Unit 3 Developing a Social Story Strategies
Objectives
- Participants will recognize the purpose of social stories in terms of correcting disruptive social behavior given examples and course content
- Participants will categorize the three parts of an effective social story
- Participants will evaluate effective social stories and explain what behavior the story seeks to correct given examples and course content
- Participants will define three pieces relative terminology associated with social story given a vocabulary log and course content
Introduction
A Social Story is a written and/or visual guide describing various social interactions, situations, behaviors, skills or concepts Social stories are utilized do to the communicatively impaired learners inability to learn from the very social world beyond their own minds. The old adage of “put yourself in someone else’s shoes” comes to mind. This can be a difficult process for a neurotypical child, so the difficulty rises if the learner’s disability is one that blocks perspective taking. Learners of all ages and abilities can benefit from this strategy. The more visual one could make it, the more beneficial it may be as learners on the ASD frequently learn best through visual cues.
A key thought that defines the need for this type of intervention is necessary due to the fact that “....social interaction for individuals with autism may be difficult, confusing and unpredictable. A Social Story might then be used to explain social situations in terms of what another person might be thinking and/or why they may behave in certain ways; thus reducing or removing the confusion and unpredictability.”
Life is unpredictable and learners with communication disorders are just as diverse as the general population in terms of different strengths and areas of need.
In your investigation you will understand the parts of an effective social story and connect them to what you know about expected behavior.
Each social story needs a goal(a purposeful reason that requires this intervention). Creating a social story also requires gathering information.(Information related to the setting and individuals involved with the behavior) Social stories also use different sentence types(directive, control, cooperative, affirmative, control,perspective and partial statements used to give learners guidelines for understanding social cues).
The following link is extremely helpful for understanding the process of social story creation:http://www.educateautism.com/social-stories.html
Investigation
1.Read the following page on the process of creating a social story. Identify the sections that were defined for you in the introduction. http://www.educateautism.com/social-stories.html
2. Read the following page.http://www.autism.org.uk/about/strategies/social-stories-comic-strips/how-to-write.aspx about how to create a social story. As you read keep thinking about goals, information that needs to be gathered, and the types of sentences utilized.
3. Read the social story example given here. Identify:
a.What the goal is for this social story
b. What kind of information a teacher would have needed to figure out before it’s creation
c. What types of sentences
Application
Now you have a basis on what is required for creating a social story. You should be thinking about how social stories with using social thought to define expected and unexpected behavior can concretely intervene with difficult behaviors encountered by ASD and CI learners. In the real world setting it will be much more natural to figure out the challenging behavior and while the solution may seem simple to you, it should be understood that mastering simple social cues is incredibly difficult for learners with ASD.
You are now able to:
1. Identify the parts of an effective social story
2. Recognize how social stories can help with communicatively learners who do not always understand the social context around them.
Reflection
1. Now it is time for you to evaluate a social story in terms of social thinking. Go to the following site and choose one of the social stories on a powerpoint.(this is under personalized stories). https://www.autismspeaks.org/family-services/personalized-stories On the discussion page identify what the goal of the story is, information that should be gathered before administering this social story, and types of sentences you see here.
Now connect it to what you have learned about expected and unexpected behavior. Choose a couple segments you think would benefit from inserting expected behavior and unexpected behavior(ex. It would be critical to state that sharing is an expected behavior. Not sharing is unexpected and that makes others feel upset)
Also identify where you can how using language in context for the four Zones of Regulation(remember they are Green for calm behavior, blue for slow behavior, yellow for slightly dysfunctional behaviors and red for critically difficult behaviors). It is important to note you do NOT have to use all the zones in your discussion.
When you have finished with the course assignments, you are now ready to create your own social story in the Summative Evaluation Part of the Course:
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Unit 1 Understanding Social Behavior Difficulties in Communication Impaired Children
Unit 2 Understanding Behavioral Difficulties in Communication Impaired Children