This engaging and highly practical course, led by Dr. Anna Vagin, explores the power of animated video as a tool for social learning and emotional development in students with social cognition challenges. Drawing from her years in private practice and her published works, Dr. Vagin demonstrates how carefully selected wordless or low-dialogue animated videos can unlock deep inferential thinking, emotional insight, and conversation skills. With her signature warmth and creativity, she guides participants through strategies to support students in building understanding of nonverbal cues, emotional expression, and social motivation.
Throughout the course, clinicians learn how to integrate concepts such as "double think" (pausing to think again) and "biological motion" (movement with social intent) into their interventions. Participants are introduced to tools such as visual annotations, character-based inference prompts, and critical thinking triangles to help students interpret character emotions and intentions more effectively. Dr. Vagin also emphasizes the therapeutic value of repeated video viewings, illustrating how multiple exposures enable students to synthesize complex nonverbal and emotional content incrementally.
The course also delves into building resilience through media, offering methods to help students recognize and manage uncomfortable emotions in socially challenging or ambiguous moments. Using tools like story-based analysis, roleplay, and the "conversation in real time" approach, therapists can coach students through the development of internal language, emotion regulation, and narrative competence. By modeling both structured and spontaneous interventions, Dr. Vagin empowers educators and clinicians to create emotionally supportive and cognitively stimulating experiences for neurodiverse learners.
Students taking this course can expect to learn how to:
1. Use animated, mostly wordless videos to teach inference and social-emotional understanding by focusing on nonverbal cues, contextual clues, and emotional displays.
2. Implement the "double think" strategy to prompt students to reconsider initial interpretations and deepen their understanding of social dynamics and intentions.
3. Introduce and reinforce mental state verbs (e.g., think, remember, understand) to help students develop richer inner language and more precise emotional expression.
4. Scaffold narrative and conversation skills using structured visual tools like the Story Grammar Marker’s Critical Thinking Triangle and real-time video dubbing exercises.
5. Foster emotional resilience through reflection on animated storylines, character perspective-taking, and student-driven discussion of real-life parallels and coping strategies.
Related Courses:
Play. Pause. Learn. Using Engaging Media & Games to Support Social Learning
YouTube for Social Learning: Teaching the Complexities of Cooperation
Throughout the course, clinicians learn how to integrate concepts such as "double think" (pausing to think again) and "biological motion" (movement with social intent) into their interventions. Participants are introduced to tools such as visual annotations, character-based inference prompts, and critical thinking triangles to help students interpret character emotions and intentions more effectively. Dr. Vagin also emphasizes the therapeutic value of repeated video viewings, illustrating how multiple exposures enable students to synthesize complex nonverbal and emotional content incrementally.
The course also delves into building resilience through media, offering methods to help students recognize and manage uncomfortable emotions in socially challenging or ambiguous moments. Using tools like story-based analysis, roleplay, and the "conversation in real time" approach, therapists can coach students through the development of internal language, emotion regulation, and narrative competence. By modeling both structured and spontaneous interventions, Dr. Vagin empowers educators and clinicians to create emotionally supportive and cognitively stimulating experiences for neurodiverse learners.
Students taking this course can expect to learn how to:
1. Use animated, mostly wordless videos to teach inference and social-emotional understanding by focusing on nonverbal cues, contextual clues, and emotional displays.
2. Implement the "double think" strategy to prompt students to reconsider initial interpretations and deepen their understanding of social dynamics and intentions.
3. Introduce and reinforce mental state verbs (e.g., think, remember, understand) to help students develop richer inner language and more precise emotional expression.
4. Scaffold narrative and conversation skills using structured visual tools like the Story Grammar Marker’s Critical Thinking Triangle and real-time video dubbing exercises.
5. Foster emotional resilience through reflection on animated storylines, character perspective-taking, and student-driven discussion of real-life parallels and coping strategies.
Related Courses:
Play. Pause. Learn. Using Engaging Media & Games to Support Social Learning
YouTube for Social Learning: Teaching the Complexities of Cooperation
