From today you can work with four new social cognition activities for adults! Many of you asked us for more activities to work with this cognitive function, so we got down to work to put together a social cognition activity pack. We present them to you one by one!

But first, a little warning!

From now instead of launching a new activity every 15 days, we will periodically release a pack of several activities (it can be to reinforce a specific area, a pack for a specific pathology, varied activities with your suggestions, etcetera!) We can let you know that the next pack will be to about laterality with children.

Social Cognition Activities

1. Word-Emotion Association

This activity involves recognizing the emotion shown and relate it to the terms that define it. This task is perfect for improving social cognition and vocabulary.

It is fundamental to identify emotions in other people and to learn how to relate to people in an appropriate way in their daily lives.

In addition, vocabulary is working on because the words become more complicated as the level increases. Also, as the level increases, the emotions and feelings shown become more and more complex.

2. Internal States

Internal States is a printable activity. It cannot be digitized because the patient has to explain the characters´ feelings in the stories shown by elaborating social scripts. We show you an example, in the following exercise:

What does this activity work?

• Expression.
• Flexibility. It works on flexible thinking, that is, the different interpretation of the same situation.
• Reasoning.
• Empathy. It is necessary to put yourself in someone else’s shoes. It helps the user to realize how different people can think.

3. Correct behaviours

Patients need to analyze the given example and see what would be the right way to behave in the situation.

For example, in the following easy level worksheet, Lucas must decide what is the right thing to do when Claudia offers him a bite of her dessert: take advantage of the situation and take the biggest bite he can or thank her and try a little bit.

Paper version

In the paper version you will also find a very interesting second part to discuss with the patient about the different options to choose from. Try it!

What does the patient work with this activity?

• Self-esteem
• Assertiveness
• Civility
• Basic behavior
• Constructive criticism
• Rights
• Empathy
• Hygiene
• Persuasion
• Social relations
• Relating to others
• Routines

4. Find the same emotion

Find the same emotion is a very interesting social cognition activity to work on emotional recognition. It is a matter of matching faces that indicate the same emotion.

Not everyone’s face is the same to show the same emotion, that is the complexity of the exercise. The user must be able to recognize the most distinctive features of such expression to better identify emotions in different types of people.

What does the patient work with this activity?

It is a fundamental activity for patients. If they do not know how to identify emotions in others, they will have many problems in social relationships.

One piece of advice

We encourage you to do these social cognition activities live with the patient in order to better reason the answers! We know that in these times of COVID-19 in which telerehabilitation prevails is not always possible, but if you have the opportunity, take advantage of it!

Emotions, their interpretation or the way each person behaves are very different. And there are times when there is not just one correct answer. There may be an infinite number of nuances that make us opt for a different solution to the supposedly accepted one. The important thing in the end is to work on reasoning and understanding with the patient and to make it useful in his/her unique circumstances.

Advanced levels only available on paper

In Word-Emotion Association and Find the same emotion activities we have not digitized the advanced level. Due to the similarity of their options and the subjectivity of this type of task, there is no single, unequivocal answer.

Therefore, we recommend that you look for these activities in the paper version and work with the patient live so that he/she can explain each of his/her choices.  You ultimately decide if the answer deserves to be a hit or a miss. We are sure you will get a lot out of these paper worksheets! Give it a try and let us know!

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• How to improve your social skills: Social Skills Games