Social stories were
developed to help improve social interactions in children with autism by giving simple and
clear descriptions of social cues and appropriate behaviors. A social story is a simple
description of an everyday social situation, written from a child's
perspective. Social stories can
be used in different situations. For example, social stories can help a child prepare for upcoming
changes in routine, or
learn appropriate social interactions for situations that they encounter.
The idea is that the
child rehearses the story ahead of time, with an adult. Then, when the situation actually happens, the child can
use the story to help guide his or her behavior.
Learners with autism often have
difficulty understanding expectations in social situations. Over the past
decade, social stories have become increasingly popular as an intervention
strategy for learners with ASD. Social stories are brief descriptions of expectations
that are explained in the context of a “story” created on an individual basis
to describe a specific scenario the learner will encounter. Typically, the
story is written from the perspective of the learner, in a meaningful format
for people with ASD. A social story is created specifically for the student it
is intended to help. Practitioners can create stories that are supplemented
with pictorial cues or photos in addition to textual information. The use of
stories to explain social rules and contingencies has been shown to be
beneficial for learners with autism.
There are several ways that social stories may help improve
a child's theory of mind.
One is that, by giving examples of specific social cues and behaviors, social stories may improve
social problem-solving in
general. Social stories may
also help organize social ides and cues that were previously disorganized.
Moreover, by using print, audio, video, or pictures to replace
in-person teaching, social
stories may take away some of the anxiety of social relationships. In this way, autistic children can concentrate on what is being said
rather than their relationship with
the person who is saying it.
Suggestions for developing effective
social stories. There are currently seven recognized sentence types used to
create social stories:
- Descriptive: (De) give who, what, where, and why
details about the situation so the child can recognize when that situation
actually occurs, Sentences that provide factual information.
- Perspective: (P)
describe one of the child's possible feelings or responses Sentences that provide insight
regarding the thoughts, feelings, and behaviors of others.
-Affirmative: (A) often refer to a law or a rule or are a commonly
shared opinion Sentences that are used to reassure the learner.
- Directive: (Di) tell the child the appropriate social
responses in that situation. Sentences that tell the learner what
behaviors are expected.
- Control: (Cn) are created by the child, to help
remember strategies that work for him or her. Sentences that use analogies
to explain situations.
- Cooperative: (Co) describe how other people will help
out in a given situation. Sentences that tell the learners who can assist
them in different situations.
- Consequence: Sentences that tell what will happen as a
result of the actions.
For example, a social story using sentence
types is:
When we go to the shoe store, there will
be many shoes to choose from. (De)
I might not know which shoes I like. (P)
That is okay with everyone. (A)
I can hold onto my string while I decide. (Cn)
When I decide about the shoes, I will
tell the grown-up. (Di)
The grown-up will go get the shoes for me. (Co)
The two options for how to construct
social stories using the different types of sentences: the basic social story ratio and the
complete social story
ratio.
In the basic social story ratio, should be using 2–5 descriptive,
perspective, and/or affirmative sentences for each directive sentence.
The complete social story ratio includes the addition of
control and cooperative sentences. For each control or cooperative sentence,
2–5 descriptive, perspective, affirmative, and/or directive sentences are
recommended.
The objective of the social story is to
describe rather than direct. The assumption is that changes in behavior may be
a result of a greater understanding of expectations and events in their
environment. Social stories reported in the literature are primarily composed
of descriptive, directive, consequence, and perspective sentences. Social
stories can be used to both increase and decrease behavior. For example, social
stories can be used to explain the actions required to deposit a check at the
bank or to explain the contingencies required to access a desired reinforcer
(e.g., to access a trip to the park, they must not engage in any aggressive
behavior). Social stories are often used for multi-element situations (which
change on a frequent basis), fear situations, and to reduce challenging
behaviors.
Often, social stories are used in
combination with other treatments, as part of a packaged social skills
intervention. In fact, when part of packaged interventions, some gains have
been noted. However, multiple treatments limit the extent to which treatment
effects can be attributed to social stories.
Development of the stories is highly variable.
There are few guidelines for how to use the social story and when to curtail
its usage. Two commonly used, but empirically unsupported, strategies to fade
the use of a social story are to reduce the number of times the story is read
each week and systematically removing sentences from the story, specifically
the directive ones.
Social
stories are written in
the first person, in the present tense, and from the child's point of view.
The parent, teacher, therapist, or counselor should write the story to match the
child's vocabulary and compreh
The literature describes a variety of
strategies to implement the social story. They include having the teacher or
parent read to the child, having the child read, listening to or watching the
story on a computer or TV, and listening to the story embedded in a song.
It may be that social stories enhance
parent and teacher attention to targeted behaviors, which may make it more
likely that desirable behaviors are prompted and reinforced. There also appears
to be a discrepancy between the perceived effects of treatment and the future
use of the social stories. Studies were unsure if the social stories had an
effect on the target behaviors, but planned to continue using them and even
create new stories for other skills. Investment may come from face-validity or
natural quality of approach for parents (e.g., all parents read to kids).
Teachers liked using social stories and found their outcomes to be favorable,
but did not continue to use the stories beyond the scope of the research study.
The time consuming nature of reading a social story before an activity may have
not made it feasible for teachers with large groups of students. To maintain
the behavior, the stories would need to be a part of the lesson planning
and become integrated into the classroom routine. Even in studies that have
shown promising treatment effects using social stories, there is a lack of
knowledge about the critical components. By developing more effective methods
for evaluating social stories, improvements in creating and implementing them
can be made.
It is possible that their effectiveness
may be a result of other elements of the packaged interventions. In general, it
is clinically wise to use social stories in combination with direct behavior
change procedures.
Recent research studies show that social stories can help
reduce problem behaviors,
increase social awareness,
and/or teach new skills. In some cases, the new behaviors were maintained and
generalized to other situations, even after the story was faded out. Social stories are most useful
for children who have basic language skills
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