Big Picture Thinking: Using Central Coherence Theory to Support Social Skills

Colluci, a speech-language pathologist who specializes in the diagnosis and treatment of people with social-communication deficits, teaches fifth grade to high school students with social-cognitive deficits--specifically those with autism--how understand the context, or "whole," of a social situation as it is happening by adding all the parts together to understand the big picture. She outlines important social processes--feelings and emotions, self-control, perspective taking, communication, relationships, and interactions--and the importance of putting it all together to process a situation. The book was written for children, but adults working with them, such as parents and professionals, can lead them through the activities. The Underlying Characteristics Checklist-Early Intervention (UCC) assessment for use by caregivers and professionals is included. No index is provided. Annotation c2012 Book News, Inc., Portland, OR (booknews.com)

Aileen Collucci is a licensed speech-language pathologist with a private practice in Little Falls, NJ. She specializes in the diagnosis and treatment of persons with social-communication deficits. Aileen has over 18 years of experience in the field, which includes developing and leading a successful social-communication skills group intervention program in Fairfield, NJ. She has conducted training workshops for parents of children with special needs and educational professionals in many areas including social skills intervention planning, autism and pragmatic language development and disorders. She holds a Master's Degree in Speech-Language Pathology and Audiology from New York University and state licenses in Speech and Language Pathology in both New Jersey and New York. She also maintains a Certificate of Clinical Competence from the American Speech-Language and Hearing Association.Aileen has a considerable interest in working with families to encourage carry-over of socialization and communication skills from the clinic to other contexts and she frequently consults with parents and school districts to better understand how to incorporate social-cognitive interventions into the educational programs of students with autism and related language-based learning difficulties. When she isn't working Aileen enjoys spending time with her son Cary, her family and friends.