Therapy Services
Social Cognition
The Madison Center offers specialized group sessions utilizing the Social Thinking™ approach (Winner). Children are expected to develop social cognition innately. However, not all kids do! Some kids and teens need specific instruction at a deep level, which is why we don't teach a social script at The Madison Center. The social world is always changing, so we teach the why behind the social. Our goal is to equip our clients with the tools to learn how to adapt in all social situations and as they develop. While all kids would benefit, some specific difficulties are listed below:
- Inflexible to other's ideas
- Difficulty joining and participating in groups
- Not able to hold age appropriate conversation with peers
- Socially aggressive, shy or awkward
Who Can Participate?
Children 4 to 21 years can participate. We provide this type of therapy to children and teens with average to high cognition.
Groups are limited to 2-4 kids and teens to increase individual clinician attention. It is important to have a low number of participants, as increasing social attention in authentic contexts builds a higher self-awareness and social adaptation.
Why Join our Social Groups?
It is a foundational need to feel connected to those in your environment. Social learning reaches beyond friendships and helps children and teens learn to work in any group; friends, school, and family. The same executive functions underlying social cognition also impact reading comprehension, writing, history, and other classes requiring deep perspective thinking. As children move into higher elementary grades, they are no longer expected to read for detail, but now are expected to read for main ideas, cause and effect relationships, character analysis, and author perspective. These skills require gestalt processing (putting small pieces together), theory of mind, and perspective taking.
