Think Social: Developing Social Understanding in Children Who are Deaf

The ability to understand and talk about one’s own feelings and thoughts as well as the emotions and ideas of others is referred to as social cognition. It can be thought of as our intuition about the world. Social cognition is useful to children and adults because it allows us to empathize, understand what motivates people, and navigate the social world. It also helps children understand stories, make inferences, and appreciate jokes. Children with profound hearing loss often experience delays in their ability to talk about their feelings, emotions, opinions, thoughts and ideas. They also can demonstrate delays in their ability to talk about how others feel and reason about what others think. Because therapists and parents focus on speech, language, and listening development in young children with hearing loss, this important area of social cognitive development can be overlooked. The purpose of this presentation is to help parents understand the basics of social cognitive development in children who are deaf and to provide strategies for enhancing this important psychosocial area in children of all ages. 

This is a Recorded Course which requires either a Windows-based computer or a Mac with speakers/headphones to view. More information is available in the FAQs/Help section.

Length: 60 minutes

Cost: Free to View

Course Objectives:

• Upon completing this course, learners will be able to describe an experimental false belief task.
• Upon completing this course, learners will be able to describe the predictors of theory of mind development in children who are deaf.
• Upon completing this course, learners will be able to list the hierarchy of social cognitive development as described by Wellman and Liu (2004).
• Upon completing this course, learners will be able to list 10 mental state/emotive terms.
• Upon completing this course, learners will be able to describe ways to facilitate social cognitive development in children of different ages.

Course Instructor(s):
Kimberly Peters, Ph.D., CCC-SLP/A, AVT, Associate Professor, Western Washington University