When you stop to think about how much information we need to absorb during social interactions (the words that are being used; the tone of voice the words are spoken in; the volume of the words; the facial expression, gestures and other body language cues that are being sent), the amount of information is really staggering. It should also be noted that this enormous amount of information (these messages) are transient. After the words, the gestures, etc., occur, they disappear like water down a sink drain. If we don't catch and process that information in the moment, we miss the message.
With Floreo, we can put a "stopper in the sink" and allow the Learner an opportunity to work with that information before it goes away. In the Floreo social interaction lessons, we pause the student characters in the virtual school hallway and ask Learners to notice specifics about the words they say, the tone of voice they are using. We can ask Learners to interpret the character's mood and consider what a reasonable response would be in that situation.
If your Learners would benefit from this deep dive, consider starting with: Friendly Greeting, Neutral Greeting, Unfriendly Greeting, as well as Choose Your Greeting. (Some Learners may see Unfriendly Greeting and choose to imitate those greetings. If so, you may leave that lesson out of your line-up until the Learner is ready for it.) The multiple Intro to Small Talk lessons (such as, Intro to Small Talk: Brandon Shares an Opinion, or Intro to Small Talk: May Shares Her Concern, or Intro to Small Talk: Carlos Shares Personal Info) are good lessons for Learners who need to interpret whether someone might be in a good mood or a not-so-good mood.
The chit-chat lessons also provide a potential pause in the interaction for the Learner to process the information. Start with Chit-Chat with Myra, the easiest of these lessons, then proceed to Chit-Chat with Alejandro, then Chit-Chat with Ayanna. In addition to being able to pause the interaction, the Chit-Chat lessons allow for longer, more reciprocal conversations. The Floreo Coach has the flexibility to pause or progress the lesson as needed. Our new AI driven lessons, Conversation Corner with Jordan and Marcie: Park and Conversation Corner with Jordan and Marcie: Movie Theater, also offer a pause feature if the Coach would like to step in and guide the Learner through an interaction.
To measure whether the Learner is able to interpret the meaning behind the social engagement, you can use Greetings in Motion and Small Talk in Motion to give the Learner opportunities to demonstrate and/or practice these skills in real time. Our Teen Talk: Social Squares, and Teen Talk: Social Squares 2 also offer more real time practice.
When social information is coming from one person, it is truly an enormous amount of information being delivered in a very short amount of time, but when that information is coming from multiple people in a social interaction, the speed at which we need to process that information is mind boggling. Practicing these skills in virtual reality can be extremely valuable to our Learners.
Floreo's Director of Applied Digital Therapy, Rita Solórzano MA, CCC-SLP, is a Speech Language Pathologist with over 30 years of experience.