Social Stories
What is a Social Story?
Social Stories were originally develop by Carol Gray to help provide children with Autism an easy way understood correct social responses to situations and develop the individual’s social skills. However, research suggests that children with FASD exhibit similar difficulties to children with ASD in regards to executive function, perception of social cues, reading of body language, impulsivity and likelihood to exercise poor judgement when interacting socially (Bishop, Gahagan & Lord, 2007). Therefore, Social Stories would likely work for children with FASD as well to help them navigate the social climate. Social Stories are an individualized short stories that are used to model an appropriate social interaction, behavior or skill by describing a relevant social context to the one the child is struggling with. The story breaks down the challenging social situation by providing the student with other people’s perspectives and an appropriate response to the situation. The goal of the story is to improve the child’s understanding of the social situation which may lead to a change in behavior and decision making in future events similar to the story.
For more on Carol Gray's Social Stories refer to her website by clicking this link: The Gray Center for Social Learning and Understanding.
How to use a Social Story
If a teacher or educational assistant is noticing that a child with FASD is struggling with a particular situation, then they can begin to plan out a Social Story that would work for that child. Before writing the story it is important to carefully observe the intended individual’s behavior to root out the heart of the issue, talk with others that work with the child, and then consider the situation from the child’s point of view. The story should be descriptive, meaningful and should be kept positive to focus on the benefits of righting the action. To be truly effective the story should build in questions to test if the story is sending the intended message. Social Stories can take place in the form of a book, a comic strip or even a video. A compelling feature about Social Stories is that they can be created to address a wide variety of situations ranging from navigating a social encounter to anger management issues to how to take care of personal hygiene. It is the flexibility of these stories and their ability to promote decision making skill development that makes them an excellent tool to be used with children with FASD. See below for a variety of examples of Social Stories.
How to write a Social Story
- Determine the behavior or action you want to modify (only one behavior at a time)
- The story should be written in the first person and include drawings or pictures of the event
- Have the person participate in the development of the social story
- Describe the difficult situation for the child and explain why a behavior is inappropriate by providing an appropriate behavior
The key to writing a good Social Story is to use a combination of different types of sentences including Descriptive, Perspective, Directive, Affirmative, Control, and Cooperative.
Each story should contain no more than one directive sentence and two to five of the remaining sentence types, but for short stories it is recommended to use the following ratio of sentence types: Descriptive, Perspective, Directive. You may supplement the story by adding Affirmative, Control, and Cooperative sentences to provide more substance.
To see a description and examples of Descriptive, Perspective, Directive, Affirmative, Control, and Cooperative sentences click this link!
Social Stories were originally develop by Carol Gray to help provide children with Autism an easy way understood correct social responses to situations and develop the individual’s social skills. However, research suggests that children with FASD exhibit similar difficulties to children with ASD in regards to executive function, perception of social cues, reading of body language, impulsivity and likelihood to exercise poor judgement when interacting socially (Bishop, Gahagan & Lord, 2007). Therefore, Social Stories would likely work for children with FASD as well to help them navigate the social climate. Social Stories are an individualized short stories that are used to model an appropriate social interaction, behavior or skill by describing a relevant social context to the one the child is struggling with. The story breaks down the challenging social situation by providing the student with other people’s perspectives and an appropriate response to the situation. The goal of the story is to improve the child’s understanding of the social situation which may lead to a change in behavior and decision making in future events similar to the story.
For more on Carol Gray's Social Stories refer to her website by clicking this link: The Gray Center for Social Learning and Understanding.
How to use a Social Story
If a teacher or educational assistant is noticing that a child with FASD is struggling with a particular situation, then they can begin to plan out a Social Story that would work for that child. Before writing the story it is important to carefully observe the intended individual’s behavior to root out the heart of the issue, talk with others that work with the child, and then consider the situation from the child’s point of view. The story should be descriptive, meaningful and should be kept positive to focus on the benefits of righting the action. To be truly effective the story should build in questions to test if the story is sending the intended message. Social Stories can take place in the form of a book, a comic strip or even a video. A compelling feature about Social Stories is that they can be created to address a wide variety of situations ranging from navigating a social encounter to anger management issues to how to take care of personal hygiene. It is the flexibility of these stories and their ability to promote decision making skill development that makes them an excellent tool to be used with children with FASD. See below for a variety of examples of Social Stories.
How to write a Social Story
- Determine the behavior or action you want to modify (only one behavior at a time)
- The story should be written in the first person and include drawings or pictures of the event
- Have the person participate in the development of the social story
- Describe the difficult situation for the child and explain why a behavior is inappropriate by providing an appropriate behavior
The key to writing a good Social Story is to use a combination of different types of sentences including Descriptive, Perspective, Directive, Affirmative, Control, and Cooperative.
Each story should contain no more than one directive sentence and two to five of the remaining sentence types, but for short stories it is recommended to use the following ratio of sentence types: Descriptive, Perspective, Directive. You may supplement the story by adding Affirmative, Control, and Cooperative sentences to provide more substance.
To see a description and examples of Descriptive, Perspective, Directive, Affirmative, Control, and Cooperative sentences click this link!
Examples:
Some printable Social Stories to use in the classroom:
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Video Format:
There's an app for that?
With the emergence of technology and the proven educational benefits it can provide, there are also apps that can be used to help create social stories. The Shadow Puppet available in the iPhone app store for free is a handy tool that can be used to help construct Social Stories. The app allows you to take pictures of a situation and then overlay your voice with the social story. This could allow you to involve the child with the creation of the Social Story and make it a more personal experience. Below is an example of a Social Story we created using the Shadow Puppet app. |
Research supporting Social Stories:
Alberta Ministry of Learning. (2004). Programming for Students with Special Need Series: Teaching Students with Fetal Alcohol Spectrum Disorder. Alberta: Alberta Learning.
Benish, T.M., & Bramlett, R.K. (2011). Using social stories to decrease aggression and increase positive peer interactions in normally developing pre-school children. Educational Psychology in Practice, 27(1), 1-17.
Bohjanen, S., Humphrey, M., & Ryan, S. M. (2009). Left Behind: Lack of Research-Based Interventions for Children and Youth with Fetal Alcohol Spectrum Disorder. Rural Special Education Quarterly, 28(2), 32-38.
Bishop, S., Gahagan, S., & Lord, C. (2007). Re-examining the core features of autism: a comparison of autism spectrum disorder and fetal alcohol spectrum disorder. Journal of Child Psychology and Psychiatry, 48(11), 1111-1121.
Keil, V., Paley, B., Frankel, F., & O'Connor, M.J. (2010). Impact of a social skills intervention on the hostile attributions of children with prenatal alcohol exposure. Alcoholism: Clinical and Experimental Research, 34(2), 231-41.
O’Leary, M. (2011). Are social skill interventions an effective means of reducing social deficits in school aged children with fetal alcohol spectrum disorders? Journal of Child Psychology and Psychiatry, 48(11), 1111-1121.