Talkabout: A Social Communication Skills Package

I love this book for working with adults with intellectual disabilities who need confidence building. They love the activities and I enjoy watching them learn new information about themselves. The colours in the book are bright, but I would prefer to have a CD so that you can print the pages off easily. The pages are difficult to copy from the photocopier. One of the best therapy books I've bought for my practice (speech pathology).

Great photocopiable worksheets and ideas to use in class.

As a neurodivergent speech and language therapist, this made for some truly distressing reading. This book needs urgent revision to mitigate the harm it is likely causing. Most of the material is focused on masking ( how well can the student pretend to act like they aren't autistic or neurodivergent) without any mention of considering what the students' preferences might be as neurodivergent people. There is solid research evidence that masking causes serious mental health problems in children and adults. Sadly, the program often advises the facilitator to tell students that without masking people will think they are 'rude' and 'will not like them'. The program also never once mentions the idea of 'Double Empathy' something which has been repeatedly called for by the Neurodiversity Movement, the Autism Society and now the Royal College of Speech and Language Therapists. Lastly, there is no mention whatsoever if any input or feedback from the neurodivergent children/ students this is being used on- how about asking them what is important to them instead of forcing them to make eye contact ( which we now know is often painful). Before buying this, please consider Googling 'neurodiversity affirming therapy/ intervention' and learning about how to conduct interventions without harming neurodivergent children. There is lots of good information out there, the 'RCSLT Autism Guidance' is available online and gives a good overview.

Easy to use , practical. Great for small groups.