PLEs: A tool for self-regulation in social communication?

A caveat:  This post is going to discuss an idea about coaching individuals with medical, social, psychological or whatever diagnoses.   I am not a professional in this area but, being a person with ADHD, I've picked up, through informal learning, some information on coaching.  

I'm also thinking while blogging - not something I'm comfortable with, but a phenomenon that has been pointed out as one function of blogging.   So... here goes.  No virtual rotten tomatoes please.

While reading Dabbah and Kirsantas description of a framework for supporting self-regulated learning in PLE's, the progression from Level 1, a personal, private online environment to Level 2, a socially open environment,  jumped out to me as a way of supporting social development in learners with what I'm calling "social impairment" for lack of a better term.

Learners with many different cognitive/intellectual deficits, such as autism, ADD/ADHD, Down's Syndrome, as well as social anxiety disorders, display problems in managing the social act of communication, the temporal aspects of speaking and listening, appropriate affect, balancing monopolizing a conversation, etc.

I wonder if allowing a learner who would benefit from learning/coaching in social communication would benefit from being guided and encouraged to move from a safe and private online environment, (Zimmerman's "forethought" phase) in which the learner prepares tools for communicating effectively, to a gradually more socially active, conversational, perhaps collaborative environment (Dabbagh and Kitsanta's level 2, Zimmerman's performance phase).  Would this be an effective opportunity for coaching?

This is what I'm wondering about now, the role of mirror neurons and social media

There are these wonderful little neurons, mirror neurons, that seem to convince bone and muscle tissue that it is acting, while the individual is merely observing an action.  Perhaps there is a variety of mirror neuron that would function similarly with Web 2.0 interactions.

Hmmmm.....

A few minutes later...

Bless Google's heart, there is a body of information on mirror neurons and social media.  

One nifty article is, Of Mirror Neurons and Social Media, which gives mirror neurons a place in social media.  Contrasting that is How Social Media Affects your Brain, which denies mirror neurons any place in interactions via social media.

A blog post for another day.