Think Social East Bay
Social Learning therapy for individuals and groups, from elementary school through adulthood.
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Parents, please Sign in to post a review on this page.Our daughter has been participating in Shelly's "Conversation class" since the middle of 7th grade, 2 years ago. I cannot say enough wonderful things about what she's learned and the self confidence she's gained. Our daughter was bullied constantly and something about the way she communicated really turned kids off-she made friends but could not keep them at ALL. We enrolled her in the weekly class, and the first day I picked her up, we were talking and I was asking questions and our daughter stopped and said "Wait! You're making small talk! I didn't know about small talk and I just learned a formula for making small talk!" So we practice...and she's great at making small talk now. Shelly covers things like turning small talk into bigger conversations, moving an acquaintance into a friend, active listening, learning when to stop talking, telling a story more directly and (as kids with ADHD do,) not downloading everything at once but wait and see if the person seems interested, taking turns talking, topics that make good conversation starters. She has them all walk to 7-11 and buy something there and interact with the worker there. Last year she had everyone do a presentation and host the meeting. All these creative ways to teach kids how to be more relatable and learn how to converse the way society expects them to, which is SUCH a huge important skill. She sends home papers detailing what they learned that day so we can practice and she talks to each parent at pick up. Plus its a weekly meeting where our daughter gets to sit with a bunch of girls her age and just talk...which is huge both for her communication skills and her self-esteem. Its like a youth group in a supportive environment. Although she hasn't met any good friends there, she really enjoys it. We were having to cut down on our daughters after school programs, and our daughter said her #1 choice to keep is Conversation Class. It has literally been life changing for her and we're sure its a major part of the reason our child has made good close friends at her new school.
I have never heard or seen of anything ethically questionable like the posting below, but I'm not saying that didn't happen. But we've never experienced it so I can only speak for myself.
I would recommend against Shelly Hansen. While many parents use her services because she is one of the few who has a consistent program running, she behaved very unethically with our family. She blind carbon copied a response to us about her (previously uncommunicated) decision to restructure our child's social group to another family in the group. We were only aware because the family kindly informed us. When we explained to her we thought this was a violation of our privacy and a blatant disregard of social norms, which we were extra unsettled by as she is responsible for teaching social dynamics to young and impressionable people, she did not apologize or acknowledge any wrong doing. There were other concerns, but thought these are quite concrete and may suffice for understanding the seriousness of her behavior. We ceased participating in her group, as did the other family. Had she acknowledged it as a mistake or really any other form of accountability, perhaps we would not have been so concerned.
I also have friends who continue to use her, as they have found it valuable for their child, but I do think other parents should be aware that she does not follow ethical standards of privacy, and you might explore her policy on that, prior to entrusting communications about your family or child's needs.
We did not use her group, but Dr. Kate Ekman also offers social groups. We were eager to join her group, but at the time there wasn't a group yet formed. Liz Isono is an OT who does social groups, but she is usually very full (we use her social group now, and our child is very happy).
Shelly Hansen at Think Social East Bay is great. Get your child in one of her social skills groups as soon as you can!
+1 to Shelly Hansen and Think Social. Stacy outten is an excellent therapist in the east bay who specializes in neurodivergent kids and is making a world of difference in helping my kid. Hang in there. You're doing great in getting your kid all the help he needs.
Not a therapist but your child should absolutely consider joining a social skills group with Shelly at Think Social East Bay. She is a speech language pathologist but she specializes in teaching social skills to kids who don't pick them up naturally. Bonus is that most kids think her groups are fun and want to go. She was a life changer for our ADHD kid with poor social skills as a result.
My son attended Shelly’s class for 1 school year. He was 10 when he was diagnosed with mild ADHD and autism due to his behavior issues, similar to your child, dominating, inability to consider other people, breaking stuff when thing didn’t go his way, unwilling to take instructions. Our child therapist recommended that he attend Think Social. Shelly was great with the kids. I didn’t a lot of feedback from her nor my child, so I didn’t know what was going on in class, but from what I gathered, they learned how to build friendship by ask other kids questions, what to say when friends were sad, they learned how to behave in a store, around strangers, etc. Maybe it was to learn how to “fake it till you make it” for these kids? I was told that each class may be different depending on the kids’ behavior issues. Another parent told me that Shelly usually gave the parents a recap at the end of each session, but because of Covid, she didn’t do that last year. I think the real questions is if your child take the skills she learned in class and apply them to the real world. My son’s behavior did improve a little, but I don’t know if it was the medication he was on or Think Social. My son said it was very boring so he didn’t want to go anymore.
We've just started the group for my 11 year old daughter, so I can't speak to the effectiveness yet. I will say that my daughter was previously in an ABA based social group that she HATED. Even that one, I felt like she was learning and I could see some improvement in her ability to connect with others. Shelly makes a great effort to match the children in appropriate groups and I have to say that she seems to have done a great job with that. The kids in my daughter's group are very similar (and sound a lot like your child, too) and they enjoy spending time together. I like Shelly's approach and there is a parent report at the end of the class, which includes things that should be reinforced at home. For us, there has also been a far amount of contact between sessions as issues that the children are encountering are the basis for her sessions, so she counsels parents and provides context and language. I was worried after having waited almost a year to get in, but so far I am very happy.