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Social stories were initially created by Carol Gray. In 1989, Carol began writing stories for her students to share information they seemed to be missing. Many of the stories resulted in immediate and marked improvement in her students' responses to daily events and new situations. Nowadays, social stories have become quite common amongst those working with Autistic children and special education. As a speech therapist, you've probably even heard about them. Maybe you've used them with some of the Autistic children on your caseload.
The message I want to give you today is about using social stories with any of the little ones in speech therapy for toddlers, the ones having a hard time with transitions, not understanding routines, and expressing themselves through challenging behaviors.
Research shows that reading social stories to those experiencing difficulties in certain situations is beneficial. Why? Social stories are designed to explain things in a way that is easy to understand. Plus, they provide real-life examples of how to respond to situations or how to use different behaviors/methods of communication to get a message across.
In this episode, we also talk about how to write social stories. Introduce the concept, address the areas of concern (behaviors, fears, new experiences), describe the new experience and how to respond, talk about the experience and then transition to how it will end.
Another aspect to consider when using stories is when to do so. There are 2 ways to do this.
Just like responding to a behavior, you want to introduce social stories when you notice a child experiencing difficulty with a situation. This is not to say that if you see a child biting another child, your response needs to be shoving a social story in their face immediately. It won't work, especially if they've never been exposed to the concept of a social story before. Instead, you'll want to introduce the social story outside of the behavior occurring. In other words, include reading the social story into the child's daily routine. Then, when they find themselves in the scenario, remind them of the story and different ways to handle it. You might also want to read the story before you know the child is in a situation where the behavior might occur (like before school or daycare). If possible, the child can also carry the social story with them so an adult can help remind them of the necessary strategies.
The other way to use social stories is by introducing them before the event occurs. If you know something new is coming up that your child hasn't experienced before, start reading the social story. An example of this is a haircut. Haircuts are planned so you can incorporate the story and help the child understand what is happening. Then, on the day of, you'll read it again before the haircut and celebrate the victory (no matter how big or small) of achieving the goal. Moving forward, each time the child gets a haircut, read the story beforehand until they no longer need it.
Some social stories also include visuals and helpful handouts to be used for additional support.
Social stories are awesome and available in a variety of contexts. They can be extremely beneficial for unexpected behaviors, routine changes, or new experiences!
Grab your free social story HERE!