeulen, Peter. Autism as Context Blindness. AAPC Publishing, 2009
[2] Baron-Cohen, S. (1995). Learning, development, and conceptual change. Mindblindness: An essay on autism and theory of mind. Cambridge, MA, US: The MIT Press.
[3] Leslie, A.M., Friedman, O., & German, T.C. (2004). Core mechanisms in ‘theory of mind’. Trends in Cognitive Sciences, 8, 528-533.
[4] Zimmerman, B. J. (2013). From cognitive modeling to self-regulation: A social cognitive career path. Educational Psychologist, 48(3), 135-147.
[5] Pawan S., Kjelgaard, Gandhi, Tsourides, Cardinaux, Pantazis, Diamond, Held. Autism as a disorder of prediction: Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences Oct 2014, 111 (42) 15220-15225.
Promote Skill Generalization
Our materials foster carryover and generalization by modeling skills in different contexts and reinforcing concepts with visual tools and posters.
Since being introduced to Everyday Speech, I have been thrilled to let other social workers know about how helpful the program is! I can't imagine working without Everyday Speech!
