Social+stories

The use of [|Social Stories] is a strategy which can be used to help students with special needs with situations that they may find difficult or confusing. They are tools for teaching new skills or reminding students of expected behavioiur. They are useful for all children, but may be particularly useful for children with Autism Spectrum Disorders and Down syndrome. The goal of a social story is to increase the individual's understanding of a given situation, make them feel more comfortable in the situation, and look at appropriate responses in the situation. As discussed in Foreman, social stories can be invaluable in helping students understand what is required of them in different situations and can be 'augmented with photos or picture symbols' (2008, p. 379).

The [|Social Stories] website provides a good introduction to social stories. Topics include:
 * What are social stories?
 * A sample social story.
 * The need for social skills intervention.
 * The benefits of social stories.
 * Identifying student needs.
 * Writing a social story.
 * Presentation and authoring styles.
 * Implementation, monitoring, and fading out.

Social stories are appropriate for both the early childhood and primary school settings. The article [|Using Social Stories to Ease Children's Transitions] focuses on social stories as visual scripts for younger children during periods of transition such as entering a classroom without the assistance of a caregiver or separating from a parent. The article also provides two useful examples of social stories.

It is easy to see the application of social stories and picture support in the classroom to students of all abilities, particularly in the early childhood setting, and for a range of purposes.

Other useful websites include:
 * [|Social Stories for Younger Children](all can be downloaded in PDF format).
 * [|Watson Institute] (enter 'social stories' as a search term to access a range of material on social stories).

Foreman, P (ed.) 2008, //Inclusion in action//. 2nd edn. Cengage, Melbourne.
 * References**

=﻿Social Stories=

Social Stories are 'an effective method of providing both guidance and directions for responding to various social situations that promote self-awareness, self-calming, and self-management' (Gray, 1994; Gray & Gerand, 1993; Swaggart it al., 1995, cited in Smith Myles & Southwick, 1999, p69). They are short stories, written by the teacher, and individualised for a particular student who is struggling with understanding or interpreting social situations, cues, norms, and others' perspectives. They are excellent for teaching social skills to children on the Autism spectrum, as these children typically have an impairment in social interactions and communication, however they are potentially powerful in assisting any students having difficulty in this area and responsive to a visual learning style (Sutton, 2011, p.35). The story will be situation-specific, in first person (from the student's perspective), in present or future tense, and will be written to the student's comprehension and ability level. For this reason it can be for children from Early Childhood, through the Primary years, with the differences being in choice of vocabulary, print size, visuals, length and content. They should not be overloaded with too much information, and should be read together daily.

Carol Gray defined [|Social Stories] in 1991 and her website linked here provides information on ASD (autism spectrum disorder), many related articles, and many examples of social stories addressing issues of personal space, using the bathroom, lining up at school, and more. Other issues successfully addressed include 'sharing, taking turn, and talking to peers' (Barry & Burlew, 2004, cited in Sutton, 2011, p.35) and in the early childhood environment, the transitioning between one activity and another (Ivey, Heflin, & Alberto, 2004, cited in Sutton, 2011, p.35). Sutton (2011) stresses that the story must not simply be a list of activities, like a schedule, but follow a particular design that contains //descriptive, perspective, directive, affirmative, cooperative// and //control// sentences. Sutton (p.36) provides the example:

//Harrison likes to play next to other children at Kindergarten// (Descriptive). //Other children like to play with toys too// (Perspective). //Harrison finishes his turn// (Directive). //He gives the toy to the other children// (Directive). //Harrison is happy as he knows that sharing is caring// (Affirmative).
 * //Harrison shares his toys.//**

For more information: Sutton, B. (2011). Social Stories. //Educating Young Children: Learning and teaching in the early childhood years,// 17(1), 35-36. Retrieved July 3, 2011, from Education Research Complete. Smith Myles, B. & Southwick, J. (1999). //Asperger Syndrome and Difficult Moments: Practical solutions for tantrums, rage, and meltdowns.// Kansas: Autism Asperger Publishing. The Gray Centre for Social Learning and Understanding: []

** Social Stories ** A social story is a story used to enhance our social skills/understandings and develop higher order thinking. Social stories are quite often used in Inclusive Education to give children of all ages an understanding of what is socially acceptable and what is not. Vygotsky’s socio-cultural theory goes something like this; ‘our social, cultural and historical background and experiences shape cognition’ (Krause et al., 2010, p.80), and learning for all individuals is based somewhat on social interaction and higher mental functions are developed through social interaction. From Vygotsky’s theory, we could assume and believe that social stories are a great tool to use in the classroom in order to increase higher order thinking of students and allow students to gain an understanding of what is socially right and wrong. In a school and classroom setting, social stories may be implemented from teachers to students and even student to student conversations, story boards and/or those social stories written by teachers for specific purposes. The classroom teacher may implement a social story in order to develop higher order thinking of students. For young students this may be done through activities such as news times where the students are allowed to engage in social conversations based on their own personal stories and for older students social stories may be implemented through group discussions, where students share their knowledge, understandings and theories. During both of these the teacher may expand on their thinking and test their theories by asking questions, responding to student’s ideas and correcting any misunderstandings, creating for the students, new ways of thinking. Another popular way for teachers to use social stories is to create a social understanding of what is socially appropriate and inappropriate. This may be done through creating story-boards or writing their own social story to present to students. These stories aim to change and correct students beliefs by demonstrating what is socially right and wrong and how to deal with specific situations so as students can gain an understanding of what may be socially expected of them. The official Gray Center website, ( [|http://www.thegraycenter.org] ), is a very useful website for teachers and parents to learn about Autism, and, in particular, the section on Social Stories by Carol Gray is very informative and helpful in learning about social stories, how they are used and how to create social stories as well as gives a variety of sample social stories. Social stories may be used in almost any situation. Below is an example of a simple scenario that took place in a school and how the teacher used a social story to teach the students. Other popular topics for writing social stories in schools include things such as: These are very few examples, as social stories may be used for almost anything and any situation. Depending on the age in which the social story is aimed at, wording and the set up of a social story or story-board will vary. For example, pictures and words used should be aimed at the age of which the audience is.
 * A student (A) in the class has just had a birthday party with the students from her class over the weekend, where each child who attended received a small party bag with a gift in it from the student (A). When the students return to school on Monday, the student (A) asks for the gifts back as she believes that because she gave the gift to the students it was hers and she could have the gifts back whenever she wanted. – To resolve this issue and to teach the student (A) about gifts, the teacher prepared a social story, explaining what a gift was and that once you gave a gift to someone, it then belonged to that other person. The social story then helped the student to understand exactly what a gift was and how others in society perceived the idea of a gift and what was socially correct.
 * Lining up
 * Homework
 * Friendships, and
 * Individual and group tasks

Krause, K., Bochner, S., Duchesne, S., & McMaugh, A. (2010). //Educational psychology for learning and teaching,// (3rd ed.). Australia: Cengage Learning.
 * References**