Social Stories

Using social stories...

- Create situational understanding
- Builds awareness
- Chunks understanding of specific skills

Implementation

Overview

Social stories are typically introduced to specific students and unique explain how to navigate a situation the student is currently experiencing.
The story should be read to the student and discussed through the use of perspective taking and connecting to the events.
The goal is to transfer how the character is the story responds to a situation to how they can respond to a similar situation.
The social story must be personal to the learner.

Core Components

- Specific to the student
- Read WITH the student
- Processing occurs during and after
- Connections are explicitly made

Proactive Implementation

- Proactively implementing social stories may look like knowing a specific event or situation is going to occur and reading a student, group, or class the story in preparation and discussing the possible strategies to support the characters in that environment.

Responsive Implementation

- Responsively implementing social stories may look like addressing a conflict or unexpected behavior through the use of storytelling. The student must be stabilized when reading the story.

Connection

If the need is connection social stories may be read with a preferred person.

Skills Training

If the need is skill building then the story should specifically capture the skill.

Awareness

If the need is awareness then the student should see the reaction characters have when another demonstrates the same unexpected behavior.

Emotional Regulation

If the need is regulation then the story may involve characters impacted by an action and how they utilize coping strategies.

- The story may be colorless to allow the student to color in the pages.
- The story may be a favorite character of the student such as winnie the pooh or batman.
- The story could use the specific student's name in the story.

Consider Factors Prior to Start

Gender, race, function, topography, family dynamics, interpersonal relationships

Resource availability, classroom instruction, physical space, time, technology

Intensifying or Fading During

REMINDER

- Make a note to document when you're starting this intervention.
- After 10 consecutive school days of implementation, use collected data to determine the intervention's effectiveness.