Neurodivergent Space

By: Franny. Franny is the parent of a 15 year old son with Level 1 autism. She’s also a special education counselor with over 18 years of experience working in public schools. 

Many autistic children benefit from using social stories to help them make sense of the world. If you don’t work in special education, you might be asking yourself, “What’s a social story?” A social story is a short book (hard copy or digital) that helps reinforce skills, as well as preview and explain new experiences. Think of it as a personalized comic book that delivers a specific message or strengthens a specific skill. 

Social stories (also called social narratives) are particularly helpful when you want to reinforce a message or lesson (e.g. at lunch, we sit at the table and wait for the bell before we go out to recess)  or explain a recent change or situation (e.g. getting a cavity filled at the dentist). They typically use simple language and illustrations, and focus on one specific skill or message. 

Here is a page taken from a social story (from autismworks.com) that was written to help a student get along with others at recess. You can see that it uses simple language and illustrations, and doesn’t overcrowd the page. 

Social stories are most frequently used in the school setting, but they can easily be used at home as well. Social stories don’t have to be long. In fact, an ideal length is about 4-8 pages long. The key is that it is meaningful, and doesn’t try to cram too much information into one story. 

A good rule of thumb when creating a story is to include one concept per page. For example, if you want to write a social story about the first day of school, you might first write two pages about how lots of kids are nervous about the first day of school (normalizing the feeling), then another few pages about what the school day is going to look like, and then the last section can reinforce how school can be fun and positive. 

What makes an effective and successful social story?

• It’s important to identify the specific issue you are trying to address. For example, wanting your child to “be nicer to people” is too broad a topic for one social story. However, if you are trying to encourage your child to respond back when someone says hello to them, a social story might be very helpful for reinforcing that behavior goal. By breaking down the topic and behavior goal into a simpler action, you are much more likely to experience success. Using the above example of how to return a greeting, your social story might look something like this:
  • Talk about why it’s important to respond to others (people feel more comfortable and like it when they are acknowledged by others)
  • Give some examples of what can be said back in response to a greeting (“Hello,” or “Nice to meet you,” etc.).
  • Reinforce why it’s important to connect with others (Other people will want to be around you when you interact with them in a positive and expected way) 

• Use photographs and images that are meaningful and familiar to the reader. I like to try and take photos of real life situations and students in the social stories that I write at school. If the story includes familiar people and places, it often makes more sense to students. If using clip art or images from the web, I try to find pictures of students who share the same ethnicity or identity as the student for whom you are writing the story. This too makes it more meaningful for the reader. It’s important to note that if making social stories for students in more public settings such as schools or afterschool programs, you should get permission from the families of other students who might be in your photos.  

• Use simple and direct language. This is not the time to introduce new vocabulary words or complex topics. In fact, social stories are often more effective when they are written below the instructional reading level of the student. All students can get bogged down by too many directions or too much information coming at them at once, and this is particularly true for autistic children. Simple language that reinforces your message, with only one or two sentences on each page is best! 

• When writing a social story, it’s generally more effective to focus on what behavior you want to see as opposed to what behavior you don’t want to see. For example, “We use a quiet voice when walking the hallway” is better than  “Don’t yell in the hallway.” While a child might be able to at first recite and remember the “Don’ts” of a story more easily, reinforcing the positive behaviors you want to see develop in a child will almost always have more meaning and lead to longer term change when they are framed as a positive over a negative. 

• Create your social story with the child. Just like adults, children are often more engaged in a goal if they understand the whys and hows. You can explain why you think making a social story is a good idea, and get their help generating the text and finding pictures online, or taking photographs. 

When used at home a parent might want to write a social story about bedtime routines, what needs to happen in the morning before everyone heads out the door in the morning, or dinner behavior. At school, a teacher or counselor might want to write a social story to help a student know what happens when the fire alarm goes off at school, or reinforce expected behavior on the playground. 

I like to use google slides to make my social stories because I just find that to be the easiest way for me to get the results I want, but there are also lots of computer programs and books that can be very helpful resources. See below for some of them. 

Boardmaker was one of the first programs out there that used symbol based teaching. The most recent 7.0 version is light years beyond the program I first used when starting out working in schools. The Boardmaker 7.0 version still includes those original ready made low tech pictures of students sitting at desks, playing at recess, etc. that you can print and then paste on a poster, but it’s also so much more. You can now set up activities and lessons online, it supports learning from pre-K all the way up to the university level, and even includes online educational games. A variety of pricing options are available. 

Nookly.com is an online personalized social story program. Supported by such educational powerhouse as the Harvard Graduate School of Education and Columbia University, Nookly uses AI to help you create almost any type of high tech social story you could imagine. Once you create an account, you can create a profile for your child that individualizes their age, gender, and ethnicity. You can then ask Nookly to create a social story for almost any event or goal. With your editing and individualization, Nooky creates a story that rivals any Pixar or Disney movie! Users get one free story once they sign up. After that, one gets access to the story resources via a subscription pricing model. 

Nookly.com image

If you are feeling a bit more traditional, or are new to writing social stories, Carol Gray’s The New Social Story Book might be just what you are looking for. Carol Gray started writing and publicizing her social stories in the 1990s. One might consider her the founding mother of the social story. This book as well as some of her others is a great starting place for getting ideas and seeing some great examples. She also has a website, https://carolgraysocialstories.com/, which is full of resources and ideas. She even hosts online workshops for parents and educators. 

Cover of Carol Gray’s book

Remember, a social story is simply another tool in your tool box that you can use when working with or raising autistic children. I find them most effective and helpful when they are used to reinforce positive behaviors and remind children of their goals. 

I recently created a few for some of my students who were having difficulty with self-regulation. I picked a specific goal for each student (e.g. asking to use the break space when feeling frustrated). When it was completed, I made sure to set aside time each day for us to read it together. In one case I had to read the story to the student every morning for most of the school year. In another case, I read the story to the student before recess for about six weeks. Just like the story itself, how often you read the story is individualized to the child. 

A social story is rarely a stand alone tool, but combined with other supports such as direct teaching and modeling, it can definitely help reinforce and support student skills and help preview new experiences. 

Hopefully you too can now add social stories to your ever growing set of skills!