Social Communication at Home (Using Short Animated Films)

 

There are many ways to work on social communication skills at home.  One fun way is to watch short, animated films and ask inferential questions to help students work on skills, such as:

• Perspective-taking
• Understanding emotions
• Identifying nonverbal language cues (e.g., body language, facial expressions)
• Making social inferences

Below is an example activity with example questions.  You can easily use this to adapt to any short animated film, or even longer clips and movies. 

Example Activity: Birds on a Wire
Watch the short animation, "Birds on a Wire" [link].
Throughout the film, pause and ask questions that would inspire your child to make an inference based on visible (or auditory) clues.  For example:

1. How are the little birds feeling at the start of the clip?  
2. Are they having a party?  Yes, or no?
3. Why did the little birds laugh when the big bird arrived?  
4. Why did the little birds move away from the big bird?
5. The two little birds at the center of the wire looked at each other and smiled. Without saying words, what message did they communicate to each other?
6. What do you think will happen after the big bird's last toe comes off the wire? 
7. What do you think will happen next?

I hope that this is a helpful resource to you!

Kind regards,
Jade Wang, M.A., CCC-SLP