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Updated: May, 2015
© 2019 Think Social Publishing, Inc.

If a 4 year old child has a tantrum in a classroom, we barely blink an eye. If a 10 year old child has the same tantrum; we are likely to call it a behavior problem.

If a 4 year old child calls the person they just met for the first time their "best friend", we think it's adorable. If a 10 year old child calls the person they just met their best friend, we think they have a social problem.

Parents of children with social learning challenges in mainstream education who have behavior and/or social problems are often told that their children need to learn better "social skills". In "social skills" treatment, the child often participates in behaviorally-based programs that focus on teaching specifically how to behave in different social situations at school, at home and in the community. For example, while in the doctor's waiting room: sit relatively still on a chair, keep yourself occupied with a quiet activity such as by reading a magazine, don't talk to the other patients beyond possibly greeting them, don't ask the receptionist personal questions... etc. But in reality, is the solution so simple as to teach the child a manual of how to behave in each situation?

When I was working as a speech language pathologist in a high school district in 1995 and most of the students on my caseload were those with "social skills problems", I had to re-think what I understood about teaching social skills. My students were worn out and frustrated after years of ineffective treatment. They told me that the "skills" that I, and many others before me, had taught were not helping them become more socially savvy in the real world.

They were right.

This dilemma led me to ponder fundamental questions: "what are social skills" and "what do we need to know to determine how to behave across different social contexts"? Without this knowledge, I felt ill equipped to teach my students the critical information they needed to learn in a manner that was acceptable to them.

Now, after working on these problems for the past 20 years, I wish I could have taught my old students what I know now.

"Social skills" are typically thought of as the behaviors a person demonstrates in a social context. Whether or not that set of behaviors is expected or unexpected (appropriate or inappropriate) in that context affects if others will judge that person as having "good" or "poor" social skills.

Our social behavior is the end result of a complicated and very fast thought process called social thinking. Our behavioral response in every social context is informed by our consideration of the thoughts and feelings of the people around us as well as how we intend to influence them. This means that in the context of going to the doctor's office (to use the previous example), our behavior may be slightly different each time depending on who is around us and what we perceive they are thinking and feeling in that moment. There is no one correct way to act in a doctor's waiting room because the social context is always a little bit different! Sometimes the receptionist may be happy to answer personal questions about herself, especially if you notice a new engagement ring on her finger. Sometimes you can converse with other patients, if they are showing certain signs that they are interested in talking to you. With this in mind, it suddenly becomes clear that for students to "behave well" requires that they be sensitive to the situation and the people in the situation in order for them to socially problem solve how to produce the "expected behavior".

3-step process to teaching social thinking and related skills:

For parents, professionals and students (who are high school age or older) we explain that there are three distinct parts to the process of socially engaging or sharing space well with others:

1. Engage in social thinking:

Social thinking is the ability to consider your own and others thoughts, emotions, beliefs, intentions, knowledge, etc. In other terms, it is the culmination of executive functioning, perspective taking, and self-awareness that enables you to interpret and understand the social situation and what behaviors are expected of you.

Remember that your behavioral-response is directly influenced by your social thinking. Social behaviors that align or fail to align with what other people expect in that situation determines how others judge your "social skills". Improving your social thinking ability is a life-long learning process, and the key to developing chameleon-like social skills.

2. Adapt your behavior effectively (social skills)

Based on the results of your social thinking, adapt your behavior to consider the thoughts and feelings of others, as well as to communicate your intentions in the situation. By doing so, people are more likely to react and respond to you in the manner you had hoped (see below).

3. Be aware of others' reactions:

People emotionally respond to our behaviors very quickly. If we feel a person has good social skills we may describe them as "polite" and "friendly"; if person has weak, awkward, or poor social skills we often describe them as "rude", "odd" or "impolite". The terms "polite", "rude", "friendly", "impolite", etc., represent how we emotionally perceive another's behavior. We are far better at summarizing our feelings (emotional response) than we are at describing intellectually the behaviors a person produced that swayed how we felt. How people respond to our behavior often leads to how they treat us in return.

In short, our social skills influence how people feel about us and how we, in turn, feel about them. This cycle also influences how we feel about ourselves and can directly impact our confidence and mental health!

Social Thinking encourages social problem solving:

As complex as all this is, we can drill this down to say that social skills are not simply rehearsed, memorized and produced based on a singular stimulus or context. Having good social skills simply means one is able to adapt effectively based on the situation and the people in the situation. Our social skills are part of our social problem solving. We use them when we are simply sharing space with others, as when we may be quietly sitting together in a room, or when engaged in more direct social interactions. We use our social thinking and related social skills any time we are around people, whether we plan to interact or not. We also use our social thinking even when we may not be in the active presence of others, such as when we are watching movies, shows, sports, the news, driving our cars, writing an essay, a text, an email, or reading a novel - all of which require you to think about other peoples' perspectives about the situation.

Social thinking impacts not only a student's social success, but his/her academic success, too. Classroom academic assignments frequently tap into our social knowledge, often without our noticing. It would be impossible for a student to meet academic standards (Common Core or State based) related to reading comprehension and written expression; or participate in group-based learning activities if they didn't have adequate social thinking skills to accurately interpret instructions or take the perspective of others.

Our social skills are not directly taught as much as they are a by-product of our considering our own and other's perspectives and our related social goals. Our ability to synchronize all this information impacts others' impressions of us as well as how they treat us. How people treat us, in turn, affects how we feel about ourselves.

My students in 1995 were right to be frustrated. They intuitively understood that being taught how to behave in social contexts was not adequate; they needed to learn how to think socially based on the situation and the people in the situation. In effect, they needed to learn social thinking. The work I have created over the past 20 years is to honor all that they taught me.

Social Thinking® the company:

The mission of Social Thinking® is to continue to develop and improve how we teach social thinking to all people, in order to effectively advance their social problem solving and thereby improve their social skills. Since social skills and academic success are related, Social Thinking® concepts and strategies also benefit performance in social-academic tasks such as reading comprehension and written expression.

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The Recipe for Improving Social Skills Begins with Social Thinking

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If a 4 year old child has a tantrum in a classroom, we barely blink an eye. If a 10 year old child has the same tantrum; we are likely to call it a behavior problem. If a 4 year old child calls the person they just met for the first time their "best friend", we think it's adorable.

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Cussin’ Collin

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Little Bird Tales - Copy of Cussin' Collin

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Little Bird Tales: Capture the Voice of Childhood. We offer a fun,unique way to create,record and share stories online. Kids can make drawings,upload photos or artwork and record their voice online,creating a slideshow format book,then share it with family and friends as gifts or a keepsake. Environmentally friendly and great for schools,too.

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Breathe

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Practice, Formative Assessment, Portfolio and More

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Little Bird Tales

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Little Bird Tales: Capture the Voice of Childhood. We offer a fun,unique way to create,record and share stories online. Kids can make drawings,upload photos or artwork and record their voice online,creating a slideshow format book,then share it with family and friends as gifts or a keepsake. Environmentally friendly and great for schools,too.

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Tell your story. Me: A Kid's Diary gives kids hundreds of fun, inspiring prompts to help them learn more about themselves and the people around them.

In drawings, words, animations, recordings, and photos, kids can document their worlds: their families, friends, pets, feelings, likes, dislikes, wishes, and dreams. As they play and create, kids build self-awareness, self-confidence, empathy, and kindness.

"An app that teaches my kids to empathize, include, and appreciate others, that's screen time I can feel good about." - Cool Mom Tech

"We love not just the creativity the app inspires but also the memorable family discussions that can result. Very cool." - Parents Magazine

Me: A Kid's Diary is No. 5 of Tinybop's Digital Toys series which includes the iPad App of the Year, The Robot Factory, No. 1 of Digital Toys. Each Digital Toys app is an open-ended construction kit for kids to build, test, and play. Kids develop creative-thinking, problem-solving, and storytelling skills.

FEATURES:
- Create and accessorize avatars for yourself and all the people and pets in your life.
- Your avatar responds to you, expressing emotions you can capture and share. Send an animated drawing to your friends or save it to your camera roll.
- Ask and answer hundreds of questions about yourself and all the important people and places in your life.
- Decorate your photos with fun stickers and words.
- Create drawings with different pens, brushes, and colors.
- Record stories and sounds.
- Write on pictures and photos.
- See your answers turn into animations and other surprises!
- See everything you have created and recorded in one swipe.
- Safe space for self-expression. Nothing is shared unless you choose to.
- Original artwork by Ana Seixas.
- Original sound design.
- Open-ended activities with no rules. Curiosity and creativity are rewarded.
- Multi-user system.
- Fun for everyone: families can play and learn together!

Me: A Kid's Diary by Tinybop is a safe space. Kids can choose to download and share what they create and who they share it with. No personal information or data is otherwise shared or distributed outside of the app.

Privacy policy
We take your and your child's privacy seriously. While this is a storytelling app, we believe the stories created in the app are for you and your child only. Anything and everything your child creates in the app is not shared outside of the app unless you or your child chooses to.

We do not collect or share personal information about your child. We do not allow any third-party advertising. If the camera, microphone, and other services are used in an app, your information is not collected or distributed outside of the app.

Read our complete privacy policy on our website.

About
Tinybop is a Brooklyn-based studio of designers, engineers, and artists. We make toys for tomorrow. We're all over the internet.
Visit us: www.tinybop.com
Follow us: twitter.com/tinybop
Like us: facebook.com/tinybop

Psst! It's not Tiny Bop, or Tiny Bob, or Tiny Pop. It's Tinybop. :)

Version 1.1.4

Optimizations for iOS 13!

Hullo!

I've played this game since I was four, I'm ten now😂, but I have a couple suggestions. An actual diary: what I mean by this is having a journal to write down notes and what not. Search bar: having a search bar would be handy, say if I wanted to find "What I want to be when I grow up" so I can type it into the search bar and find it. More lips and eyes: MORE BODY PARTS WHEN MAKING PEOPLE PLEEEAAAASE!

Thanks :)

Hi! Thank you so much for the awesome suggestions! I have shared them with the product team and we will definitely consider them when making updates to the app. Please email us at support@tinybop.com if you have any additional feedback for us!

Good, but not the best.

I really like this app but I wish you could write your own diary entries instead of only being able to answer provided prompts. Also, somethings the question/ prompts bubbles get very cluttered and glitch around. A lot of the time, I am unable to move or click on them. Other than that, the app is very fun!

Hi! We're so happy to hear that you like the app. I will share your request to write your own diary entries with the rest of the team! We'd also love to be able to fix the glitch you're experiencing. Can you email support@tinybop.com with a little more info: the type of device you're using and iOS version? Thanks! 😀🙏

Digital kid journal

Downloaded this for my niece, but find myself opening this on my down time without her! Fun questions to respond to. We both laugh a lot while playing. Love the tinybop apps, good work--another app we love

Information

Compatibility

Requires iOS 9.0 or later. Compatible with iPhone, iPad, and iPod touch.

Languages

English, Afrikaans, Albanian, Arabic, Basque, Bengali, Bulgarian, Cambodian, Catalan, Croatian, Czech, Danish, Dutch, Estonian, Filipino, Finnish, French, German, Greek, Haitian, Hebrew, Hindi, Hungarian, Icelandic, Indonesian, Irish, Italian, Japanese, Korean, Latin, Latvian, Malay, Norwegian Bokmål, Persian, Polish, Portuguese, Punjabi, Romanian, Russian, Serbian, Simplified Chinese, Slovak, Slovenian, Spanish, Swahili, Swedish, Tagalog, Tamil, Telugu, Thai, Tibetan, Traditional Chinese, Turkish, Uighur, Ukrainian, Urdu, Uzbek, Vietnamese, Welsh

Copyright

©2019 Tinybop Inc

Family Sharing

With Family Sharing set up, up to six family members can use this app.

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‎Tell your story. Me: A Kid's Diary gives kids hundreds of fun, inspiring prompts to help them learn more about themselves and the people around them. In drawings, words, animations, recordings, and photos, kids can document their worlds: their families, friends, pets, feelings, likes, dislikes, wi...

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Cartoon Style/Toon Camera

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What’s Lost When We Rush Kids Through Childhood | Edutopia

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Erika Christakis is a former faculty member of the Yale Child Study Center and the author of the best-selling book The Importance of Being Little: What Young Children Really Need From Grownups. Christakis says that we've reached a perilous moment for very young kids: Increasingly we treat them as commodities and find ourselves "in danger of losing the child in childhood." Instead of imposing adult expectations, she argues, parents and teachers should try to "take their blinders off" and see the world through the eyes of young children-a change in perspective that might allow us to better understand and cultivate their unique abilities.

I recently had the opportunity to ask her about our evolving cultural values around childhood, what good early educational environments look like, and how we can resist the tendency to "adultify" young children. The interview has been edited for length and clarity.
Your book on early childhood education is called The Importance of Being Little. Why is "being little" so important? What do you want parents, educators, and policy makers to know about this developmental stage?
Traveling around the country, teaching and talking with parents and educators from a variety of backgrounds and environments, has persuaded me that we're in danger of losing the child in childhood. The notion that there is something of value in being a little kid-with little kid desires and, above all, needs-seems to have fallen out of favor. We talk about young children, increasingly, as commodities to "invest" in for future payoffs. Parents express enormous anxiety about their children's futures, and seem to be curating their children's life experiences in a way that would look quite unnatural and even rather joyless to previous generations.

There's a weird paradox that early childhood is both safe and stressful. On the one hand, for most children, especially in the industrialized world, the early years are safer than they've ever been in human history. Children have fewer fatal accidents and debilitating diseases. We don't send children down coal mines to work. Of course there is poverty, stress, and trauma-and some of these problems affect very large numbers of children-but in general terms, many of the big 'killers' of childhood have been vanquished.

On the other hand, 21st-century American society poses many challenges for young children too. Technology is not always a friend to the young, and there are new and troubling stresses. We have an actual epidemic of preschool expulsions, for example (which disproportionately affect children of color and boys), and increasing numbers of kids with mental health and behavioral challenges.

"Being little" is of critical importance because we see the signature of early childhood experience literally in people's bodies: their life expectancies are longer and their social-emotional capabilities are more robust when they have a chance to learn through play and through deep relationships, and when their developing brains are given the chance to grow in a nurturing, language-rich, and relatively unhurried environment. It's clearer than ever before that young children are not simply mini-adults.
Right, and you use the term "adultification" in your writing. How do you define adultification, and what does it reveal about how we think about childhood?
Adultification is the failure to see the world from a child's perspective.

I sometimes ask teachers to get down on the floor of their classroom and just look around from the height of a 4-year-old, or try to put on a snowsuit with the motor abilities of a young child. It's eye-opening to reflect on the many ways that adults inflict adult pacing, adult expectations, and adult schedules on young kids. And for what reason? Young children sleep less and have far more transitions in their days than in previous generations-and I think most educators and parents would agree that their developing brains aren't really designed to cope with adult schedules and pacing.

We all basically know this is a problem, but it's hard to break the cycle. We need to step back and see the world from a child's point of view. We see their development through an adult's eyes, imagining that we couldn't possibly learn anything from an hour digging in a container of mud, so it must be time to whip out the math worksheet! It boggles the mind how little outdoor time and gross motor play many young children have in their days.

Some of this adultification comes from an inattention to what makes little kids tick and a profound lack of faith in what young children are capable of.
What does high-quality early education look like? If you walked into a preschool that uses best practices, what would you see and hear?
Quality education is about relationships. Caring teachers who understand child development and who know and are attuned to the children in their care are far more important than many of the measures of quality we use today, such as class size, physical environments, or a specific curriculum.

Rich, open-ended conversation is critical, and children need time in the day to experience warm, empathic oral language-to converse with each other playfully, to tell a rambling story to an adult, to listen to high-quality literature and ask meaningful questions.

The research shows that quality caregivers know both the broad parameters of child development ("This is what a 3-year-old looks like") and know their children as individuals ("This is what this child is like").

But it's crucial to keep in mind that intentional, attuned teaching is the opposite of a free-for-all where children are running the show. Quality preschool teachers are intentional about everything they do: the classroom routines, the physical environment, the schedule, the types of materials they make available for children to explore and manipulate. These teachers do an extraordinary amount of observation and reflection-and it's really almost impossible to do that in a vacuum: the best preschools have collegial, inquiry-based cultures so that they can continually experiment with and modify their learning environments to take advantage of children's natural curiosity.

This is especially true for the many young children who have backgrounds of trauma and adverse childhood experiences. If a child walks in the door not having had anything to eat the night before-or maybe they are processing something positive, like welcoming a new sibling or a grandparent-the high-quality preschool classroom will have a mechanism to respond to those experiences and to channel them into cognitive and social-emotional growth.

Educators in these environments take as a starting point that children are fully capable of learning, and they refuse to let school or state mandates dictate how children learn.
You write a lot about the importance of play. How do you define play, and why is it so crucial?
Play is the defining feature of mammalian development: the impulse is hardwired into us and can't be suppressed. However, it's crucial that we recognize that while the play impulse is one thing, the play know-how-the nuts and bolts of playing-is not always so natural, and requires careful cultivation.

We're seeing more dysfunctional play in modern industrialized societies. Children don't play as much in mixed-age groups, where younger kids can learn from older ones, and the older children in turn have to learn to be gentle and fair with their littlest players. Children have less free time to mess around and make their own rules. They need the time and space to learn how to play effectively, and they require a culture that values play. Increasingly, we don't seem to have that kind of early childhood culture.

So if you suddenly tell a child to "go make a fort out of a cardboard box" when they haven't had a steady diet of free, unstructured time and access to open-ended materials, well, you will see a cranky and possibly incredulous child.
You've said, "The authentic early childhood curriculum isn't necessarily contained in the word we reflexively call 'preschool.' It doesn't need to be in a school at all." Would you explain what you mean by that?
Anyone who has seen the wonder on a child's face when they see a butterfly landing on a flower understands that learning goes far beyond a classroom.

The good news is that children are wired with the capacity for learning in almost any setting. With the loving support of responsive adults, they can learn without the bells and whistles of what we call preschool.

So much learning comes about naturally from what scientists call the serve-and-return style of communication between an adult and young child, which others have referred to as a conversational "duet." There's a lot of evidence that we can close some of the gaps between lower-income children's academic trajectories and those of higher-income families by coaching parents and educators to use this approach in their everyday interactions with children. I often coach teachers to ask open-ended questions such as "Tell me about your drawing," rather than "checking" questions like "What color is the apple?" or "What are you drawing?" The open-ended response really opens up a huge space for spontaneous and deep learning.

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What's Lost When We Rush Kids Through Childhood

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Erika Christakis is a former faculty member of the Yale Child Study Center and the author of the best-selling book The Importance of Being Little: What Young Children Really Need From Grownups. Christakis says that we've reached a perilous moment for very young kids: Increasingly we treat them as commodities and find ourselves "in danger of losing the child in childhood."

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SeeSaw | Smore Newsletters

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What is Seesaw

Seesaw is a digital portfolio that allows kids to save and submit a variety of work -- videos, photos, text, and drawings. They can reflect on their work in writing or with a voice recording when they submit it, and teachers can offer feedback as well. Teachers can then approve items to make them accessible to parents. When teachers set up their classes, they can print a handout with a QR code to give to parents explaining how to register and download the parent app (which is available online, on Android, Chromebook, and iOS) in a variety of languages. Alternatively, teachers can email parents a prompt to sign up for Seesaw. If you're using Google apps, it's easy to get students in the system: They can use their existing Google accounts.

Resources

Here are some other websites I found that might assist you if you plan to try using infographics with your students:

How Can Teachers Use it?

Teachers on all grade levels and across all content areas can use Seesaw in their classes to keep digital portfolios of student work, including commenting on student work. Teachers can communicate with parents easily and share student work with them or push out assignments to students to flip lessons or to individualize instruction. They can also choose work to share with a broader audience via a blog. The Seesaw Help Center hosts a variety of activity ideas aligned with Common Core for all grade levels as well as professional development online for teachers.

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Seesaw is a digital portfolio that allows kids to save and submit a variety of work -- videos, photos, text, and drawings. They can reflect on their work in writing or with a voice recording when they submit it, and teachers can offer feedback as well.

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Why Recess Should Never Be Withheld as Punishment | Edutopia

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According to the American Academy of Pediatrics, recess is " crucial and necessary" for a child's development and should never be withheld to make room for more academics or as punishment. On top of the health benefits, recess also enhances creative thinking, focus, and social skills like cooperation and sharing.

Interested in reading the research? Here's a list of the papers and studies we cited in the video:

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Why Recess Should Never Be Withheld as Punishment

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According to the American Academy of Pediatrics, recess is " crucial and necessary" for a child's development and should never be withheld to make room for more academics or as punishment. On top of the health benefits, recess also enhances creative thinking, focus, and social skills like cooperation and sharing.

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Seesaw for Beginners

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Let the Parents "See" what we "Saw" today.

Let's get started

To sign in as a student:

1. Open the Seesaw Class app on the iPad

2. Tap "I'm a Student"

3. Scan the QR code above using Seesaw's built-in QR code reader

Let's get creative and play!!

Choose one of the following...

Create something to upload to your digital portfolio

The teacher must approve every entry

Now...What does the teacher have to do to get all of this to work?

8 Steps

Download the app

Set up an account

Add students

Print or show student code

Walk students through the steps above

Print parent QR codes with 2-clicks

Approve parent requests

Sit back and enjoy the praise your are about to get from your parents

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Let the Parents "See" what we "Saw" today. To sign in as a student: 1. Open the Seesaw Class app on the iPad 2. Tap "I'm a Student" 3. Scan the QR code above using Seesaw's built-in QR code reader Choose one of the following...

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Seesaw:  Portfolio and Formative Assessment for Social Emotional Learning

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Seesaw:  Portfolio and Formative Assessment for Social Emotional Learning

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Link

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Introducing the Calming Corner

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The Calming Corner - Welcome! by Laura Gibson | This newsletter was created with Smore, an online tool for creating beautiful newsletters for individual educators, schools and districts

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The Calming Corner Apps

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The Calming Corner iPad - Apps for Self-Expression and Relaxation by Laura Gibson | This newsletter was created with Smore, an online tool for creating beautiful newsletters for individual educators, schools and districts

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Calming Adventures Padlet

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Calming Adventures Smore

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Calming Virtual Field Trips - Take a trip to some of the most relaxing places on earth! by Laura Gibson | This newsletter was created with Smore, an online tool for creating beautiful newsletters for individual educators, schools and districts

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Check-In/Check-Out

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Check-In!

Take a moment. Spend some time. Tell something about your evening last night, morning or plans for today. Draw a picture, write it out! Take a picture to share! There are no right or wrong answers. Today is your day!

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Take a moment. Spend some time. Tell something about your evening last night, morning or plans for today. Draw a picture, write it out! Take a picture to share! There are no right or wrong answers. Today is your day!

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The Calming Corner

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Personal Space: A social story and alternative formative assessments

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Evernote

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Collin Goes to London

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Little Bird Tales - Collin Goes To London

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Little Bird Tales: Capture the Voice of Childhood. We offer a fun,unique way to create,record and share stories online. Kids can make drawings,upload photos or artwork and record their voice online,creating a slideshow format book,then share it with family and friends as gifts or a keepsake. Environmentally friendly and great for schools,too.

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I Can Stay on Topic Social Story: Independent Life Skills

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Learning Life Skills and appropriate behaviour is very important for our children. How do you teach a student to stay on topic? It is first to demonstrate what the request is, this social story is a great example of what a topic is, how to stay on topic, and the beginning steps to having a conversation.

I hope this social story is helpful. Don't forget to leave a review!

Don't forget to check out Niam's beautiful artwork at www.niamjain.com. He is an accomplished artist. Watch his story and know anything and everything is possible. His story will inspire your.
http://www.cbc.ca/news/thenational/teen-with-autism-becomes-art-sensation-1.3755641
Remember make it fun.

This is a great free ABA Resource, school education program, social story and free printable worksheet for your students as part of a home living program, parental resources and school program to reinforce important skills for children with Autism and other developmental disabilities.

The resource can be laminated for longevity and used in the classroom or at home to help your child learn an essential life skill.

Check out our other great social stories for teachers and students. We have many social stories you can download for your student.

From our family to yours, we encourage learning and hope you enjoy these materials. I want to see all of our children reach their best potential.

Please leave some feedback and share us on social media.

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I Can Stay On Topic Social Story: 12 Pages

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I Can Stay on Topic Social Story, Independent Life Skills, speech development, community skills, self management, behaviour , Life Skills, Autism , homework, school skills, behavioural issues, classroom expectations, free aba resources, free autism resources, free educational materials, free teaching materials, free social stories, free educational materials for all children including autism

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Play Date Social Story: Girl Version

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I'm Having a Play Date at My House! is a social story designed to prepare your child for an upcoming play date. This version is for a little girl. Reading this story ahead of time and role playing can help your child have a successful play date! This social story discusses being a good hostess, sharing, taking turns, and what activities are generally acceptable when a friend is over. The actual photographs of children allow your child to connect with the story and actively engage her as she chooses which photograph depicts acceptable behavior.

I'm Having a Play Date at My House! Social Story by Dawn De Lorenzo is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs 3.0 Unported License.

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{FREE} Play Date Social Story: Girl Version

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I'm Having a Play Date at My House! is a social story designed to prepare your child for an upcoming play date. This version is for a little girl. Reading this story ahead of time and role playing can help your child have a successful play date!

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Free Social Story Lunch Room Behaviour: This Package Includes : 10 pages

This is a great social story for your students or Children. The free social story goes over the rules for good lunch room behaviour. A parent can read this social story to students to teach their child of rules and expectations of lunch room behaviour, this story can be used at school by a teacher or Teaching Assistant.

From our family to yours, we encourage learning and hope you enjoy these materials. I want to see all of our children reach their best potential.

Please leave some feedback and share us on social media.

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picture exchange communication system cards

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Lunch Room Behaviour Social Story: Pages 10

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Free Lunch Room Behaviour Social Story for children, able2learn provides free teaching resources, aba materials, esl, flaschards, picture recipes, and educational material for all children , math worksheets, language arts, social studies, social stories, inclusive of autism and other developmental disabilities

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Free Picture Day At School Social Story :

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Picture Day can be confusing to children. What is the expectations? What will happen? There are lights and, a change in the routine. This free social story will help prepare your child/student to Picture Day at School.

I have been creating a large selection of free social stories on school skills. Many of our children have difficulty with transition from ABA programs to school. Niam , my son who has autism , had many difficulties with transition. This social stories and others in the school section were designed to help and assist our children/ students with all the expectations of learning in a school environment.

Don't forget to check out Niam's beautiful artwork at www.niamjain.com. He is an accomplished artist. Watch his story and know anything and everything is possible. His story will inspire your.
http://www.cbc.ca/news/thenational/teen-with-autism-becomes-art-sensation-1.3755641
Remember make it fun.

This is a great free ABA Resource, school education program, social story and free printable worksheet for your students as part of a home living program, parental resources and school program to reinforce important skills for children with Autism and other developmental disabilities.

The resource can be laminated for longevity and used in the classroom or at home to help your child learn an essential life skill.

Check out our other great social stories for teachers and students. We have many social stories you can download for your student.

From our family to yours, we encourage learning and hope you enjoy these materials. I want to see all of our children reach their best potential.

Please leave some feedback and share us on social media.

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Picture Day At School Social Story: Pages 9

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Picture Day can be confusing to children. What is the expectations? What will happen? There are lights and, a change in the routine. This free social story will help prepare your child/student to Picture Day at School. I have been creating a large selection of free social stories on school skills.

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A social story for going back to school: “My First Day of School” – What the Chrysanthemum Knows — by CHRYSANTHEMUM STORIES

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What the Chrysanthemum Knows -- by CHRYSANTHEMUM STORIES

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What will the first day of school be like?
This social story about letting go of summer, what will happen on the first day of school, and how I can make new friends there will tell me.

★ Social stories are an informational tool designed to ease anxiety and set expectations about new social situations. They help anxious young and ASD children assume personal responsibility in the world around them. Students can this story a few times in the weeks before school begins for the best results in helping them transition back to school from the summertime. The discussion questions at the end of the story provide an opportunity for verbal response and clarification. Read more about how to use social stories

There are many ways to use this story:

Sensory Storytelling Supports

an outfit for the first day of school

a book bag

a math problem (demonstrate on board or paper)

a weather app or website

a school snack

toys (2 cars, paintbrush, soccer ball, puzzle)

a new friend (demonstrate introductions)

a new teacher (demonstrate asking questions)

a fun fact about the world (ex: otters swim holding hands)

a printed photo of friends or family to pack in bookbag

A social story for going back to school: 'My First Day of School' ...There are so many curious things to learn - Like that otters hold hands when they swim... https://wp.me/p6jrdc-1jQ Click to Tweet

t's almost time for school to begin again!

Sometimes, people feel a little sad when summer break ends.

That is because summer is fun and relaxing.

Now, I can get excited for all of the things my teacher and school have planned for the new school year.

Kids all over my neighborhood are getting their colorful book bags packed and deciding on what they will wear on the first day.

I can pick out my clothes the night before school starts.

I will need a clean and crisp shirt.

I need to wear shorts if it's warm, and long pants if it's cool.

My parents and I can check the weather on the news.

I can pack a jacket in my bookbag if I'm not sure.

At school, I will do so many fun activities.

I will read, write, add numbers and solve problems.

I will have snacks, eat lunch with friends, and play.

I can make new friends and learn more information about the world.

There are so many curious things to learn -

Like that otters hold hands when they swim.

There are also lots of kids to play with at school.

Some of them like crashing cars.

Some of them like painting pictures.

Some of them like scoring soccer goals.

Some of them like to put puzzles together.

I will try to discover all of the other things kids like to do.

I can help new friends learn my name by smiling and introducing myself:
"Hi, my name is __________. What's yours?"
I will be older and in a new grade this year, so there will be more rules to follow.

Sometimes, kids get nervous about more rules.

My teacher will explain and help me learn them on the first day.

If I am unsure about what the rules are for a new room or toy, I can ask for help:
"What are the rules for this?"
When I walk in the hallway, I will try to stay in a strait line, keep my eyes looking in front of me, keep my hands to myself, and whisper if I need to say something.

Kids are working in their classrooms and want to hear what the teacher is saying.

I will try to listen to all the directions.

My teachers and parents will be proud when I learn to follow the rules.

At playtime, I can play and laugh with friends.

I can look for kids who are doing something I like to do.

I can ask in a nice voice to join them:
"May I play with you?"
School lessons are sometimes easy and they are sometimes hard.

This is how I learn to do awesome things.

There is a way to solve every problem.

Teachers love to help me solve problems.

I can raise my hand and ask a teacher to help me when a lesson is hard:
"I'm having a hard time with this. Would you help me?"
Summer will come again next year.

I can think about my friends and family and all of the fun things we did any time I want to.

My old teachers will be happy to see how much I've grown over the summer.

I can tell them about something funny I did.

My new teachers are excited to learn my name.

It is going to be a great school year.

Discussion Questions

1. Why did I like summer break?

2. How are kids getting ready to go back to school?

3. What do I need to wear to school? How will I know if it will be warm or cool?

4. How will I get to school on the first day? How will I get home?

5. What will I do in school?

6. What is something that will happen on the first day of school?

7. What do kids like to play at school? How can I join them?

8. Who likes to help me solve problems at school? How do I ask for help?

9. What can I do if I miss someone?

10. What can I tell my old teachers when I see them?

Find the printable multimedia PDF and EPUB for eReaders of this story at
https://whatthechrysanthemumknows.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/07/Hero-End.mp3

A CHRYSVNTHEMUM STORY
WhattheChrysanthemumKnows.com
from

written + illustrated + told

by

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A social story for going back to school: 'My First Day of School'

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What will the first day of school be like? This social story about letting go of summer, what will happen on the first day of school, and how I can make new friends there will tell me. ★ Social stories are an informational tool designed to ease anxiety and set expectations about new social situations.

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I Can Follow The Rules At School Social Story

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Free Social Story I Can Follow Rules At School: This Package Includes : 15 pages

This is a great social story for your students or Children. The free social story goes over the Rules for School. This is a great story to prepare your child for the first day of school. A parent can read this social story to students to teach their child of rules and expectations of school behaviour, this story can be used at school by a teacher or Teaching Assistant.

This is a great ABA Resource, school education program, social story and free printable worksheet for your students as part of a home living program, parental resources and school program to reinforce important skills for children with Autism and other developmental disabilities.

The resource can be laminated for longevity and used in the classroom or at home to help your child learn an essential life skill.

Check out our other great social stories for teachers and students. We have many social stories you can download for your student.

From our family to yours, we encourage learning and hope you enjoy these materials. I want to see all of our children reach their best potential.

Please leave some feedback and share us on social media.

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i can follow the rules at school social story

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picture exchange communication system cards

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I Can Follow The Rules At School: Social Story: Pages 15

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Free I Can Follow The Rules At School Social Story for children, able2learn provides free teaching resources, aba materials, esl, flaschards, picture recipes, and educational material for all children , math worksheets, language arts, social studies, social stories, inclusive of autism and other developmental disabilities

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Social Stories: Accepting No by Brooke Reagan | Teachers Pay Teachers

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Social Story

Accepting No

Social story teaching how to accept no at school.

Half and full page social story included.

Colored and black and white printer friendly versions.

Activity to check for understanding.

This social story is included in my social story bundle:
Social Story Bundle 2: 36 Social Stories
Check out my social story LESSONS:
Social Story Lesson: Accepting No Social Story Lesson: Following Directions Social Skills Lesson: Tattling Social Skills Lesson: Telling the Truth
This social story is part of my social story pack that is a bundled price. You can find it here:
Social Story Pack: 12 Stories
If you have any questions, please email me at BrookeReaganTPT@gmail.com

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Social StoryAccepting NoSocial story teaching how to accept no at school.Half and full page social story included.Colored and black and white printer friendly versions.Activity to check for understanding. This social story is included in my social story bundle:Social Story Bundle 2: 36 Social Storie...

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Behavior Basics Book Club List » Autism Adventures

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I am SUPER excited to announce my newest product series, the The Behavior Basics Book Club! The behavior basics book club was created to help teach students the basics of behavior through childhood classic books. behavior basics book club can be set up in your classroom and utilized as a valuable resource to teach students various behaviors and how to be successful in the classroom. Proudly display your behavior basics book club books in your classroom so that you can grab it in a second when a refresher lesson is needed on any given day!

I have chosen a childhood favorite book to align with each lesson in my behavior basics book curriculum.These books provide a fun alternative to direct instruction to teach the basics of behavior.These books provide critical thinking and hands on activities for extension activities in your classroom!

Each book has several activities included to teach students the basics of behavior.

Directed Drawing Activities

To grab the entire list of books in the book club, click on the images below.

Looking for free labels to stick on the inside cover of the books, click below too!

The following titles are recommended to supplement my Behavior Basics Curriculum.

***This page contains affiliate links for Amazon. By purchasing an item on Amazon site using these links, I will receive a small commission on your purchase.***

Display your book club in this adorable book shelf! This is the book shelf I found that was able to hold all 60 books in the front display. I also store behavior manipulative, social stories, timers and visuals in the 3 cubby spots on the top. There is also great storage on the backside for the materials you don't need immediate access to!

*** The behavior basics curriculum is NOT needed to use the behavior basics book club, but can be used when more instruction is required.

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Behavior Basics Book Club List " Autism Adventures

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I am SUPER excited to announce my newest product series, the The Behavior Basics Book Club! The behavior basics book club was created to help teach students the basics of behavior through childhood classic books. behavior basics book club can be set up in your classroom and utilized as a valuable resource to teach students various behaviors and how to be successful in the classroom.

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Staying Calm – A Video Social Story | Speech-Language Pathology Sharing

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Social Story Personal Space by One Giggle At A Time | TpT

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Students will easily learn and understand the importance of respecting personal space from reading and discussing this best selling social story. What better way to help guide little ones in their positive behavior decision making!

In this book, students learn about:

personal boundaries

how to successfully maintain their own personal space

the importance of respecting the space of others.

This product can be printed out as a hard copy or projected onto the Smart Board for viewing.

This is a great resource to use as a whole class read aloud as well as for small group readings and individual use for students with autism or behavioral disorders.

This product includes multiple ideas for use in the classroom, including large group, small group, and individual instruction.

If you like this product, it is part of a series of Social Stories I have written and currently sell in my store! You can check out ALL my Social Stories HERE!

You may also like:
Social Skills Activities Personal Space Classroom Management Celebration Tag Set
Don't forget that leaving feedback earns you points toward FREE TPT purchases....and I love reading your feedback!

Also, follow me and be notified when new products are uploaded. New products are always 50% off for the first 24 hours they are posted. It pays to follow me!

As always, please contact me with any questions!

Thank you so much,

Diane Romo

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Students will easily learn and understand the importance of respecting personal space from reading and discussing this best selling social story. What better way to help guide little ones in their positive behavior decision making! In this book, students learn about: personal boundarieshow to succes...

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FREE Behavior Social Story by Allison Fors | Teachers Pay Teachers

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Behavior management: A social story mini-book on how to handle frustration with calming strategies. A great way to discuss feelings and appropriate ways to express them!

The one-page foldable mini book comes in color and black & white. In addition, there is a larger black & white version to fit your needs. Use the larger version on your device as a NO PRINT option!

I would appreciate it if you took the time to leave a rating and feedback for this free product!
_____________________________________________ Check out these related products: Appropriate & Inappropriate Behaviors VIEW ALL SOCIAL SKILLS & SOCIAL STORIES PRODUCTS _____________________________________________ CUSTOMER TIPS: How to get TPT credit to use on future purchases:
* Go to your 'My Purchases' page. Beside each purchase you'll see a 'Provide Feedback' button. Each time you give feedback, TPT gives you feedback credits that you use to lower the cost of your future purchases. I value your feedback greatly as it helps me determine which products are most valuable for you.
Be the first to know about freebies, sales, and product launches:
* Look for the green ★ next to my store logo and click it to become a follower. All of my products are discounted the first 48 hours.
Let's connect! Newsletter * Blog * Instagram * Facebook * Pinterest

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Behavior management: A social story mini-book on how to handle frustration with calming strategies. A great way to discuss feelings and appropriate ways to express them!The one-page foldable mini book comes in color and black & white. In addition, there is a larger black & white version to f...

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Vihaan loves his blanket. But one day, the blanket is lost. He cannot find it anywhere. That night he

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Feelings: An integral part of us! - StoryWeaver

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Feelings are something which all of us has thankfully, but how to identify, and express them in a soc

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An amazing app for easily creating, sharing and printing educational social stories, visual schedules, and beautiful memories.

This is a very valuable tool for any teacher, SLP, OT, direct care staff or parent!

Children with special needs often need more direct instruction of social skills. Teaching social skills to any child may be easier and less stressful when visual supports, like social stories are used. The social stories found in this app explain accurate social information and ensures that your child will know what to expect in different situations.

Features:

* Easily create stories with pictures, recordings and text.
* Share and receive created stories with other users.
* Print PDFs of stories to have paper copies.
* Stories can be made in any language.
* Ability to purchase an entire library of over 20 pre-made social stories at one discounted price.
* Organize stories into categories for particular skills, students or classrooms.
* Lock students into categories or apps to limit access.
* Create and play stories offline (with no internet connection).
* Easy to use, intuitive format.
* Can be used to make visual schedules or other types of visual prompts.

Social stories are an important type of visual support often used with children diagnosed with an autism spectrum disorder, Down syndrome or other special need. This social stories found in this app use simple text and descriptive pictures to explain the why and how of different social skills.

Social interactions may be especially difficult for children with an autism spectrum disorder, adhd, or other social delay. Many children, especially those diagnosed with an autism spectrum disorder, Down syndrome and other special need, often fail to pick up on social cues, making learning a social skill especially difficult. Social stories may increase awareness and maintenance of social skills.

Social stories were first defined by Carol Gray in 1991 and are commonly used to break down a task or social situation into small and easy to understand steps, often accompanied by descriptive pictures. Social stories are incredibly easy to implement and are used by many professionals for a wide range of behaviors.

See what our reviews are saying about us!

"Wonderful app!! I am able to upload my own photos, record my own voice, and design however the story for my child! I can also upload pre-made stories. Other apps cast $30-50 for the same awesome app! Thank you so much!!" -family games

"This was a great story app for my child" - Kennedml

"This app is great for my nephew who has autism, thank you!" - ImaniZG

"This app is really awesome" - yoursakar

"This app gives an excellent opportunity for a low price" -Sean Quigg

"I love the fact that you can customize this app to target a specific social skill." - VPEslp25

Version 5.2.2

Fixes big with large accessibility font sizes.

Amazing app

Any bad review were's out there for this app you're probably not a special-needs person or have a special-needs person in your life you probably are just a typical person with typical people and downloaded this app to experiment with it that's why you don't have a very good review even if you do have an artistic person in your life and your back and your belly reviewing it then you must not have used it very much I've only created one social story and I know that this is awesome I recommend this for a lot of people especially kids I got this for my brothers because they mean the world to me and they're both autistic so I thought this was perfect I always find my iPod touch every day so this is very convenient please get the app if you haven't already🤩😍

Fantastic functionality, super easy!

I never review apps. I know I should, but I don't. This app is an exception. It is superb! Very, very easy to use. There's a free version that you can download, and you can make a few custom social stories with it. And there are a couple of tiers of paid versions that allow more stories in your library and various other nice features. Get the free version to try it out. If you have a non-conversant or communication-challenged loved one, I bet you'll end up buying the full version and using it all the time. So awesome!!

User friendly

The Social Story App is easy to use to create custom social stories. The structure is clear. Adding photos from the iPad allows teachers to personalize the specific story. It would be great if we could print custom stories or send them as a file to another teacher. I also wish they filled the screen when played. But this app has encouraged me to write multiple stories and it is definitely user friendly! The library of written stories is very helpful. There is a good selection of familiar needs. Thank you!

The developer, Touch Autism, has not provided details about its privacy practices and handling of data to Apple. For more information, see the developer's privacy policy.

No Details Provided

The developer will be required to provide privacy details when they submit their next app update.

Information

Compatibility

iPhone

Requires iOS 9.0 or later.

iPad

Requires iPadOS 9.0 or later.

iPod touch

Requires iOS 9.0 or later.

Age Rating

4+, Made for Ages 6-8

Family Sharing

With Family Sharing set up, up to six family members can use this app.

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‎An amazing app for easily creating, sharing and printing educational social stories, visual schedules, and beautiful memories. This is a very valuable tool for any teacher, SLP, OT, direct care staff or parent! Children with special needs often need more direct instruction of social skills. Teach...

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Creating Social Stories for Kids

Bobby is almost three years old. He is friendly, active, and enjoys playing with his friends at preschool. Bobby often has trouble with changes in his routine. His parents decided to move to Israel this summer, but are unsure about how to tell Bobby and help him with the difficult transition away from the only home he's ever known.

When approaching a big transition or a challenging activity, I often recommend a social story to help introduce an idea while providing language and support. Social stories were originally developed for children with autism spectrum disorder to provide education and language for social interaction they otherwise had trouble navigating. Though that was their initial purpose, I find them a useful tool to support any child.

Having an individualized story with the child's name, maybe even a picture or someone who looks like them, gives them automatic buy-in and ownership of an activity! Whether it's a new idea like moving to another country or a challenging activity for them like taking turns, social stories provide individualized language and prompts that parents and caregivers can revisit to provide ongoing reinforcement.

Bobby's parents and I worked together to create a social story about moving on Storyboard That. I explained we would pick simple pictures and words so the retelling of the story would be easy for Bobby to recall. By using simple pictures and straightforward language, Bobby will be able to "read" the book on his own or with a parent. Simple pictures let Bobby to focus on the idea instead of the details of a picture. Straightforward language allows Bobby to recall the story easily and use the language provided to discuss how he's feeling or what comes next. We wanted to keep the story short, so it would be easy to talk about and recall. We broke the parts of their move down into six steps, focusing on positive phrasing to help keep an optimistic outlook.

Then the fun part! We designed characters on Storyboard That to look like each of the family members, using the "copy" tool to keep them consistent and quickly move them to the next cell. We used the search bar to find some of Bobby's favorite toys (a red car and his stuffed bear) to put into the boxes. Other options to really individualize and help children get ready for changes are to include photographs of their new home or town. You can upload your own pictures to Storyboard That to use in your stories as well.

The last step of the social story is working it into your everyday routine. To help a child understand a new event or to help change a behavior, consistency is key. Finding time everyday to read the story provides opportunities to discuss the activity, give support, and reinforce the behaviors you expect. It's also helpful to leave the physical story out for a child to explore on their own. Just like adults, some children learn verbally, others learn visually. It's important to give them as much access to the story as possible. I printed two copies of the story for Bobby's family and laminated them. Mom and Dad gave a copy to his preschool as well, so the story and language stays the same - no matter who is talking about it with him!

Individual stories are a great tool, but sometimes a group of children (or a whole class!) is having trouble with an activity. I recently wrote a social story with a preschool teacher who was frustrated at the lack of sharing in her classroom. Instead of using a particular name, since all of the kids like superheroes, we decided we would make a story about "super sharers". This open label allows all kids in the class to participate and show how they are a super sharer. The teacher even got special superhero stickers for reinforcement when she hears a child use the phrasing in the story we wrote or sees a "super sharer" moment.

There are lots of online resources if you're looking for inspiration (see list below) for how to start a social story. Remember some key principles as you write:

Keep language simple to promote repetition and recall.

Keep pictures lifelike and straightforward, so kids don't get bogged down on detail.

Keep an optimistic and positive tone. Instead of "don't hit", try "we keep hands on our own body".

Keep it short!

Make copies accessible to kids to explore throughout the day.

Build time into your routine to review the story each day.

Social stories are a great way to introduce new ideas, activities or solutions to difficult behaviors. Use individualized stories consistently and watch pro-social behaviors, new language, and new ideas emerge!
For a closer look, please see all of our social story articles:
Additional Social Story Resources

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Social Stories for Kids and Teens | Social Story Examples

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Bobby is almost three years old. He is friendly, active, and enjoys playing with his friends at preschool. Bobby often has trouble with changes in his routine. His parents decided to move to Israel this summer, but are unsure about how to tell Bobby and help him with the difficult transition away from the only home he's ever known.

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Story about learning helping life skill.

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Social Stories for Autism: It is not okay to run away! by The Deane's List

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A social story to discourage running or elopement behaviors written in rhyme. In addition to keeping little people from escaping, it may keep bigger people from participating in an involuntary emergency exercise program. It teaches reasons students should stay with their teacher and class. It also teaches asking for a break appropriately.

20 total pages- color and black and white versions included

(social story, elopement, escape, running away, autism, social skills, behavior support, special education, The Deane's List, it is not okay to run away, rhyming social story)

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Social Stories for Autism: It is not okay to run away!

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A social story to discourage running or elopement behaviors written in rhyme. In addition to keeping little people from escaping, it may keep bigger people from participating in an involuntary emergency exercise program. It teaches reasons students should stay with their teacher and class. It also ...

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Being a Good Friend - social story by All Things Special Ed | TpT

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Need a social story about being a good friend at school? Download this freebie!

For students with Autism or those who need help learning how to be a good friend at school, this social story can help.

Being a good friend means: using nice words and voice, sharing toys, asking to play, and learning that friends will play with other friends.

Enjoy! All Things Special Ed.

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Need a social story about being a good friend at school? Download this freebie! For students with Autism or those who need help learning how to be a good friend at school, this social story can help. Being a good friend means: using nice words and voice, sharing toys, asking to play, and learnin...

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Brinda finds joy in reading! - StoryWeaver

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The story is about an intelligent girl Brinda, who is addicted to gaming in gadgets. This has resulte

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Breaking SEL Down Into Manageable Practices | Edutopia

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Most teachers agree that social emotional learning is important, but teaching those skills in already crowded school day can be a daunting task. The cost-in both funding and time-can hinder schools from integrating social emotional learning (SEL) into their daily activities, writes Arianna Prothero in EdWeek.

The development of easy, quick practices that reinforce SEL allows for integration into a classroom's curriculum and schedule, says Stephanie Jones, director of the Ecological Approaches to Social Emotional Learning -or EASEL at Harvard University.

"Sometimes what can happen with SEL is that it gets relegated to a special space," Jones told EdWeek. "Like ... the school counselor comes in and teaches it on Friday afternoon, and that separates the work into one spot. But SEL is in every setting and interaction. It's part of being human. If things get separated into one space, the work is not happening as effectively as it should."

To help teachers, EASEL took common SEL strategies and distilled them down into kernels: "a cost-effective method to teach social-emotional skills in flexible, bite-sized lesson." The activities are designed to be flexible, succinct, and versatile-and require little preparation by teachers.

At one elementary school in Sacramento with disciplinary issues resulting in a high number of suspensions, students struggled to transition from recess back to the classroom. "Students would really hang onto whatever issue they had with another student, or if they had been reprimanded by one of the [staff on recess duty], they would just bring that into the classroom," Principal Gina Pasquini told Prothero. Pasquini introduced a kernel activity where students discussed what happened on the playground and resolved any lingering conflicts before returning to their academic work. She saw an improvement in behavior and the number of suspensions declined.

At another school in Connecticut, teachers use a "'feeling circle' during which students are encouraged to explore their emotions in-depth as teachers prompt them with questions like, 'What do feelings feel like in your body?'" Creating self-awareness in an easy, accessible way provides a pathway to social emotional growth without putting a heavy burden on educators to create or initiate big changes to their curricula or routine.

Not every kernel involves communication. Students learn emotional regulation and self-awareness through another kernel called belly breathing. "Teachers have students breathe deeply through their noses and notice their bellies expand, and then exhale through their mouths and notice as their bellies collapse. Teachers then ask students if they felt a difference before and after the breaths," Prothero writes. "They ask students to think of times during the day-at school and at home-to use belly breathing to calm their emotions." The reflective part of the practice helps students think about when they might use their newly developed skills independently.

A kernel called "zip zap zop" helps students develop the ability to focus through a game. "A student will clap their hands toward a peer of their choice and say 'zip.' The receiving student will then clap their hands at another peer and say 'zap,' and so on. If a student breaks the chain by saying zip, zap, or zop out of order, they're out of the game," Prothero writes. Students reflect on the importance of focus and brainstorm about ways to implement focus in other parts of their school day.

One of the main benefits of kernels is that they can be modified by teachers to suit different ages and needs. For example, belly breathing can become "Darth Vader breathing" for students with an interest in Star Wars, or ' sphere breathing' -where students use their breath to follow the movement of an expandable sphere-shaped tool-"for a class that's studying three-dimensional shapes." Adapting the kernels for an individual class or student allows educators to customize their practices while preserving the intended outcomes.

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Breaking SEL Down Into Manageable Practices

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Most teachers agree that social emotional learning is important, but teaching those skills in already crowded school day can be a daunting task. The cost-in both funding and time-can hinder schools from integrating social emotional learning (SEL) into their daily activities, writes Arianna Prothero in EdWeek.

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Objectives

The purpose of this module is to recognize and practice the interpersonal skills that will assist in dealing with conflict. By the end of this module you will be able to:

Identify basic communication behaviors that may trigger conflict by communicating disrespect through disconfirmation;

Practice skills that identify disrespectful behavior;

Use language strategies for communicating respect -- confirming behaviors;

Identify communication behaviors that increase defensiveness;

Practice supportive communication skills to reduce defensiveness;

Identify the challenges of having face saving techniques along with face supporting techniques.

First take a look at the importance of R-E-S-P-E-C-T

Reference: Jones, T.S. & Jameson, J., Department of Communication, North Carolina State University

Brought to you by creducation.org

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Objectives The purpose of this module is to recognize and practice the interpersonal skills that will assist in dealing with conflict.

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Finding the Message, Solving the Problem

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Think of the last time a student called out in class, pushed in line, or withdrew by putting their head down on their desk. What was their behavior telling you?

In most cases, behavior is a sign they may not have the skills to tell you what they need. Sometimes, students may not even know what they need. What are your students trying to communicate? What do they need, and how can you help?

Respond to students, not their behaviors

First, know that when students act out, those actions can bring about emotions in teachers and other adults. Given all of the pressures placed on teachers, you may already feel stressed or emotional. It’s normal to take students’ behaviors personally because of your own feelings and needs in the moment.

One way to reframe your thinking is to respond to the student, not the behavior. Start by considering the life experiences that students bring to the classroom.

Some students who learn and think differently have negative past experiences with teachers and school. Others may come from cultures in which speaking up for their needs in front of the whole class isn’t appropriate.

Students who have food insecurity may push others out of the way at lunchtime to make sure they get something to eat. Students who have experienced trauma can often be wary of others. They may be hypervigilant and prone to what looks like overreactions to simple things. Keeping these experiences in mind can help you respond to the reasons for student behavior and not simply react to or correct the behavior itself.

What student behavior is telling you

Figuring out the function of, or the reasons behind, a behavior is critical for finding an appropriate response or support. Knowing the function can also help you find ways to prevent behavior issues in the future.

Learning for Justice (formerly Teaching Tolerance), an organization that provides resources for educators to create civil and inclusive school communities, offers the acronym EATS to highlight some possible functions of behavior. EATS stands for Escape, Attention, Tangible gains, and Sensory needs. Here’s a breakdown of what that means:

Escape: Some students use behavior to avoid a task, demand, situation, or even person they find difficult. Escape behavior can also be quiet, like students who ask to use the bathroom every time it’s their turn to read.

Example: Sofia, who struggles with reading, often breaks the rules during her language arts class. She refuses to take out her book during silent reading time. She eventually throws it to the floor, calls the teacher a name, and gets sent to the office.

What her behavior is saying: Sofia is communicating that she’s struggling with reading and would rather get into trouble than be asked to do a task that is challenging for her without the support she needs.

Attention: Some students behave in ways that are designed to gain attention. They may feel unsure about when or whether they’ll get your attention otherwise. Attention-seeking can play out in positive behaviors as well, such as when students work hard on a task to get your approval.

Example: Nevaeh is what you might call a clingy student. She really wants to show how hard she worked on her math. She puts up her hand and calls the teacher’s name over and over. When she doesn’t get a response, she walks across the room, taps the teacher’s arm, and yanks on her sleeve.

What her behavior is saying: Nevaeh is trying to tell you that she’s unsure about her strengths. She’s communicating that she needs your approval to be sure she’s done a good job on her math.

Tangible gains: Some student behavior is aimed at getting what they want, when they want it. This type of behavior is very common for students who struggle with impulsivity or flexible thinking.

Example: Joseph often talks back to his teacher and comes off as disrespectful. He misses or ignores his teacher’s hand gestures to lower his voice. Joseph gets agitated when he’s told to stop. He argues that he’s just trying to get answers to his questions. He believes the teacher should respond to him right away.

What his behavior is saying: Joseph is communicating that he needs more information to understand the lesson. From past experiences, he may have learned to talk or question the teacher continuously until he receives a response. His behavior represents trouble with communication skills. That means there’s an opportunity to teach the social skill of waiting to talk. In not responding to the teacher’s subtle cues to stop talking, he’s not simply being belligerent. He’s showing that he needs explicit help learning to respond to cues appropriately to have his needs met.

Sensory needs: Students’ brains are constantly taking in information from their senses. For some, processing that stream of input is a struggle. “Sensory seekers” underreact to sensory input or need more of it to function. “Sensory avoiders” overreact to sensory input. They may become overwhelmed and hyperactive. Those behaviors become problematic when they are disruptive or interfere with learning.

Example: Ethan tends to be “hands on” with other students. It’s particularly a problem when he’s standing in line. He complains that he feels crowded. He may push other students out of the way.

What his behavior is saying: Ethan is trying to let you know that he’s overwhelmed by being so close to other students. He is literally moving them out of his personal space, which may be a larger area than is typical for others.

Harness the power of collaboration

It can be hard to figure out the function of a student’s behavior, especially when there are learning and thinking differences at play. Most schools have a collaborative teacher assistance team that can help you understand student behaviors. Those teams are typically made up of special and general education teachers, as well as other professionals, like a school psychologist or a counselor.

Talk with the team about whether an observation by a member of the team or a formal functional behavioral assessment (FBA) is necessary to gather data. This information can lead to a more in-depth look at the reasons behind the student’s behavior.

When you work together to understand the behavior, you’ll be better prepared to help students identify what they need and how to communicate that more appropriately.

Related topics

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Understanding Behavior as Communication: A Teacher’s Guide

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Understanding that behavior is a form of communication can help teachers reframe what they’re seeing and not take student behavior personally.

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IRIS | Page 1: Preventing Challenging Behavior in Young Children

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Page 1: Preventing Challenging Behavior in Young Children

Early childhood teachers* identify children's challenging behaviors as one of the most difficult aspects of their jobs. In fact, this is the number one area for which early childhood teachers report feeling the least prepared. To be successful, teachers must be able to prevent and respond to challenging behaviors. Often, these behaviors can be prevented through universal teaching practices or preventive practices that are designed to benefit all children in the classroom. One powerful preventive practice is establishing clear behavior expectations and rules and systematically teaching and encouraging children to follow them. This preventive practice can have a significant impact on children's behavior and help classrooms to function more smoothly. It creates a common ground for how children and adults are expected to treat each other. The use of this practice also builds a strong classroom community, promotes physical and emotional safety, and helps children develop confidence and competence as they grow.

View Transcript

ML Hemmeter, PhD
Professor, Special Education
Co-Faculty Director of the Susan Gray School for Children
Vanderbilt University

Research Shows

Most educators recognize that rules offer children more predictability in the classroom and should be incorporated into a good management plan. Formal expectations, including rules, should be routinely taught, posted, reviewed, and practiced.
(Van Acker, 2007)

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IRIS | Page 1: Preventing Challenging Behavior in Young Children

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Early childhood teachers* identify children's challenging behaviors as one of the most difficult aspects of their jobs. In fact, this is the number one area for which early childhood teachers report feeling the least prepared. To be successful, teachers must be able to prevent and respond to challenging behaviors.

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The Impact of Participation in an Elementary Behavior Support Program on Students’ Prosocial Behavior, School Functioning and Academic Performance

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The Impact of Participation in an Elementary Behavior Support Program on Students' Prosocial Behavior, School Functioning and Academic Performance

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Environmental factors are causing children to bring well developed patterns of antisocial behavior to school which negatively impact their ability to access their educational program. Existing strategies and resources are not adequately meeting the social-emotional and behavioral needs of students.

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Social Skills: Laying the Foundation for Success

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Well-informed teachers of young children recognize the importance of children's social development. The development of social skills lays a critical foundation for later academic achievement as well as work-related skills. Social development is such a key issue with young children that a number of methods to address social skills have been advocated. Some of these methods include: (1) setting up classrooms to enhance social development; (2) providing play opportunities to promote social functioning; and (3) teaching social skills directly. Teaching social skills can incorporate a number of techniques, including direct instruction, learning from peers, prevention of problem behaviors, and children's books. Many social behaviors are better learned among peers, so teachers of young children are in a unique position to promote social learning in their classrooms. This article provides teachers with several research-based strategies to promote young children's social skills development. (Contains 2 tables.)

Descriptors: Direct Instruction, Socialization, Academic Achievement, Young Children, Social Development, Interpersonal Competence, Play, Student Behavior, Special Needs Students, Behavior Problems, Prosocial Behavior, Story Telling, Child Development, Childrens Literature, Books, Teaching Methods, Classroom Techniques, Class Activities, Developmentally Appropriate Practices, Learning Activities, Teacher Role, Guidelines, Classroom Design, Trauma, Educational Therapy, Intervention, Psychoeducational Methods

Southern Early Childhood Association. P.O. Box 55930, Little Rock, AR 72215. Tel: 800-305-7322; Fax: 501-227-5297; e-mail: info@southernearlychildhood.org; Web site: http://www.southernearlychildhood.org/publications.php

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ERIC - EJ945679 - Social Skills: Laying the Foundation for Success, Dimensions of Early Childhood, 2010

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Well-informed teachers of young children recognize the importance of children's social development. The development of social skills lays a critical foundation for later academic achievement as well as work-related skills. Social development is such a key issue with young children that a number of methods to address social skills have been advocated.

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Behavior is Learned

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It can be difficult to think of effective consequences that actually teach BETTER BEHAVIOR than simply punish a child for a discipline problem! But after teaching 28 years, I have come up with quite a few ideas that I have tucked away in my bag of discipline tricks, and I am excited to share them with you today! These are all (well, mostly!) positive consequences that I have used successfully in Transitional Kindergarten (TK), Kindergarten, first grade, and second grade. And now since we are a PBIS (Positive Behavior Intervention and Supports) school, it will be handy to have a fresh look at this list. I hope that it's helpful to you, too!
Consequences That Teach Better Behavior Instead of Punish 1. Start with the Positives!
Of course, we always start with the positives, right? We offer praise and encouragement. We recognize the children that are making good choices with statements such as, "____ is helping us by lining up quietly." Or, "_____ is following directions by cleaning up the first time he was asked." In addition, I am working on avoiding phrases, such as "I like the way ______..." unless I am VERY specific on what the child is doing that helps our class. Also I want the children to work towards making our classroom a better place for everyone, rather than just pleasing ME!
2. Redirect When Positives Fail
When the positives fail, I redirect children to other activities if possible. For example, if the children are having trouble at recess or inside playtime, it's fairly easy to explain that their behavior with that toy/game was not okay, and then interest them in a different activity as an alternative. I tell them that they can try that first activity again tomorrow to see if they can remember the correct way to use it, etc.

If the child is misbehaving during a lesson, such as talking with a neighbor, it can be tough to redirect that child, because you have to continue with the lesson, and the child needs to see it. So I first remind the child that they cannot talk during a lesson, and they may miss something important. Telling a child the reason WHY is important! I also tell them what will happen if they continue- that I will not be able to allow them to continue to sit there, because that won't be a good learning spot for him or her. It's not a punishment; it's a way to help the child learn.

During a whole group lesson, if a child is still misbehaving after a verbal reminder, the next step is redirecting or moving him or her. But this does NOT have to be a "TIME OUT" moment! Simply don't treat is as a punishment! Spin it as a second chance to learn better and try again in a different place. I tend to move kids around, giving them assigned seats on our colored carpet rug until I figure out the best seating configuration for everyone anyway.

For more severe behavior issues that cannot be solved by a simple seat change, here are some redirection types of things to try that I have had success with.

Send a restless child to go and draw a picture at a table of what the teacher is teaching, rather than just sit and listen with the rest of the group.

Send a child to a center to do something calming, such as stare at a relaxation jar or squeeze a fidget, etc.

One child I know responded to the fine motor exercise of clipping clothespins on the edge of a bowl. When the bowl was empty, he was usually calm enough to rejoin the class.

Another child had a book with a social story in it to read. It was customized for her with her rules and consequences. When she was having a tough day, she would go and "read it" (she had it memorized in no time!) and color a page!

The key to making redirection work is that you cannot let the problem get too big before stepping in to take care of it. Otherwise, it could just wind up making you look weak.
Proactive Redirection? Yes! Solve It Before It Begins!
In the past , I have had a few children that just behaved and learned better in certain locations in the room during whole group lessons- especially when they were just plain separated from other students in back at a table, but alone! So in order to PROACTIVELY AVOID an issue that might come up. I told those certain children quite clearly and gently that they were NOT in time out or in trouble in any way, but that I was HELPING THEM stay OUT of trouble, so that they could have a great day! If they object, I tell them that I want to try it this time, and then we can compare it to their learning behavior in their regular seat next time. Wherever they learn and behave best is the best spot!
3. Remove the Child and Private Chat
When these other steps fail, I have my class play The Quiet Game if necessary and then pull the child aside for a little chat. Then I ask the child to look me in the eyes and tell me what they were doing, and whether or not it was a good choice. We talk about it for a minute. Then they have to tell me what they will do differently next time. I do try to connect with the child during this time, and really try to understand what caused the behavior, and what the child's underlying message is. Remember, all behavior is communication! So what is the child trying to say?

All that being said, there are times when these chats have to happen during recess, only because we have to preserve our instructional time. I do believe in consequences that teach, but I also believe that the rest of the class is entitled to their chance to learn, and that no child should have the power to take our learning time away by regularly disrupting the class on purpose.

But this is the key: the child cannot rejoin the group until they have told me what they did wrong and what they will do differently next time. That's the learning piece! And it's also one of the most difficult things for some children- and not because they don't KNOW what they did wrong- they just don't like to ACKNOWLEDGE it!

Other points to remember: Give the child a chance to save face. Never publicly humiliate a child. Preserve the relationship between you and the child or things will get worse and worse for you, not better! Treat all children with the compassion and grace that you would want for your own children.
4. Beyond "The Chat": What to Do With Severe Problems
As unpleasant as it is to think about, there are occasionally children that are hurting so much that they present very severe discipline problems. These are the ones that NEED you to form a relationship with them the very MOST! Try to talk to them each day, making eye contact with them as they come through the door and greeting them personally. Children who need love the most usually ask for it in the most unloving ways! Comment on how hard they are working or congratulate them for getting to school on time. Just get to know the child. It makes a difference!

Here are some consequences for these children that have worked for me:

When children are upset about something that happened, sometimes I have the child draw a picture of what happened, and of what they will do differently next time.

Another idea is to have the child draw a picture of why he is angry.

A "Thinking Chair" is a good place for a child that just needs to STOP for a few moments, calm down, and think about redirecting HIMSELF. Even adults are entitled to a time out now and then and should be able to ask for it.

Have child sort pictures of good choices and bad choices. There is a wonderful set I found here!

Have the child play ALONE for a day or a week, since she or he is a danger to the other children. I put a jumprope around the area that the child could play in, and told the other children that they could not enter it. This is usually QUITE effective and can bring about a big change in behavior.

Send the child to another teacher's classroom for some time to think. Often, this makes kids uncomfortable enough that they prefer to avoid it and are motivated to change their behavior.

If a child has reached the point that he/she is on a daily behavior contract, then at that point, the rewards and consequences have usually been agreed upon by the parents, teachers, and administrators. Sometimes, this may include loss of some recess or playtime. It could also be a home consequence. But whatever it is, it is a consequence that the child responds to and cares about. Loss of recess/playtime is the LAST thing I do, not the first.

Older children that can write may respond to writing complete sentences telling "Ten Reasons Why" whatever they had done was a bad choice.They could not go onto any of the more fun things, such as iPad time, computer time, reading with friends, etc., until this was finished.They really hated it, but if they wanted to do ANYTHING fun for the rest of the day, they had to do it. It was an effective deterrent.

Older children with writing skills can write down why they are angry, what happened, and what they will do next time.

Older children can fill out a that indicates the causes and effects of each of their choices so that it's clear that they understand which choices caused their current predicament, and another flow chart that shows what better choices they can make that will result in things they like.

5. What to Do With Children That Keep Hitting, Hurting, etc.
If you wind up with a child that is continually hurting other children by hitting, kicking, spitting, pinching, etc., then you have your work cut out for you! Of course, you can NOT allow the child to hurt the other children. That's a given. So even if that aggressive child doesn't really seem to be doing any real damage to the others, you'll still have to deal with it and put a stop to it or it will likely just intensify until you do. I think that this is because behavior like this is usually a cry for help (or a message of some kind), at least in my opinion. We teachers may not have the expertise to identify the underlying problem, but we can be sure that there is one. Start observing, take some notes, and get the parents in there and try to figure it out! Look for consistent triggers that precede the behavior as well. Eliminating those may help you eliminate the undesired behavior.

So what's the REAL problem? Does the child seem to have friends? If not, why not? Is mom having a baby? Is everything alright at home? Are the parents getting along? Did mom just go back to work? Has dad been recently deployed? Did they just move? Did a grandparent pass away? Are these behaviors allowed at home? (Because if so, those behaviors will probably continue at school!) Is there a disabled sibling in the family? How much sleep is this child getting regularly?? What does he typically eat before school, if anything? Is this child just DYING for ATTENTION, ANY KIND OF ATTENTION??? Any of these things can trigger behavior problems in young children! Get to the bottom of it and you're halfway there!
When a child's behavior is regularly SO BAD that there is a problem several times a day, it's time to put the child on a daily contract. A Behavior Contract in Which You Focus on the Positives
In cases like these, I have the child work ONLY for the POSITIVES rather than call out the negatives continually. If she did something But if the child did minor wrong, I marked it on her contract, but that's it. nothing wrong, he/she was pronounced GOOD!!! This worked very well for me one year recently.I had the day written out like a schedule on her contract, and she would try to earn a stamp to put on each time slot (such as story time, walking in line, or reading table, etc.) orby following the rules during each one.

She enjoyed putting the stamps on, and I tried hard to remind myself to praise her each time we transitioned into something new- assuming she had behaved.If she had trouble, then I marked it on her contract and reminded her to try again next time, because I KNEW SHE COULD DO IT! I am including a copy of this contract here as a free download for you. Unfortunately, it is not editable unless you happen to use QuarkXpress on the Mac. If you do, just let us know and we'll send you an editable version!

If an apology was needed, I asked her for it.Sometimes, I asked her to explain what she did wrong, and what a better choice would be, and why.HOWEVER, my policy was that if she HURT someone, then I would take away recess or playtime- in five minute increments only- because playtime is crucial for children.

So the main take away here is that the contract was really for ME! It kept ME, the TEACHER, faithful in giving her positive feedback after every subject before we transitioned to the next one. And she got the extra attention that she seemed to want so desperately, in the form of my praise and the stamps on her contract. In addition, her parents did an excellent job following through with things at home.

And guess what? After a few months, she didn't really need all of the extra praise and constant attention any more! Sometimes we both forgot about the contract and the stamps for a couple of hours! Her better behavior won her some friends and she started getting the regular kind of positive attention that everyone truly enjoys. She went from hitting/hurting two to four times per day to perhaps one or two times per week. And I call that a HUGE success!
What about the rest of the kids? Don't they want it too?
This behavior contract has worked for me in very difficult situations about five different times over the years. It has never NOT worked to improve behavior! Yes, it is time consuming in the classroom, and yes, all of the children would like the stamps. But when a child is having so many problems in the classroom, it's usually quite obvious to the other children that he/she needs help. They really DO understand! Just give them some chances to try out the stamps, or whatever it is, and they'll get over it. Mine always do. :)

I hope that this was helpful to you in some way! Have a wonderful school year!

- Heidi

P.S. Here are a few blog posts with some more behavior management tips! And be sure to check our Classroom Management collection on Heidisongs.com!

When You're OVERLOADED with DISRUPTIVE Kids Who JUST WON'T STOP!

Getting Control of Classroom Transitions

Getting Control of a VERY Difficult Class, Take Two

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Consequences That Teach Better Behavior (Instead of Punish)

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It can be difficult to think of effective consequences that actually teach BETTER BEHAVIOR than simply punish a child for a discipline problem! But after teaching 28 years, I have come up with quite a few ideas that I have tucked away in my bag of discipline tricks, and I am excited to share them with you today!

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Behavioral disorders | Educational Psychology

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Behavioral disorders are a diverse group of conditions in which a student chronically performs highly inappropriate behaviors. A student with this condition might seek attention, for example, by acting out disruptively in class. Other students with the condition might behave aggressively, be distractible and overly active, seem anxious or withdrawn, or seem disconnected from everyday reality. As with learning disabilities, the sheer range of signs and symptoms defies concise description. But the problematic behaviors do have several general features in common (Kauffman, 2005; Hallahan & Kauffman, 2006):

they tend to be extreme

they persist for extended periods of time

they tend to be socially unacceptable (e.g. unwanted sexual advances or vandalism against school property)

they affect school work

they have no other obvious explanation (e.g. a health problem or temporary disruption in the family)

The variety among behavioral disorders means that estimates of their frequency also tend to vary among states, cities, and provinces. It also means that in some cases, a student with a behavioral disorder may be classified as having a different condition, such as ADHD or a learning disability. In other cases, a behavioral problem shown in one school setting may seem serious enough to be labeled as a behavioral disorder, even though a similar problem occurring in another school may be perceived as serious, but not serious enough to deserve the label. In any case, available statistics suggest that only about one to two per cent of students, or perhaps less, have true behavioral disorders-a figure that is only about one half or one third of the frequency for intellectual disabilities (Kauffman, 2005). Because of the potentially disruptive effects of behavioral disorders, however, students with this condition are of special concern to teachers. Just one student who is highly aggressive or disruptive can interfere with the functioning of an entire class, and challenge even the best teacher's management skills and patience.

Strategies for teaching students with behavioral disorders

The most common challenges of teaching students with behavioral disorders have to do with classroom management-a topic discussed more thoroughly in Chapter 7 ("Classroom management"). Three important ideas discussed there, however, also deserve special emphasis here: (1) identifying circumstances that trigger inappropriate behaviors, (2) teaching of interpersonal skills explicitly, and (3) disciplining a student fairly.

Identifying circumstances that trigger inappropriate behaviors

Dealing with a disruption is more effective if you can identify the specific circumstances or event that triggers it, rather than focusing on the personality of the student doing the disrupting. A wide variety of factors can trigger inappropriate behavior (Heineman, Dunlap, & Kincaid, 2005):

physiological effects-including illness, fatigue, hunger, or side-effects from medications

physical features of the classroom-such as the classroom being too warm or too cold, the chairs being exceptionally uncomfortable for sitting, or seating patterns that interfere with hearing or seeing

instructional choices or strategies that frustrate learning-including restricting students' choices unduly, giving instructions that are unclear, choosing activities that are too difficult or too long, or preventing students from asking questions when they need help

By identifying the specific variables often associated with disruptive behaviors, it is easier to devise ways to prevent the behaviors, either by avoiding the triggers if this is possible, or by teaching the student alternative but quite specific ways of responding to the triggering circumstance.

Teaching interpersonal skills explicitly

Because of their history and behavior, some students with behavior disorders have had little opportunity to learn appropriate social skills. Simple courtesies (like remembering to say please or thanks) may not be totally unknown, but may be unpracticed and seem unimportant to the student, as might body language (like eye contact or sitting up to listen to a teacher rather than slouching and looking away). These skills can be taught in ways that do not make them part of punishment, make them seem "preachy," or put a student to shame in front of classmates. Depending on the age or grade-level of the class, one way is by reading or assigning books and stories in which the characters model good social skills. Another is through games that require courteous language to succeed; one that I recall from my own school days, for example, was called "Mother, May I?" (Sullivan & Strang, 2002). Still another is through programs that link an older student or adult from the community as a partner to the student at risk for behavior problems; a prominent example of such a program in the United States is Big Brothers Big Sisters of America, which arranges for older individuals to act as mentors for younger boys and girls (Tierney, Grossman, & Resch, 1995; Newburn & Shiner, 2006).

In addition, strategies based on behaviorist theory have proved effective for many students, especially if the student needs opportunities simply to practice social skills that he has learned only recently and may still feel awkward or self-conscious in using (Algozzine & Ysseldyke, 2006). Behaviorist techniques include the use of positive reinforcement, extinction, generalization, and the like. In addition to these, teachers can arrange for contingency contracts, which are agreements between the teacher and a student about exactly what work the student will do, how it will be rewarded, and what the consequences will be if the agreement is not fulfilled (Wilkinson, 2003). An advantage of all such behaviorist techniques is their precision and clarity: there is little room for misunderstanding about just what your expectations are as the teacher. The precision and clarity in turn makes it less tempting or necessary for you, as teacher, to become angry about infractions of rules or a student's failure to fulfill contracts or agreements, since the consequences tend already to be relatively obvious and clear. "Keeping your cool" can be especially helpful when dealing with behavior that is by nature annoying or disrupting.

Fairness in disciplining

Many strategies for helping a student with a behavior disorder may be spelled out in the student's individual educational plan, such as discussed earlier in this chapter. The plan can (and indeed is supposed to) serve as a guide in devising daily activities and approaches with the student. Keep in mind, however, that since an IEP is akin to a legal agreement among a teacher, other professionals, a student and the student's parents, departures from it should be made only cautiously and carefully, if ever. Although such departures may seem unlikely, a student with a behavior disorder may sometimes be exasperating enough to make it tempting to use stronger or more sweeping punishments than usual (for example, isolating a student for extended times). In case you are tempted in this direction, remember that every IEP also guarantees the student and the student's parents due process before an IEP can be changed. In practice this means consulting with everyone involved in the case-especially parents, other specialists, and the student himself-and reaching an agreement before adopting new strategies that differ significantly from the past.

Instead of "increasing the volume" of punishments, a better approach is to keep careful records of the student's behavior and of your own responses to it, documenting the reasonableness of your rules or responses to any major disruptions. By having the records, collaboration with parents and other professionals can be more productive and fair-minded, and increase others' confidence in your judgments about what the student needs in order to fit in more comfortably with the class. In the long term, more effective collaboration leads both to better support and to more learning for the student (as well as to better support for you as teacher!).

References

Algozzine, R. & Ysseldyke, J. (2006). Teaching students with emotional disturbance: A practical guide for every teacher. Thousand Oaks, CA: Corwin Press.

Hallahan, D. & Kauffman, J. (2006). Exceptional learners: Introduction to special education, 10th edition. Boston: Allyn & Bacon.

Heineman, M., Dunlap, G., & Kincaid, D. (2005). Positive support strategies for students with behavioral disorders in regular classrooms. Psychology in the Schools, 42(8), 779-794.

Kauffman, J. (2005). Characteristics of children with emotional and behavioral disorders, 8th edition. Upper Saddle River, NJ: Pearson/Merrill Prentice Hall.

Newburn, T. & Shiner, M. (2006). Young people, mentoring and social inclusion. Youth Justice, 6(1), 23-41.

Sullivan, A. K. & Strang, H. R. (2002/2003). Bibliotherapy in the Classroom: Using Literature to Promote the Development of Emotional Intelligence. Childhood Education 79(2), 74-80.

Tierney, J., Grossman, J., & Resch, N. (1995). Making a difference: An impact study of big brothers big sisters. Philadelphia: Public/Private Ventures.

Wilkinson, L. (2003). Using behavioral consultation to reduce challenging behavior in the classroom. Psychology in the schools, 47(3), 100-105.

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Behavioral disorders are a diverse group of conditions in which a student chronically performs highly inappropriate behaviors. A student with this condition might seek attention, for example, by acting out disruptively in class. Other students with the condition might behave aggressively, be distractible and overly active, seem anxious or withdrawn, or seem disconnected from everyday reality.

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The Why, What, and How of Teaching Children Social Skills

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The Why, What, and How of Teaching Children Social Skills

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(2002). The Why, What, and How of Teaching Children Social Skills. The Social Studies: Vol. 93, No. 4, pp. 183-185.

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Using Children's Literature to Promote Self-Determination and Literacy Skills

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Origins of the Social Story Philosophy - Carol Gray - Social Stories

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I hope we can develop a curriculum where we can teach from far, far away." Gray (1986)

"Share the frustration of practice, the excitement of mastery. Hug other fiddlers when you see them. Once the song becomes very, very clear... Open the window and play LOUD, okay? Hold a concert." Gray (1988c)

The previous section, "The Historical Context of Social Stories", begins with the early 1950s to describe the broad historical era and events surrounding Social Stories. Their most immediate roots begin in the late 1980s, as seven million Americans were joining "Hands Across America", Margaret Thatcher was elected for the third time as Prime Minister of England, and the Iran-Iraq war drew to a close.

Jenison Public Schools received a Challenge Grant (Grant) from the Michigan Developmental Disabilities Council (contract #86300). Looking back, our very early efforts to teach children with autism in general education classes likely contributed to the acceptance of our Challenge Grant application. The goal of our grant project was to place secondary severely to moderately impaired students with autism in general education classes and vocational experiences in the community, to create a 'real life' classroom. Most grant recipients were community organizations with projects implementing early initiatives in supported employment. 'Jenison' was the only school district to receive the Challenge Grant.

I was responsible for the Grant as part of my position as a consultant to students with autism. As a school district among community organizations, our grant experiences were somewhat unique. There were periodic meetings with other Grant recipients where we updated one another on our activities. For one meeting, I compiled a packet of grant materials (Packet, 1986-1987) to share news articles, training site guidelines, samples of program forms and objectives, and excerpts from staff journals.

By 1989, our efforts to educate our students in general education and local businesses were gaining detail. In compliance with the required periodic grant reporting, "Teaching Severely to Moderately Disabled Students to Learn, Work, and Live in the Community" (Gray, 1989c), described our progress toward project goals. The document includes ethical standards, a support hierarchy for coaches and instructional assistants, and samples of the adapted curriculum.

One of the biggest challenges was that the number of business and general education classrooms outnumbered our available support staff. We began training employees in the vocational training sites and general education students to 'look out for' and effectively assist our students when needed.

We also started writing stories and social packets to support our students. They were silent coaches that could teach needed skills in advance, or be there when we were not. As an example, Attachment B (Gray, 1989c, cited previously) contains materials for a student with autism included in the Clothing and Textiles class at Jenison High School. It is a step-by-step story that describes how to follow and complete directions in a sewing pattern. We were creating a curriculum that would enable us to teach from a distance, one story and social packet at a time.

We had a quarterly newsletter throughout the Grant, The Morning News. It kept others informed of our activities, describing our mistakes and ideas while always seeking feedback and new subscribers. The entire November 1988 issue of The Morning News (Gray, 1988b) is an example of how the newsletter shared our triumphs and setbacks. Excited by our pilot classrooms in the community, the issue opens with an article titled, "In Appreciation: A Look at People in Business". It is followed by, "A Discussion of Ethics", an article and attached letter that describe a mistake that I made while coaching Joe, one of our students. The very short article, "Supported Employment: You Can't Play a Fiddle on Both Sides", reflects our determination to succeed. The issue closes with a list of our current challenges and updates on the businesses working with us.

The Morning News also described our efforts to place students with autism in general education classrooms with articles like "No Phone Booth Required" (Gray, 1988a) and "Learning Together... How To" (Gray,1989b).

Our world was growing... without an Internet. In the fall of 1989 The Morning News became a national publication with twenty new subscribers. We were excited to connect with people in seven other states:

To Elaine in Albuquerque, Jane in Iowa, The Georgia Department of Education, Deborah in Maryland, and everywhere else in-between...please feel free to... send us your comments, ideas, reactions, etc. Welcome to Jenison Public Schools! We may be seeing you come spring break, as many of us head south! To those of you coming north to Jenison this spring break... why? (Gray, 1989a).

In the early 1990s, experiences with my students helped me to see myself through their eyes. It would ultimately change everything. For example, "Self-Advocacy and the Severely Impaired" (Gray, 1990), describes a situation with one of my students. It led me to "...move away from assumptions and attitudes" (Gray, 1990, p.3) that interfere with student independence. I began realizing that - with all good intentions - I may be contributing to many of the challenges that my students face: "Imagine the frustration of the severely impaired when we are wrong. Where those who can speak say, 'No, that's not what I meant," the severely impaired must at times be confused by our misdirected responses" (p.3). The article, "India, Laundry, and our Mailing List" (Gray, 1990) acknowledged the value of respect for other perspectives.

Over time, experiences like these resulted in an important program philosophy. First: Abandon all assumptions. Second: Recognize that the social impairment in autism is shared, with mistakes made on all sides of the social equation. Third: When Typical people interact with people with autism, both perspectives are equally valid and deserving of respect. To this day, these three principles define the Social Story philosophy and guide the development of each Story.

A new decade, the 1990s, was beginning. The Morning News had a small but loyal audience. We also had a sound program philosophy. Little did we know that we were about to find ourselves at the center of an intriguing newfound popularity.
References

Gray, C. A. (1986). Excerpts from diaries: How it feels to be challenged. Unpublished document. Jenison, MI: Jenison Public Schools.

Gray, C. A. (1988a). No phone booth required. The Morning News. February 16. Jenison, MI: Jenison Public Schools.

Gray, C. A. (1988b). The Morning News. November. Jenison, MI: Jenison Public Schools.

Gray, C. A. (1988c). You can't play a fiddle on both sides. The Morning News. November. Jenison, MI: Jenison Public Schools.

Gray, C. A. (1989a). Hello, America! The Morning News. November-December. Jenison, MI: Jenison Public Schools.

Gray, C. A. (1989b). Learning together... How to. The Morning News. April-May. Jenison, MI: Jenison Public Schools.

Gray, C. A. (1989c). Teaching severely to moderately disabled students to learn, work, and live in the community: A model to integrate functional skills into the curriculum. Unpublished document.

Gray, C. A. (1990a). India, laundry, and our mailing list. The Morning News. March. Jenison, MI: Jenison Public Schools.

Gray, C. A. (1990b). Self-advocacy and the severely impaired. The Morning News. January-February. Jenison, MI: Jenison Public Schools.

Packet of Grant materials. Contributing authors: Christophersen, C., DeMaagd, P., Fisher, A. (1986-87).

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Origins of the Social Story Philosophy - Carol Gray - Social Stories

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I hope we can develop a curriculum where we can teach from far, far away." Gray (1986) "Share the frustration of practice, the excitement of mastery. Hug other fiddlers when you see them. Once the song becomes very, very clear... Open the window and play LOUD, okay? Hold a concert."

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Social Stories in Mainstream Schools for Children with ASD

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Inclusion criteria

Participant groups were included if the child: (1) had a diagnosis of ASD given by the multidisciplinary, multiagency York Autism Spectrum Disorders Forum or other equivalent bodies using the International Classification of Diseases (ICD) 10, 17 or the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (DSM)-IV, 18 research diagnostic criteria, (2) was aged between 5 and 15 years, (3) attended mainstream school and (4) exhibited social interaction difficulties that resulted in problems at school as reported by parents or teachers.

Exclusion criteria

Participant groups were excluded if: (1) the child had used Social Stories in the preceding 6 months, (2) the child was likely to move schools in the following 4 months and (3) either the parent or teacher of the child had taken part in the qualitative interviews or focus groups conducted in the first phase of ASSSIST.

Goal setting meeting

A goal setting meeting (GSM) was arranged for all eligible participants to set a unique goal for the child to achieve by consensus between the teacher and the parent, and second, to define and operationalise specific behaviours that they hoped to increase and decrease. The GSMs lasted ∼90 min.

Randomisation and allocation concealment

To minimise contamination bias, cluster randomisation by school was adopted. Following completion of baseline measures, school randomisation using minimisation was used to account for the numbers of children with ASD, levels of support, the socioeconomic position of the area in which the school was situated (as measured by the deprivation indices) and the school's academic achievement (as measured by their value added measures). Allocation to groups was conducted remotely by York Trials Unit.

Intervention

An individualised Social Story was created for each child in the intervention arm (23 in total) to achieve an identified goal. The stories were created by the participating teachers with support from parents and researchers during a training day. All participating teachers left this training day with a fully constructed narrative for the Social Story that had been examined and validated by an expert trainer. Guidance was provided on how to format the story to individualise it to the particular child's needs (eg, story book format, power point slides or on a single sheet of A4 paper). All adult participants in the intervention arm also received a copy of the Social Stories training manual developed in phase 1 of ASSSIST.

The delivery of the intervention within schools was conducted by the participating teacher in accordance with their knowledge of the child's needs and abilities with support and advice from parents. The guidelines given to participating teachers were to read the story with the child three times a week at school for 2 weeks.

Comparator group

Participating teachers in the comparator group were asked to choose a typical age appropriate story of interest to the child (without any social information relevant to the goal) and were given similar guidance on reading it to those in the intervention group. Restrictions were not imposed on the length of this story but the teacher was advised to spend between 5 and 10 min of time reading with the child. A letter detailing how to present this story was sent to the teachers and parents and this included a date to start delivering the attention control.

Potential primary outcome measures

The following measures were considered as potentially appropriate to be selected as the primary outcome in a full scale RCT and were therefore administered as part of the feasibility study:

1. The Strengths and Difficulties Questionnaire (SDQ): 20 The SDQ is a 25-item measure of internalising and externalising difficulties, which includes five subscales. Four of these (emotional symptoms, conduct problems, hyperactivity/inattention and peer problems) were combined to obtain a total difficulties score ranging from 0 to 40. The mean and SD of this composite score was used in the analysis. It has strong reliability and validity as a dimensional measure of psychological constructs. 21 The scale was completed by participating parents, teachers and older children (11-15 years).

2. The Social Responsiveness Scale-2 (SRS-2): 22 The SRS-2 identifies social impairment associated with ASD and quantifies its severity. It is a 65-item scale and each item has four response options giving a score of 0-3. SRS total raw scores range from 0 to 195 and higher scores indicate increased social impairment. It has been included as a measure of ASD symptom severity and has been shown to have high reliability and validity for a UK population. 23 It was completed by the teachers.

3. A goal-based outcome measure, designed by the research team, to enable individualised, prespecified goals to be recorded and measured on an 11-point Likert scale (0-10). The goals were specified in a GSM prior to entry into the trial. A score of 10 indicated the goal was met and 0 indicated it was not at all met. This was included as a measure of perceived effect of the intervention. It was completed by all participants including the children.

4. A behavioural frequency measure (BFM), designed by the research team, to enable individualised goals and measured on five-point Likert scales. The points on the scales gave an indication as to the frequency of the behaviour from 'never' to 'very frequently'. There were two of these scales: one of which measured a desired behaviour and one which assessed a challenging behaviour. These were included as a measure of perceived effect of the intervention. Both were completed by the adult participants.

5. A diary, designed by the research team, to collect data over the course of a week on the frequency of delivery of the stories and the frequency of occurrence of prespecified behaviours across the school day. The measure was included to examine the logistical feasibility of an observation-based measure in a full trial. It was completed by the adult participants.

Economic outcome measures

1. The EQ-5D proxy and the EQ-5DY: 24 These are standardised five-item instruments for use as measures of generic health outcomes recommended by the National Institute for Health and Care Excellence (NICE). Higher scores indicate more health problems. They were completed by the participating parents (EQ-5D proxy) and children (EQ-5DY), respectively.

2. Health Utilities Index 2 (HUI2): 25 This is a preference-based generic health outcome measure to establish health states in children, report health-related quality of life and related produce utility scores. Higher scores indicate more health problems. It was completed by the participating parents.

3. Bespoke resource use questionnaires were developed by the research team's health economist to capture the resource implications of the child's behavioural problems at school and home. These questionnaires were completed by the adult participants.

Clinical outcomes analysis

We reported the flow of participants through the study according to the Consolidated Standards of Reporting Trials (CONSORT) guidelines for non-pharmaceutical interventions. In line with recommendations about good practice in the analysis of feasibility studies, 26 no statistical comparisons of the outcomes between the two arms of the trial were conducted. Descriptive statistics were calculated for recruitment rates, follow-up rates, attrition and for baseline characteristics. These are presented as means and SDs for continuous data or number and percentage for categorical data. Descriptive statistics are also calculated for the outcome measures. All analyses were undertaken on SPSS (V.22).

Economics analysis

The feasibility of conducting an economic analysis was examined alongside this feasibility RCT to inform the choice of appropriate measures of generic health and identify the relevant resource use categories for a full trial cost-effectiveness analysis. The feasibility and challenges of measuring costs and outcomes in the target population was also examined.

Qualitative analysis

Interviews were audio-recorded and fully transcribed. Transcripts were read and key points were coded according to a priori themes based on the aims of the process evaluation using NVivo V.10, 27 using a framework approach with two coders. 10 , 28 Coding related to the acceptability of the training for and delivery of intervention among parents, teachers and children where appropriate, and factors relating to the conduct of the trial including recruitment, information provided, randomisation and outcome measurement.

Characteristics of clusters

Clusters ranged in size from one to four participant groups with a mean of 1.35 children with ASD per cluster. Twenty-five of the recruited clusters were primary schools, nine were secondary schools and three were private/independent schools.

Characteristics of participants

Table 1 summarises the characteristics of the child participants recruited to the trial. The majority of these participants were male (74%) which is consistent with the distribution of ASD in the population. 29 Most of the participants were recruited from primary schools (62%). The participants assigned to the comparator group were slightly older (M=9.9) than the intervention group (M=9.2).

Participant flow and cluster design

There were some delays in the flow of participants from expressing interest in the trial through full enrolment to being allocated to a group. Owing to delays in baseline measure retrieval, it took between 6 and 14 weeks to be assigned a group and another 2-4 weeks after that for those in the intervention group to be trained.

All participants consented to randomisation and the resulting groups were equivalent in terms of their demographics. The requirement for completing all baseline questionnaires in each cluster before randomisation resulted in delays in treatment delivery for some participants and potentially to eligible participants being missed due to the limited timeframe. Additionally, the low average cluster size found across the recruited schools indicates there would be a relatively low impact of dilution bias on the results. As such, cluster randomisation by school was not considered necessary for a future trial.

Training, delivery and acceptability

Training sessions were well received by participants. All participant groups left the training session with a completed narrative for their story. No difficulties with implementing the intervention were reported to the researchers by participating teachers. Because when we sat down to write it, between us, with the people being there to help, that, I think that was vital that they were there to help for that first sentence, that first story, but with their help I think we did OK ....Female, teaching assistant, secondary school, intervention group

The overall perception was that the manual was useful in providing ancillary information, which would be particularly useful in the longer term, acting as an aide memoir for use beyond the training sessions, rather than use as a stand-alone item: Yeah, it was clear and came away with a booklet, lots of examples in it, you know, so if, if, we did the majority of it in the session which I think is really crucial. Female, parent, primary school, intervention group

To further test the feasibility of rolling out the study to a full scale trial, we examined the feasibility of training educational professionals in Social Stories training. A specialist autism teacher who had previously been involved in the user focus group and an educational psychologist were trained to deliver the training sessions by the clinicians on the research team. All of these sessions were monitored by the trial coordinator and had high fidelity to the training and learning objectives as measured by a predesigned fidelity.

Fidelity of the intervention

The adult participants constructed and revised their stories with support from the specialist trainers and other members of the research team, during the training session, to ensure that the finished product followed all of Gray's criteria. 8 To examine drift from the criteria during the delivery of 20% of the stories in the intervention group, 22% of the stories were examined after they had been delivered. All remained consistent to Gray's criteria. 8

Goal setting

Goal setting was seen as useful in that it encouraged people to meet around the table and 'bounce' ideas off each other. The process of goal setting itself was difficult due to a requirement for a goal applicable to school and home, especially when all participants could not attend: I said, [to the researchers] 'Can we tweak it a bit because {the child is] never going to get a piece finished if he doesn't get started?' because that was my issue. I mean if I had been at the meeting I maybe could have put that point forward. Female, teaching assistant, primary school, intervention group

Retention of participants

Questionnaire return rates are displayed in table 2 and were similar across the two groups at each time point. With regard to baseline measurements, all 50 (100%) participating teachers returned the questionnaires. A slightly lower response rate was seen from participating parents at baseline and the participating children had the lowest response rate.

With regard to baseline behaviour diaries, at the 16-week follow-up point, the return rates were low, particularly among parents (n=9 (24%)) of the parents returned them.

Teachers remarked the diaries were not found to be user friendly and difficult to complete. From some of the interviews, it was clear that the paperwork did not fit the specified behaviour goals and observations were difficult: It was all about winning and losing and with, with him, we thought, I kinda set up a little thing, so we were looking at, you know, positive comments and negative comments and things and, you know, whether he was, whether he was winning and things, and also we had to, we had to set up some games which we wouldn't normally have kind of played. Female, teaching assistant, primary school, intervention group

Therefore, the diaries were removed for the last 12 participant groups to test if this improved trial logistics.

Intervention delivery

For those randomised to the Social Story group, finding the time for reading the Social Story was important. It was seen as important to create 'protected time'. This was more straightforward in a primary setting: Yeah, it was, you know, obviously these children, sometimes they're in the right frame of mind and sometimes they're not. So I tried to do it in a roundabout way, just let's go and read the story, and made, just made it really exciting. So that helped. I think if, if I'd have said "Right, come on, we need to do the story before we do this task" then I think she would have...Twigged and thought no. Female, teaching assistant, primary school

Within the secondary school, there was the added complication of finding an appropriate time and place to deliver the intervention. Pupils at secondary school have a structured timetable there is little to no time to sit down with a pupil and really go through a social story. Pupils don't tend to want to go through the stories in their break times and we feel that we can't force them. Female, teaching assistant, secondary school

Acceptability and perceived impact

For the children who had participated in the reading of Social Stories, most of the teachers/parents felt the stories were acceptable and had indeed achieved a positive outcome: You could see the difference at the beginning of the week, at the end of the week. Female, teaching assistant, primary school, intervention group

However, while it was not necessarily possible to attribute any change to the story per se, the intervention was not associated with any negative impacts.

Completion rates

In addition to retention rates, the completion rates of individual questionnaires were examined. Table 3 displays the individual breakdown of these figures. Only the goal-based outcome for participating teachers had overall completion rates ≥70% at each time point with the percentage completion rates between the intervention and comparator groups showing similar rates: 96-100% at baseline, 83-89% at 6 weeks and 70% at 16 weeks. There was a notable difference in the completion rates between the time points with follow-up points being much lower. There was also a notable difference in the completion rates for the SRS-2 (74% vs 63%) and BFM (74% and 67%) between the groups at 16-week follow-up. The participating parents had good completion rates at baseline on the potential primary outcome measures but less so at 6 and 16 weeks. The participating children had poor completion rates at all time points and some parents indicated that the validity of the data was questionable.

While some people found the paperwork relating to outcome straightforward to fill out, most reported that they felt too much data were being collected. Many were willing to complete the questionnaires because of the perceived benefits to the research, but there were common symptoms about length, clarity and repetitive questions: It's good because you need to know the outcome of the story but I think it's just too long. Female, teaching assistant, primary school, intervention group

Descriptive statistics

Table 4 displays the mean and SD for each outcome measure across all time points. The teacher goal-based, SRS-2 and BFMs were at a high enough rate to be considered feasible for a full scale trial. The goal-based measure and SRS-2 showed change scores in the expected direction but the summary data indicate that the BFMs may not have been sensitive enough to detect change.

Economic feasibility

In line with the overall rates of completion, the completion rate of the EQ-5D proxy at 6 weeks showed a total of 37 out of 50 (74%) and at 16 weeks, 30 out of 50 (60%). The completion rate of the HUI2 25 was lower than the EQ-5D proxy. The total completion rate of the HUI2 was 32 (64%) at the 6-week follow-up, and 29 (58%) at the 16-week follow-up. In contrast to these measures but consistent with other child measures, the completion rate of the EQ-5DY was very low. At 6 weeks, 24 out of 50 (48%) children completed the questionnaire and at 16 weeks, 15 out of 50 (30%) completed them.

The ability to assess resource implications was piloted using a bespoke resource use questionnaire for parents and teachers. Examining the items relating to health services use at baseline, 6 and 16 weeks showed a high proportion of missing responses. Owing to the construction of the questionnaire, it was not possible to assess whether missing values represented no service usage. The feasibility of collecting resource-related information from participating teachers was promising to inform an extended perspective as they provided a good indication of school grades, the level of pupil productivity and how often participating children did not attend school.

View Abstract

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Social Stories in mainstream schools for children with autism spectrum disorder: a feasibility randomised controlled trial

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Objectives To assess the feasibility of recruitment, retention, outcome measures and intervention training/delivery among teachers, parents and children. To calculate a sample size estimation for full trial. Design A single-centre, unblinded, cluster feasibility randomised controlled trial examining Social Stories delivered within a school environment compared with an attentional control.

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Increasing Pro-Social Behavior with Social Stories

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Increasing Pro-Social Behavior with Social Stories

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Utilizing Social Stories to Increase Prosocial Behavior and Reduce Problem Behavior in Young Children with Autism

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The purpose of this paper was to evaluate the effects of a Social Story intervention on the behavior rates of 4 young children with autism using a multiple-baseline across participants design. The results of this paper indicate that the Social Story was modestly effective in increasing prosocial behavior rates in 3 of the 4 participants, though none of the participants reached the prosocial behavior rates of age and gender-matched peers. The problem behaviors of the participants modestly decreased with the intervention. Maintenance of skills over a 1-month period was demonstrated for all of the participants. The variable and inconsistent results of the research add to the current literature base in support of the use of Social Stories for some children with autism.

1. Introduction

Social Stories are individualized short stories used to assist children with ASD in understanding social situations by describing and explaining appropriate behavior and providing examples of appropriate responses. Gray and Garand [ 2] introduced the concept of Social Stories to decrease problem behavior in children with autism. Social Stories can be used to help children understand that other people have perspectives that may differ from their own, and that others have information that is helpful to them. These short stories outline specific steps for implementing the appropriate social skill and include short text and pictorial cues. The Social Story assists the child's accurate understanding of specific social information in a given setting or circumstance [ 11].

Social Stories may be a beneficial intervention for multiple reasons. First, Social Stories may help explain confusing situations and diffuse anxiety and problem behavior. Second, the Social Story uses visual learning strategies which are often a strength in children with autism [ 12]. Third, Social Stories do not require special training to implement and can easily be used across settings and implementers. Last, the Social Story is individually written with the child's interests and perspective in mind and can be accessed easily until the target behavior is mastered. Thus, Social Stories may be an effective intervention for children with autism. Social Stories are used extensively in the field with positive results [ 8, 10, 13, 14]. Social Stories are an intervention used increasingly with children with ASD and have been found by the National Autism Center to be an effective research-based intervention [ 7].

Three studies evaluated the use of Social Stories in children not diagnosed with ASD [ 30- 32]. In the first study of its kind, Burke and colleagues evaluated the use of Social Stories with typically developing children who were experiencing sleep disturbances. Results indicated that there was an immediate and significant decrease in problem sleep time behavior in the four children in the study. Soenksen and Alper used Social Stories to increase prosocial behavior in a 5-year-old with hyperlexia while Toplis and Hadwin reported increased prosocial behaviors in 3 of 5 boys in their study of five children with behavior difficulties.

Many of the studies did not assess maintenance and/or generalization effects [ 21- 23, 25] or reported anecdotally [ 17, 19]. Other researchers measured maintenance but found weak or inconsistent results [ 27, 29] or no maintenance of effects once the Social Story was withdrawn [ 20, 24, 28]. Thiemann and Goldstein [ 26] and Sansosti and Powell-Smith [ 24] found weak generalization results. Only one study [ 14] reported a strong maintenance effect.

The articles reviewed demonstrated positive outcomes with the use of Social Stories, though some suffered from design weaknesses [ 17, 18, 24, 25, 34, 35]. Eight studies [ 18- 20, 22, 26, 27, 30, 36] used interventions in addition to the Social Stories including verbal praise, video modeling, and prompts which prevented the authors from determining which intervention was responsible for effecting change in behavior. Although many of the studies demonstrated positive results, there is a wide range of experimental rigor and future studies must use appropriately stringent design to add to the growing literature base in support of Social Stories.

The purpose of this study was to evaluate the effects of a Social Story intervention on the social behavior rates of four young children with autism. This study used a multiple-baseline across participants design to evaluate the effects of the Social Story on the prosocial and problem behaviors of each of the participants in comparison to gender and age-matched peers in the inclusive preschool classroom.

2. Method

2.1. Instruments

2.2. Participants

The participants for this study were selected from a public school system in a mid-western community. All participants were selected for this study based on teacher nomination after an initial screening with the Early Childhood Special Education (ECSE) Coordinator. From the pool of possible participants nominated by the ECSE Coordinator, the four children with autism were selected based on the following criteria: (1) 3 to 7 years old, (2) regular participation in an inclusive preschool, (3) current medical diagnosis of autism, and (4) ability to communicate functionally in at least the 21-24-month developmental age as measured by the CCITSN [ 38]. The decision about who to include in the study was based on Gray and Garand's recommendation that Social Stories benefit children who possess basic language skills and are not severely mentally impaired [ 2]. Participants were free of vision, hearing, and severe motor impairments that would limit their participation in the proposed study. Written parent permission was obtained in for each child.

All four of the participants were males with previous medical diagnoses of autism who were being served by the public school district's ECSE program. All four boys had target behavior of positive peer interaction and response to peer initiation which was defined by Cooper et al. [ 39] as follows: (1) request for peer attention unprompted by an adult that is directed toward a peer by using his/her name or facing him/her in close proximity (e.g., "look", "John", "do you want to play?"), (2) uses gestures or vocalizations to establish joint attention with peer (e.g., holds object to show peer, taps shoulder, "good job" directed toward peer), (3) understandable answer that is unprompted by an adult, that is directed toward a peer by using his/her name or facing him/her in close proximity, and (4) a positive behavioral response to peer initiation (e.g., scoots over for peer to sit, lending toy, cooperatively building block tower, turn taking). There are additional characteristics of the participants described in Table 1.

Logan
Logan answered yes and no questions appropriately, made verbal requests not directed to a person, and often spoke from movie scripts. He was able to compose simple sentences but had difficulty with semantics. The teacher reported that Logan mostly played alone but would occasionally hand or receive a toy from a peer in the classroom. He did not initiate or respond to peer play activity in the preschool classroom and frequently spent time wandering unengaged during free play. The use of a visual schedule was used as a cue for Logan to engage in an appropriate activity.

Peter
Peter was able to answer yes and no questions but required prompting for simple requests and one-step commands, combined with gestural cues. He occasionally used simple sentences for requests. His teacher reported that Peter played alone and did not initiate play with peers in the classroom. He would often grab toys from peers, hit, kick, or push peers when they came near him, and he often walked away when peers came close to his play area. Peter also wandered unengaged and often escaped from activities and even the classroom during free play.

Peers
After the children with autism were identified, peers with average social skills were chosen by teacher nomination from the ECSE classrooms. Peers were chosen by teacher nomination using the following criteria: (a) average social skills as assessed by the teacher, (b) age matched to participants within 6 months [ 40], (c) gender matched, (d) demonstrated regular attendance, (e) parent or guardian written consent to participate in study, (f) compliant to adult instructions, and (g) willing to participate in study. A median was calculated for typical social behavior based on the social behavior of the participants.

Teachers
Three of the children shared the same teacher: Logan, Trevor and Peter. Logan was in preschool in the afternoon, while Trevor, and Peter attended preschool in the morning. The ECSE teacher who read the Social Stories each day for the three participants had Master's Degrees in Education and Communication and Science Disorders with certification in Early Childhood Special Education (ECSE), and licensure as a Speech and Language Pathologist. She had been teaching in ECSE for 5 years and worked part-time as an SLP for 4 years.
Nick's primary teacher had a Master's Degree in Education with 6 years experience teaching in the preschool setting. The Social Story was read daily by Nick's ECSE teacher who spent varying amounts of time in his classroom daily.

2.3. Settings

All baseline and intervention sessions took place during free play in the preschool classroom because this was the time and setting identified as problematic for all participants. Nick's preschool classroom consisted of 12 typically developing peers. All children were from 2 years, 6 months to 3 years, 11 months. Logan and Trevor were in the same preschool classroom. There were a total of 11 three-to five-year-old children in the class, including three typical peers. The other children had diagnoses of general language, cognitive, or motor disabilities. There were a total of 7 three-to five-year-old children in Peter's preschool classroom including one typical peer. The other children had diagnoses of language, hearing, or cognitive impairments.

2.4. Materials and Measures

Independent Variable
The intervention of the Social Story was the independent variable. The Social Story was read by the teacher in the preschool setting during free play for each child. The construct validity of each Social Story was assessed with the Social Story Construction Checklist by an independent professional with a Master's Degree in Special Education who had extensive experience with the use of Social Stories as an intervention with children with autism. The Social Story Construction Checklist consisted of questions concerning the correct sentence ratio and the ability of the Social Story to target the specified prosocial and problem behaviors identified for each child [ 24].
Copies of the Social Stories were sent home for the families to read with the child, and the Social Story was available at all times in the classroom throughout the intervention and maintenance phases. Anecdotally, the parents of all participants reported that the Social Story was frequently accessed at home. The teacher reported that only Logan and Trevor accessed the Social Stories occasionally in the classroom.

Social Story
The Social Story was type written in 16-point Times New Roman font on white 5 1/2 inch (width) × 8 inch (length) cardstock, laminated and fastened by spiral binding on the left margin. There were 5 to 11 pages in each Social Story. Photographs of the child and peers were included in each Social Story to increase the communicative intent of the story for all the books except Nick's. Photographic releases were not able to be obtained for the peers in Nick's classroom; therefore his Social Story only contained photographs of himself and his teacher. Due to the limited visuals for Nick's Social Story, picture symbols were utilized for his book from the Mayer-Johnson Writing With Symbols Windows Program [ 41]. Each child had two individual Social Stories written, for a total of eight Social Stories (see the Appendix).
The classroom teacher was asked to introduce the story to the preschool participant with the phrase, "I wrote this story for you" [ 42]. The teacher then sat to the child's side and slightly back, or the child sat in the teacher's lap while the story was read aloud by the teacher (Gray). Comprehension was assessed during each intervention by having the child answer questions about the Social Story, and/or role play [ 22, 43]. All children demonstrated 100% comprehension from each intervention session. The Social Story was read at least once a day, at the same designated time each day during free play, until the maintenance and fading phase of the study.

2.5. Experimental Design

A multiple baseline design across participants was utilized for this study [ 15]. The experiment was composed of four phases. The first phase (A1) was baseline where the observer recorded the frequency of prosocial behaviors and problem behaviors. The second phase (B1) was intervention 1, the Social Story, while the third phase was intervention 2, the modified Social Story (B2). The final phase (A2) evaluated the maintenance of the intervention. Treatment sessions commenced with the first participant once a stable baseline was reached for the dependent measure. Visual analysis was utilized to identify appropriate phase changes.

Interobserver Agreement
Prior to beginning the study, three observers were trained to reliably record behaviors. The two primary data collectors were the researcher and a doctoral student in special education with experience in data collection. The third observer was one of the classroom teachers. The observers read the target behavior definitions and became familiar with the data collection forms and procedures for recording observations [ 39]. The observers then practiced observing and recording data in the free play setting defined for each participant. All three observers established a criterion of 100% agreement for three consecutive sessions [ 39]. The three researchers viewed social interactions in the inclusive preschool classroom and recorded observed behaviors for each targeted skill. Interobserver agreement checks were conducted for at least 1/3 of the observation sessions to insure the integrity of data collection across each participant in each condition of the study [ 15].
Interobserver agreement for observations was calculated to assess the reliability of the data. Reliability checks occurred for at least 30% of baseline condition, 33% of intervention sessions, and 40% of maintenance condition for each child. Observations were considered reliable if at least 80% interrater agreement was achieved for each observation. Interrater agreement was consistently above 80% for all participants. Agreement in each condition ranged from 90% to 100% for Nick , 82% to 100% for Logan , from 88% to 100% for Trevor , and 93% to 100% for Peter .

2.6. Experimental Procedures

Baseline
There were two variables of interest: target prosocial behavior and problem behavior. During baseline, observational data were recorded for each participant's target behavior and problem behavior for 10-minute periods at least three times a week in the free play setting until baseline data were determined to be stable with at least 5 data points [ 15]. Observations of the five comparison peers were also conducted in the free play setting during the baseline period. No intervention occurred during this period. If any instance of the target prosocial behavior or problem behaviors occurred during the 10 minute observation, the observer recorded the behavior on the data collection sheet.

Intervention
Once baseline data were stable, intervention 1 (I1) began, which was reading of the Social Story. Data were collected for six data points [ 31]. When six data points were collected during I1 and the child had not met the prosocial median criterion rate of target behavior, then the Social Story was revised as recommended by Gray [ 42] for Intervention 2 (I2). Revisions were made to the individual Social Stories after discussing appropriate changes with the classroom teacher. For example, Nick's initial Social Story had a sentence that said, "I can try to go up to one of my friends, stand close, look at my friend and say, "Will you play with me?" This sentence was changed to, "If a friend comes over while I'm reading a book, I can scoot over and ask my friend to read with me" with the modified Social Story in I2. Data were then taken for an additional 6 data points.

2.7. Data Analysis

Each participant was the component of analysis, serving as his own control [ 15]. All visual inspection analyses included both the changes in individual participant's data as well as comparing changes across each of the additional participants. In addition, observational data were analyzed to determine the percentage of nonoverlapping data (PND) points for each participant between baseline, intervention 1, intervention 2, and maintenance. Nonoverlapping data points were computed by comparing data points in intervention 1, intervention 2, and maintenance with baseline.

3. Results

Nick. Figure 1 indicates that with implementation of the Social Story, there was a slight increase in prosocial behaviors in I1. The modification of the Social Story for I2 indicated a somewhat variable though slightly increasing rate of instances of prosocial behavior over baseline. Maintenance data were also variable, with a general increasing trend of prosocial behaviors over baseline.

Figure 2 indicates that there was an immediate decrease to zero problem behaviors with the implementation of I1. Though the data were variable, Nick had a decrease in problem behaviors, with no problem behaviors in maintenance.

Logan. Logan had a very stable baseline with only one instance of any target prosocial behaviors. As demonstrated in Figure 1, Logan had an immediate increase in prosocial target behaviors from baseline with a positive slope. Following introduction of I2, there was an immediate increase in target behaviors, followed by a decreasing trend in target behaviors, indicating a decreasing effectiveness of I2. Data collection in maintenance indicated an immediate increase in target prosocial behaviors.

The PND for Logan's data was 60% from baseline to I1, indicating a mild effect. From baseline to I2, the PND was only 17%, which is considered ineffective, as there were only two data points above baseline. These results indicate that the modified Social Story in I2 was not effective for increasing Logan's prosocial behaviors. The PND from baseline to maintenance was 60%, which indicates that the intervention was mildly effective in maintaining prosocial behavior after the Social Story was discontinued.

Logan's problem behavior was variable in baseline and intervention phases. It is most stable in the maintenance phase, where at 4 out of 5 days there was no problem behavior.

Trevor. In reviewing Figure 1, I1 and I2 show a slight increase in prosocial behavior from baseline, though it is inconsistent. The maintenance phase is also variable, with the highest rate of prosocial behavior of all phases, but the behavior does decrease over time.

The PND for all phases of Trevor's data was insignificant. The data points overlapped 100% from baseline to I1, while there was an 83% overlap from baseline to I2 and 60% overlap in maintenance from baseline. The PND indicates that there was not a significant effect of I1 or I2 on Trevor's prosocial behavior.

There was a decrease in Trevor's problem behavior from baseline to I1, I2, and maintenance. Though the data were somewhat variable, with instances of no problem behavior in all of the phases of the study, visual inspection reveals a downward trend in problem behavior in I1 and I2. There were no problem behaviors in maintenance.

Peter. The data in Figure 1 indicate that upon implementation of I1, there was a slight increase in prosocial behaviors, followed by a decrease back down to zero. During I2, there were only two days of any prosocial behaviors. With discontinuation of the Social Story, there were two days of prosocial target behaviors.

The PND was only significant from baseline to I1, where it reached 50%, which is considered mildly effective. There were only 17% nonoverlapping data from baseline to I2 and 0% from baseline to maintenance. These data indicate that I1 was mildly effective, but I2 was ineffective, and there was no effect in maintenance.

Visual analysis indicates that problem behavior was variable in all phases, but there was a decrease in frequency with intervention. Peter had an increase in problem behavior following the one-week spring break vacation period, which the teacher noted occurred after a prolonged period out of the classroom.

Research Question  2
In preschoolers with diagnoses of ASD, do the social behavior rates approach those of age and gender-matched typically developing peers?
Of the four participants Nick was the closest to approaching the social behavior rate of age and gender-matched typically developing peers. On two occasions, Nick exceeded this rate though Nick's median rate of prosocial behavior fell below that of his matched peer. Logan, Trevor, and Peter did not meet or exceed the age and gender-matched peer criterion prosocial behaviors in any phase.

Research Question  3
Do teachers support the social validity of social stories?
After the intervention and maintenance sessions were completed, teacher satisfaction was assessed by a six-item questionnaire that used a 5-point scale to rate: (1) Social Story effect on the child, (2) carryover to other activities and/or settings, (3) ease of implementation, and (4) overall experience. The scale used for this tool was a Likert-type rating as follows: (1) strongly disagree, (2) disagree, (3) neutral, (4) agree, and (5) strongly agree. Both of the teachers strongly agreed with the statements that the Social Story intervention was easy to implement and that most teachers would find the intervention appropriate for a wide-range of behaviors and they would be willing to utilize the intervention again. Peter's teacher was neutral on the question of effectiveness of the intervention, though she did agree that the intervention was acceptable for the child's behavior difficulties. The other teacher either agreed or strongly agreed that the Social Story was effective. The teachers either agreed or strongly agreed that they would recommend this intervention to other teachers.

4. Discussion

The purpose of this study was to determine if using a Social Story as the sole intervention was effective in increasing prosocial interaction and decreasing problem social behavior in 4 preschoolers with autism. The results indicate that the Social Story did result in slight increases in prosocial behavior for 3 of the 4 children and some decreases in negative social interaction for all 4 of the children. The modest and inconsistent effects of the Social Story intervention are consistent with past research. The specific results are discussed hereinafter.

4.1. Increasing Prosocial Behavior

One of the benefits of using Social Stories is that they are relatively easy to make and easy to implement. As a sole intervention, particularly for young children with autism, Social Stories may be an important component, but just one piece of a more intensive systematic intervention program that includes direct teaching of the targeted behaviors. It seems likely that combining Social Stories with video [ 26, 36], prompting [ 22, 26], or response-cost systems [ 46] would have resulted in more robust results. We chose to not add other interventions as recommended by Ali and Frederickson [ 13], Nichols et al. [ 8], and Reynhout and Carter [ 9] in order to help determine the relative effectiveness of the Social Story. When multiple interventions are implemented concurrently, it is not possible to disentangle the relative contributions of each.

The inconsistent results in the published literature and in the current study make it important to identify the characteristics of children who will respond well to Social Stories. Unfortunately, our study does not help to answer this question. Since 3 of the 4 participants did have modest increases in prosocial behaviors, it is unclear which children benefit from Social Stories more than others. Scores on The CCITSN did not help predict which children would respond to the Social Story intervention. For instance, Nick and Trevor both scored in the highest range (30 to 36 months), yet Trevor did not demonstrate significant increases in prosocial behavior. It is also possible that the children who benefited from the Social Story intervention had the skills but did not use them until implementation of the intervention. The particular setting of the children in this study may have affected the results. Nick, who had the greatest prosocial behavior increase, was in a classroom with all typically developing peers. Trevor and Peter were in the same morning class and had higher gains in prosocial behavior than Logan. Perhaps the morning class had peers that positively reinforced prosocial behavior from the participants. It is also possible that the teacher gave more attention to the children in the study in addition to the Social Story, which may have affected the results of this intervention. An additional consideration is that Social Stories may be more effective in reducing inappropriate social behaviors rather than improving appropriate social behavior as discussed below.

4.2. Decreasing Problem Behavior

This study used Gray and Garand's [ 2] recommendation that the Social Story be modified if optimum results are not obtained and isolated the use of the Social Story without adding reinforcers or other confounding variables that have often been reported in the literature [ 25]. The results of this study indicated that it was not beneficial to modify the Social Story according to Gray and Garand's criteria, as there were not continued increases in prosocial behavior. It may be that instead of changing the Social Story, a different intervention may be necessary (e.g., prompt and praise). Problem behaviors did continue to modestly decrease with the modified Social Story, a result that is desirable in many instances.

4.3. Maintenance

4.4. Treatment Integrity and Social Validity

The Social Story intervention had acceptable treatment integrity and was rated as highly acceptable by the teachers. This is important as the teachers were the implementers of this intervention. These results add to the current literature base that report social validity from a teacher's perspective [ 47].

4.5. Limitations

Though the findings from this study are promising, there are several limitations. Both the small number of participants and the modest, inconsistent results make it difficult to generalize these findings to other children. In addition, we were unable to identify the characteristics that may help to predict which children will benefit from this intervention. Therefore, some caution must be taken in generalizing these findings to other students, types of disabilities, settings, or behaviors. The results of this study are important and help to make clear the benefits and the limitations of this particular intervention. Social Stories may have only modest effects for the types of children in this study, the study environments, and variables included. Second, the fidelity of treatment may have differed among the participants in the study. Only two teachers participated in this research. Two of the children in this study were in the same morning classroom, and a third participant also had this same teacher in the afternoon. Thus, three of the four children (Logan, Trevor, and Peter) in the study had the same teacher. It is unknown if how the teacher presents the Social Story, asks comprehension questions, and provides other extraneous variables may affect the results of a study. In addition, the teachers may have provided extra attention to the children with the addition of the Social Story intervention, and this can be a confounding variable. Also, though this study incorporated a treatment fidelity checklist, it only assessed whether the Social Story was read and if comprehension questions were asked. Future studies may need to address essential features of Social Stories through a more comprehensive treatment fidelity assessment. Though the researcher provided copies of each Social Story for home use, there was no formal assessment of how often the Social Stories were read in the home environment. Finally, we did not collect generalization data in a variety of settings as recommended by previous reviews of the literature [ 8, 48]. Anecdotal evidence from Nick's teacher did support the generalization of treatment gains. She stated that on two separate days she noted Nick asking peers to play during outdoor recess, which she had not observed prior to the intervention implementation.

4.6. Implications for Practice

5. Recommendations for Future Research

It is important that future research efforts evaluate the maintenance and generalization of intervention effects. Kuttler et al. [ 20] found generalization of effects of Social Stories, but these results have not been replicated. There is support for the maintenance of the effects of Social Stories [ 14], but some reports have been anecdotal [ 27] or weak and inconsistent [ 26]. Future studies should assess maintenance after fading the Social Story and also evaluate the effectiveness of Social Stories in a variety of settings, or with a variety of behaviors.

Next, future research should evaluate the critical components required for effective Social Story implementation and how or when to use Social Stories as part of a larger intervention. This study revealed that modifying the Social Story per Gray and Garand's [ 2] recommendations did not result in increased prosocial behaviors. It may be that Social Stories are most effective as less intensive supports or reminders, during the generalization or maintenance phases of more intensive instructional strategies that have been successfully implemented. It is also imperative that researchers evaluate what are critical components of the Social Story intervention including number of days read, types and quality of comprehension questions, sentence ratios and types, and number and type of illustrated examples. These are many variables that have not been isolated in the current Social Story literature. The results of these types of studies can reveal the critical components for successful implementation of Social Stories [ 8, 10, 13].

It will be important for future researchers to continue to study peer micronorms on social behavior. Since no data could be located concerning micronorms for target prosocial behavior studied in the current research, it is imperative that researchers continue to include peer data in future studies. Only by understanding acceptable peer norms for social behavior can researchers select appropriate prosocial behavior targets for participants in studies.

Finally, since the treatment effects were variable across the four participants in this study, it is critical to determine who best benefits from Social Stories. It is essential to determine why one participant benefits from the intervention greater than another. In this study, neither the SRS nor the CCITSN scores appeared to predict increases in prosocial skills. Future research should identify the characteristics of children who respond to Social Stories. It is important for future researchers to assess the use of Social Stories with a variety of children with varying skills and diagnoses.

6. Summary

This study evaluated the effects of a Social Story intervention in four young children with ASD. The results of this study add to the current small though growing literature base in support of the use of Social Stories for some children. Though the results are promising, the current research must be replicated while addressing future research needs.

Appendix A

N Plays in Preschool

N Plays with Friends in Preschool (Modified)

L Makes a Plan, Stays, and Plays

L Makes a Plan, Stays, and Plays (Modified)

P Stays and Plays

P Stays and Plays (Modified)

Disclosure

There was no funding for this research. There is no direct financial relation with the commercial identity mentioned in this paper that might lead to a conflict of interests for any of the authors.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.title
Utilizing Social Stories to Increase Prosocial Behavior and Reduce Problem Behavior in Young Children with Autism

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The purpose of this paper was to evaluate the effects of a Social Story intervention on the behavior rates of 4 young children with autism using a multiple-baseline across participants design.

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Encouraging Social Interaction of Children with Autism Spectrum Disorder with Social Stories

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Usage of Social Stories in Encouraging Social Interaction of Children with Autism Spectrum Disorder | Balakrishnan | Journal of ICSAR

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Chamberlain, B., Kasari, C., & Rotheram-Fuller, E. (2007). Involvement or isolation? The social networks of children with autism in regular classrooms. Journal of Autism and Developmental Disorders, 37(2), 230-242. Cook, K. A., & Willmerdinger, A. N., (2015). "The History of Autism". Narrative Documents. Book 1. Retrieved from http://scholarexchange.furman.edu/schopler-about/1 Cotugno, A.

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Social Stories were devised as a tool to help individuals with ASD (Autistic Spectrum Disorder) better understand the nuances of interpersonal communication so that they could "interact in an effective and appropriate manner". Although the prescribed format was meant for high functioning people with basic communication skills, the format was adapted substantially to suit individuals with poor communication skills and low level functioning (e.g. children who are struggling with understanding social situations or when coping with change). The evidence shows that there has been minimal improvement in social interaction skills. However, it is difficult to assess whether the concept would have been successful if it had been carried out as designed.

Social stories are being used, though, in targeted ways to prepare individuals for social interaction and to prepare individuals with autism for public events.

Social Stories are a concept devised by Carol Gray in 1991 to improve the social skills of people with autism spectrum disorders (ASD). The objective is to share information, which is often through a description of the events occurring around the subject and also why. Social stories are used to educate and as praise. They can be told by an educator, parent, a social worker or school psychologist. Social stories model appropriate social interaction by describing a situation with relevant social cues, other's perspectives, and a suggested appropriate response. About one half of the time, the stories are used to acknowledge and praise successful completion of an accomplishment.

Social stories are considered a type of social narrative.

Individuals with an ASD have significant impairments in the social domain as defined by the nature of the diagnosis as cited in the DSM-IV. The social impairment may include, but is not limited to, the use of body language, play skills, understanding emotions, and social communication ability. There is a great emphasis placed on the importance of teaching social skills to individuals with an ASD as it has been identified as one of the best indicators of positive long-term outcomes.

According to Attwood, "A social story is written with the intention of providing information and tuition on what people in a given situation are doing, thinking or feeling, the sequence of events, the identification of significant social cues and their meaning, and the script of what to do or say; in other words, the what, when, who and why aspects of social situations". It breaks down a challenging social situation into understandable steps by omitting irrelevant information and by being highly descriptive to help an individual with an ASD understand the entirety of a situation. It includes answers to questions such as who, what, when, where, and why in social situations through the use of visuals and written text. Social Stories are used to teach particular social skills, such as identifying important cues in a given situation; taking another's point of view; understanding rules, routines, situations, upcoming events or abstract concepts; and understanding expectations.

The goal of a Social Story is to reveal accurate social information in a clear and reassuring manner that is easily understood by the individual with an ASD. The improved understanding of the events and expectations may lead to a change in behavior, although it is suggested that the goal of a Social Story should not be to change individual behavior.

Social Stories use a specifically defined style and format. In the initial version, four types of sentences were used (descriptive, perspective, directive, affirmative), along with a basic sentence type ratio. Control, co-operative and partial sentences types have been added to the model.

While the primary mode of presentation of Social Stories remains written text, other formats have been trialled with younger children and people with intellectual disabilities. Such formats have included singing, apron story-telling, and computer-based presentations.

There are seven sentence types that may be used in a Social Story.

Descriptive sentences: are truthful and observable sentences (opinion- and assumption-free) that identify the most relevant factors in a social situation. They often answer "why" questions.

Perspective sentences: refer to or describe the internal state of other people (their knowledge/thoughts, feelings, beliefs, opinions, motivation or physical condition) so that the individual can learn how others' perceive various events.

Directive sentences: presents or suggests, in positive terms, a response or choice of responses to a situation or concept.

Affirmative sentences: enhances the meaning of statements and may express a commonly shared value or opinion. They can also stress the important points, refer to a law or rule to reassure the learner.

Control sentences: identifies personal strategies the individual will use to recall and apply information. They are written by the individual after reviewing the Social Story.

Cooperative sentences: describe what others will do to assist the individual. This helps to ensure consistent responses by a variety of people.

Partial sentences: encourages the individual to make guesses regarding the next step in a situation, the response of another individual, or his/her own response. Any of the above sentences can be written as a partial sentence with a portion of the sentence being a blank space to complete.

Social Story ratio: Two to five cooperative, descriptive, perspective, and/or affirmative sentences for every directive or control sentence.

It was suggested originally that this method should be used with only higher functioning individuals who possess basic language ability; however, these guidelines were expanded to include children with more severe learning disabilities. To accommodate differences in ability, one sentence per page paired with pictures could help individuals concentrate on one concept at a time while the pictures enhance the meaning of the text. The addition of pictorial representation or visual is supported by claims that many individuals with an ASD learn visually. The efficacy of using Social Stories with other populations of individuals, other than those with an ASD, has not yet been sufficiently studied.

Although Social Stories have been recommended as an effective intervention for children with ASD since the early 1990s, the research on their effectiveness is still limited.

The American Psychological Association has identified two levels of criteria which are used to consider an intervention "empirically supported". An intervention is considered well established if it meets the following criteria:

greater than nine well-controlled single-case design studies comparing the intervention to another treatment

the studies have treatment manuals

the studies clearly describe characteristics of the client samples

An intervention is considered probably efficacious if it meets the above criteria for greater than three single-case studies.

Social Stories are neither considered well established, nor considered probably efficacious, due to the limitations of the current body of research.

Reviews of the use of Social Stories have found that the reported effects were highly inconsistent, that they allow for stimulus control to be transferred from teachers and peers directly to the student with an ASD, and that there was substantial variation in the delivery of the intervention. Changes in target behavior were generally modest. A 2006 review found Social Stories to be in the non-effective range in interventions or at very best, in the low end of the mildly effective range. It was often hard to attribute success to the Social Story technique since there were multiple interventions used simultaneously. Specifically, many of the studies used prompting methods such as verbal, visual or physical prompts and/or positive reinforcement. Two reviews suggested that continual implementation may be required; children should reread their Social Stories with some frequency to continue to benefit from their desired effects.

Social stories can be used to communicate ways in which an autistic person can prepare themselves for social interaction. Comic strip conversations, a complementary technique developed by Carol Gray, are "visual representations" of conversations and social interactions that aim to help an individual understand social processes and increase their comprehension of other peoples thoughts and actions.

Social stories are used as part of Theatre Development Fund (TDF) Autism Theatre Initiative to "make theatre accessible to children and adults on the autism spectrum". Social stories, which explain loud noises, needing a break and moving through a crowd, were made available prior to the performance.

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5. ^ White, Susan Williams (2011). Social Skills Training for Children with Asperger Syndrome and High-Functioning Autism. Guilford Press. p. 95. ISBN 978-1-60918-209-0 - via Google Books.

6. ^ Attwood, Tony (March 1, 2000). "Strategies for Improving the Social Integration of Children with Asperger Syndrome". . 4 (1): 85-100. doi:10.1177/1362361300004001006.

7. Scattone D, Wilczynski SM, Edwards RP, Rabian B (December 2002). "Decreasing disruptive behaviors of children with autism using Social Stories". Journal of Autism and Developmental Disorders. 32 (6): 535-43. doi:10.1023/A:1021250813367. PMID 12553590.

8. Gray, Carol A.; Garand, Joy D. (1993). "Social Stories: improving responses of students with autism with accurate social information". Focus on Autistic Behavior. 8 (1): 1-10. doi:10.1177/108835769300800101.

9. ^ Crozier S, Tincani M (2007). "Effects of Social Stories on prosocial behavior of preschool children with autism spectrum disorders". Journal of Autism and Developmental Disorders. 37 (9): 1803-14. doi:10.1007/s10803-006-0315-7. PMID 17165149.

10. ^ Brownell M (2002). "Musically adapted Social Stories to modify behaviors in students with autism: four case studies". Journal of Music Therapy. 39 (2): 117-144. doi:10.1093/jmt/39.2.117. PMID 12213082.

11. ^ Nichols SL, Hupp SD, Jewell JD, Zeigler CS (2005). "Review of Social Story interventions for children diagnosed with autism spectrum disorders". Journal for Evidence-Based Practices for Schools. 6 (1): 90-120.

12. Reynhout G, Carter M (2006). "Social Stories for children with disabilities". J Autism Dev Disord. 36 (4): 445-69. doi:10.1007/s10803-006-0086-1. PMID 16755384.

13. ^ Rust J, Smith A (March 2006). "How should the effectiveness of Social Stories to modify the behaviour of children on the autistic spectrum be tested? Lessons from the literature". Autism. 10 (2): 125-38. doi:10.1177/1362361306062019. PMID 16613863.

14. ^ Social stories: their uses and benefits. The National Autistic Society. Retrieved September 8, 2012.

15. ^ Comic strip conversations. Archived 2012-10-28 at the Wayback Machine The National Autistic Society. Retrieved September 8, 2012.

16. Piepenberg, Erik. (August 31, 2011). ^ "Program Hopes to Make Broadway Friendlier to Those With Autism." The New York Times. Retrieved September 8, 2012.

17. ^ Moving through crowds. Theatre Development Fund. Retrieved September 8, 2012.

Examples of targeted use of social stories

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Social Stories were devised as a tool to help individuals with ASD (Autistic Spectrum Disorder) better understand the nuances of interpersonal communication so that they could "interact in an effective and appropriate manner". Although the prescribed format was meant for high functioning people with basic communication skills, the format was adapted substantially to suit individuals with poor communication skills and low level functioning (e.g.

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Social Stories. We say it a lot, but do you know what they actually are and how they can help your students?

What are Social Stories:

The concept of Social Stories is attributed to Carol Gray. She began developing the concept in the 1990's and if you look on her website she has a few articles explaining the history. In short, a social story is a learning tool that is used to provide social supports for individuals. Social Stories are evidence-based and help the individual using the social story understand some of the little things in life that we often know innately. If you are doing a true Social Story, then you follow Carol Gray's protocol. Honestly, I think the ones I write do not follow the protocol, but they work!

Why should I use Social Stories with my students:

Social Stories are great ways to help students understand expectations, routines, behaviors in a specific situation. Social stories can provide visual/pictorial examples of expectations and are usually in story form which makes them more interesting to our students.

Which students should I use Social Stories with?

All of them! Ok, so I know typically we that that social stories should be used for students with Autism, but I have found that they work with all of my students. Sometimes, just have those expectations written out is a reminder of what the student should be doing.

How do I write social stories?

I promise it is not as hard as it seems. A great way to start is a good old google search for social stories on ou specific topic. I usually don't find exactly what I need, but I then can sometimes get some ideas and make the story fit my situation. I like to use real pictures and will go around taking pictures of set up situations for pictures to demonstrate what behavior I want. For instance, I have a student who is having a lot of difficulties getting on the bus. My first step was to take a picture of the bus drive, bus aide, the seat the student sit in, and the bus. I then was able to write the student a story about getting on the bus, riding to school, getting off to see all their friends and having fun at school. Guess what? Getting on the bus has been much easier.

If you want to know more about the prescribed way of writing a Social Story, this article from PBISWORLD is useful.

I wrote it, now what?

Introduce the story to your student in a non-stressful time. For example, a story about how we handle name calling should not be presented for the first time as a reaction to the student being called a name. It should be introduced beforehand so the student is familiar with the story. It can then be pulled out in that specific situation. The story should also be reviewed at various times to remind the student of the expected behavior. I often keep a copy of the story in the student's desk or book box, a copy in my classroom and I send a copy home. This provides lots of opportunities to practice the skills and allows parents to be an active participant.

Where can I find more information?

Here are some websites where you can find out more about Social Stories or find some examples:

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Social Stories. We say it a lot, but do you know what they actually are and how they can help your students? The concept of Social Stories is attributed to Carol Gray. She began developing the concept in the 1990's and if you look on her website she has a few articles explaining the history.

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Using social stories to increase emotion recognition and labeling in school-age children with autism

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Using social stories to increase emotion recognition and labeling in school-age children with autism

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THE PROBLEM: The purpose of the present study was to investigate the usefulness of a social story interventionto increase emotion recognition and labeling sk...

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Resources from School Psychologist Dr. John Seaman | Intervention Central

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This page provides links to free resources for school practitioners created by Dr. John Seaman.

Dr. Seaman served as school psychologist in the Salt Lake City area for 36 years before retiring. He earned Bachelors and Masters Degrees from Arizona State University and a Doctoral Degree in Educational Psychology from The University of Utah. Dr. Seaman is also an Adjunct Professor of Psychology at Salt Lake Community College. Fishing, gardening, and reading occupy his free time. John and his wife Kathy are the parents of three sons and have three grandchildren.

You can access Dr. Seaman's resources from the Internet Archive using the links below. You can email Dr. Seaman at: jkseaman365@gmail.com

PEOPLE SMART: Social Skills Elementary Revised (Grades 3-4) (Microsoft Word Format): Social Skills Elementary Revised is a story based, direct instruction curriculum that teaches a variety of critical social skills in the elementary classroom. Skills are divided into relationship building skills and coping skills. Each skill is introduced by a story dilemma that captures student attention. Role playing is used in the class to practice the skill and homework activities enhance generalization. While written for regular classroom presentation, the program is easily adapted to meet the needs of special populations.

PEOPLE SMART: Social Skills Junior High (Middle School) (Microsoft Word Format): Social Skills Junior High is a direct instruction social skills development curriculum that teaches a variety of critical skills to middle school students. Skills are divided into two categories: relationship building skills and coping skills. Stories are presented to elicit student interest and involvement. Students also complete stories using the skills taught. Homework activities support skill generalization. The curriculum is written for presentation in regular classroom settings (e.g., English Class) but can be easily modified for presentation to special populations.

Teaching Kids to Learn Study Skills Curriculum (PDF Format): Teaching Kids to Learn is an integrated study skills curriculum designed for presentation is grades 5 - 7. Eight critical study skills are taught: listening strategies, organizational skills, note taking from a lecture, noting taking when reading, memory strategies (ten specific mnemonic devices), organizing homework, and resisting peer pressure to talk in class or avoid homework. Story based dilemmas read to students elicit student interest and serve as starting points to introduce specific study methods. Homework activities are assigned to practice skill use and promote generalization. Posters describing each study skill are provided. While Teaching Kids to Learn is written for presentation in regular classroom settings, the material can readily be modified for presentation to special populations.

Cognitive And Academic Interventions (Microsoft Word Format): Cognitive and Academic Interventions is a compendium of accommodations and instructional interventions to address processing deficits and specific academic skill deficits of students in all grades. Processing deficits are taken from Cattell-Horn-Carroll Theory and are: long term retrieval deficits, short term memory deficits, processing speed deficits, auditory processing and phonemic awareness deficits, visual spatial thinking deficits, comprehension/knowledge and language deficits and fluid reasoning deficits. Accommodations and instructional interventions are presented for the following academic deficits: basic reading skills, reading comprehension, spelling, basic math, math reasoning, penmanship and copying fluency. In addition, nineteen research validated academic interventions are described.

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Resources from School Psychologist Dr. John Seaman

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This page provides links to free resources for school practitioners created by Dr. John Seaman. Dr. Seaman served as school psychologist in the Salt Lake City area for 36 years before retiring. He earned Bachelors and Masters Degrees from Arizona State University and a Doctoral Degree in Educational Psychology from The University of Utah.

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Autism Spectrum Social Stories In Schools Trial (ASSSIST): study protocol for a feasibility randomised controlled trial analysing clinical and cost-effectiveness of Social Stories in mainstream schools | BMJ Open

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Introduction Current evidence suggests that Social Stories can be effective in tackling problem behaviours exhibited by children with autism spectrum disorder. Exploring the meaning of behaviour from a child's perspective allows stories to provide social information that is tailored to their needs. Case reports in children with autism have suggested that these stories can lead to a number of benefits including improvements in social interactions and choice making in educational settings.

Methods and analysis The feasibility of clinical and cost-effectiveness of a Social Stories toolkit will be assessed using a randomised control framework. Participants (n=50) will be randomised to either the Social Stories intervention or a comparator group where they will be read standard stories for an equivalent amount of time. Statistics will be calculated for recruitment rates, follow-up rates and attrition. Economic analysis will determine appropriate measures of generic health and resource use categories for cost-effectiveness analysis. Qualitative analysis will ascertain information on perceptions about the feasibility and acceptability of the intervention.

Ethics and dissemination National Health Service Ethics Approval (NHS; ref 11/YH/0340) for the trial protocol has been obtained along with NHS Research and Development permission from Leeds and York Partnership NHS Foundation Trust. All adverse events will be closely monitored, documented and reported to the study Data Monitoring Ethics Committee. At least one article in a peer reviewed journal will be published and research findings presented at relevant conferences.

Trial registration number ISRCTN96286707.

View Full Text

Study design

We aim to examine the feasibility of a cluster RCT to be conducted to compare the clinical and cost-effectiveness of Social Stories with an attention control. Qualitative interviews will be conducted within the feasibility design to explore the acceptability of the intervention and its delivery. The study will be conducted between November 2011 and October 2014.

Inclusion criteria

Child participants will be recruited between the ages of 5 and 15 years, will be required to have a previous diagnosis of ASD (including autism, Asperger syndrome and atypical autism) using International Classification of Diseases 10th revision, research diagnostic criteria, 17 supported by Autism Diagnostic Interview-Revised (ADI-R), 18 and/or autism diagnostic observation schedule (ADOS). 19 Participants will be required to have behavioural or social problems in school (as reported by parents and teachers). We have deliberately kept the age range broad in order to explore the acceptability of this intervention across age ranges and different settings (eg, primary and secondary schools) to inform a fully powered trial.

This is a pragmatic trial which recognises the frequency and complexity of comorbidities in children with ASD. We will therefore not exclude participants on the basis of comorbidity since the intervention would eventually be offered to this group if adopted more widely in the National Health Service (NHS). This will ensure that the research remains relevant to everyday clinical practice.

Exclusion criteria

Children will not be included in the study if they have used a Social Story within the past 6 months. We will exclude children if they are likely to be moving school during the trial period, or if they develop an illness or behaviour that warrants admission to a psychiatric unit (eg, psychosis and serious self-harm). These exclusion criteria were informed by discussions with parents who had previously used Social Stories in a focus group prior to submitting the funding application.

Recruitment procedure

The research team will give presentations about the research to local autism support groups, 20 and provide presentations and leaflets through clinicians to parents of children with ASD attending mainstream schools. Letters will also be sent to potentially eligible schools inviting them to participate. Potential participants within these schools will either be sent information leaflets by post or schools will introduce the research. The study will also recruit through the York Autism Spectrum Disorders Forum, a multiagency, multidisciplinary forum for diagnosing and discussing provision of supporting interventions for all local children on the autism spectrum. Letters will also be sent from this Forum to parents whose children are enrolled in a potentially eligible school.

Interested families will be invited to meet a researcher for further information if their child has a diagnosis of ASD and has behavioural problems in a mainstream school. Schools will be approached to take part in the study through an existing network of clinical and educational practitioners and researchers. There are 131 primary and secondary schools in the York Local Authority. Two of these are secondary schools designated as ASD supportive schools. We anticipate that we will need to recruit from 40 schools, although we will test the feasibility of this and be adaptable to recruit fewer or more by staggering school involvement and leaving enough time in the study for flexibility.

Randomisation and allocation concealment

We will adopt a cluster randomisation approach. This is to minimise the likelihood of participants in the intervention and comparator groups being affected by changes in teacher or school behaviour. It also recognises that Social Story expertise within a school is likely to be enhanced by the sharing of skills and networking of ideas. This design therefore more accurately reflects what would happen if these stories were used within a school in practice. We will stratify school randomisation using minimisation to take into account numbers of children with ASD, levels of support, socioeconomic indices and value-added measures. To limit detection bias, the schools will be randomised only once consent has been gained for all participating families in each school.

Allocation to groups will be conducted by the York Trials Unit through the use of a custom-made computer program which will account for the stratification variables. The program will not contain any personal details but will allocate participants by anonymous participant numbers.

Sample size

As this is a feasibility study, a formal sample size calculation was not undertaken. We have considered that collecting outcome data on approximately 50 children (25 in each arm) would be sufficient to address our objectives. As this is a cluster randomised trial, we estimate that 1-2 children will be recruited from each school, hence aim to recruit at least 30 schools.

Treatments

Schools will be randomised to one of two arms; the intervention group and the comparator group. In both groups, children will receive all other treatment or support as usual and we will monitor this.

Blinding

Blinding of the participants (inclusive of teachers, parents and children) will not be feasible due to the nature of the intervention, nor will blinding of all members of the study team who are actively involved in the administration of the study. However, members of the study team responsible for the statistical and economic analysis will be kept blind to group allocation.

Outcome measurement

Feasibility and clinical outcomes analysis

In line with recommendations about good practice in the analysis of feasibility studies, 27 analysis will be descriptive and no comparisons of the outcomes between the two arms of the trial will be conducted. Descriptive statistics will be calculated for recruitment rates, follow-up rates, and attrition and baseline characteristics. These will be presented as means and SDs or 95% CIs, medians and IQR, or percentages. Descriptive statistics and 95% CIs will also be calculated for the outcome measures. We will examine the effects of diagnosis and age of the participants when carrying out the analysis and use the data to develop estimates for a fully powered RCT that will include estimates of change in outcome measures over time taking into account attrition and follow-up rates. All analyses will be undertaken on Stata.

Economics analysis

Economic analysis that will be conducted alongside this feasibility RCT aims to inform the choice of appropriate measures of generic health. Additionally, it will enable us to identify the relevant resource use categories for the cost-effectiveness analysis, and evaluate the feasibility and challenges of measuring costs and outcomes in the target population.

To assess whether economic analysis conducted alongside a fully powered RCT would be feasible, a within-trial cost-effectiveness analysis will be conducted. This analysis will aim to provide provisional estimates of the incremental cost per unit of effectiveness of the Social Stories toolkit compared with an attention control in children with ASD.

This economic analysis will first indicate the expected implications of implementing various generic health questionnaires on the research outcomes. EQ-5DY and HUI2 will primarily be evaluated to determine which measures of generic health are most appropriate within the study context and cohort.

The perspective will evaluate appropriate cost consequence that should be considered in a full evaluation. Primarily the perspective of the NHS will be adopted in line with explicit guidelines. Furthermore, as the implications of behavioural problems extend beyond healthcare alone, costs falling outside of the healthcare system will also be evaluated. The cost of the Social Stories intervention will be calculated by estimating the time spent by individuals delivering the intervention, the cost of training and other resources used.

Qualitative analysis

Qualitative semistructured interviews will be conducted using a topic guide developed to ascertain information on perceptions about the feasibility and acceptability of the intervention. In addition, we will gather a range of opinions and themes about the helpful and unhelpful parts of the Social Story intervention, the characteristics of those who would be best placed to deliver the intervention, which professional groups are best equipped to deliver and/or support this package; and the mode of delivery including the role of parents or carers and the style of the manual. Where appropriate this may include information on construction of the Social Stories, the teaching of the Social Story theory and dissemination.

Ethics

We do not anticipate that trial participants will be subject to any risks during this study. Social Stories are widely used and focus on positive social and situational coping, and are therefore unlikely to cause any harm to participants. A possible ethical concern with the study is that the control group will not receive the Social Story intervention during the trial. We have minimised this by holding a free workshop, at the end of the study, about the use of Social Stories for those parents and teachers within the control group.

It is possible that parents may become distressed when talking about their child's ASD. The clinicians involved in the Social Stories training are very experienced in dealing with parents experiencing distress and are well placed to either provide support or refer on to other support as necessary. Similarly, should a child become distressed, the teachers, clinicians and researchers will have agreed prior to the study initiation, any necessary actions, distractions, activities or support that will be employed in this event.

All participant information will be stored in accordance with the Data Protection Act 1998. Participants' personal identifiable information will be stored in a locked filing cabinet and all participant data will be anonymised by allocating each participant with an ID number. Anonymised participant data will be saved on a password-protected secure computer drive which only members of the research team will have access to. Participants' personal identifiable data will be stored in a separate location to anonymise participant data. All data will be maintained by the research coordinator.

Informing potential trial participants

Information sheets will be provided to teachers and parents. Separate information sheets for children aged 5-10 and 11-15 years will be used. Interested parents will choose either to contact a researcher by telephone or let their school know they would like to find out more. Therefore, potential participants will always have a minimum of 24 h to decide whether or not to take part. We will contact the participants by letter or telephone if any relevant information related to ASD or Social Stories becomes available during the study. All information leaflets and consent forms will be codeveloped by the research team and the Patient and Public Involvement group to ensure acceptability among participants.

Obtaining informed consent

If, after reading the information sheets, children and parents are still interested in taking part, an appointment will be made with a researcher. At this appointment there will be the opportunity to ask any questions relating to the research and to consent to the study if they are happy to do so. Written consent will be obtained from parents and consent or assent from children and young people will be obtained where possible.

Dissemination plan

We will publish the results of our study in high-profile mainstream and specialist science journals and publications with high readership among clinical staff. Presentations of study findings will be taken to relevant research conferences, local research symposiums and seminars for Child and Adolescent Mental Health Service (CAMHS) professionals. In addition, the National Autistic Society and members of service user groups such as Autism Spectrum Conditions-Enhancing Nurture and Development (ASCEND) will be consulted in the development of methods for dissemination which will be effective in reaching families of children with ASD. To specifically address empirical issues uncovered in the economic analysis, publication will be sought in a peer-reviewed journal. Additionally, we will produce a short summary of results that can be distributed to all trial participants as well as relevant patient and other interest groups. Finally, we will aim to ensure coverage of our findings in the wider media by issuing a press release.

View Abstract

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Autism Spectrum Social Stories In Schools Trial (ASSSIST): study protocol for a feasibility randomised controlled trial analysing clinical and cost-effectiveness of Social Stories in mainstream schools

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Introduction Current evidence suggests that Social Stories can be effective in tackling problem behaviours exhibited by children with autism spectrum disorder. Exploring the meaning of behaviour from a child's perspective allows stories to provide social information that is tailored to their needs.

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Improving Student Social Skills through the Use of Children's Literature

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This report describes a program for improvement of student social skills to include respect for self and others, conflict resolution, and self-control. The targeted population consisted of first, fifth, and seventh graders located in northwestern Illinois. The problems of deficiencies in social skills were documented. Data were collected from discipline referrals, teacher journal entries, and student surveys. Analysis of probable cause data revealed that students lacked social skills in the areas of respect, empathy, self-control, responsibility, and conflict resolution. Review of the literature suggested that students lacked appropriate social skills due to increased negative social pressures. Other causes that were identified were lack of values taught in the home, student mobility, and the fact that social skills were not given the same emphasis as other academic skills. A review of solution strategies resulted in the decision to improve social skills development through the use of children's literature, direct instruction, and cooperative learning. Post intervention data indicated social skills instruction resulted in improved student behavior and conflict management. Classroom teachers reported that students' use of appropriate social skills increased after the intervention. (Contains 30 references, and a table and 5 figures of data. Appendixes contain survey instruments, an observation checklist, and lesson plans for grades 1, 5, and 7 dealing with respect, empathy, self-control, responsibility, and conflict resolution.) (Author/RS)

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ERIC - ED444161 - Improving Student Social Skills through the Use of Children's Literature., 2000-May

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This report describes a program for improvement of student social skills to include respect for self and others, conflict resolution, and self-control. The targeted population consisted of first, fifth, and seventh graders located in northwestern Illinois. The problems of deficiencies in social skills were documented.

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Friendship and Stories: Using Children's Literature to Teach Friendship Skills to Children with Learning Disabilities - Katherine L. DeGeorge, 1998

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Friends are people who know and like each other. All human beings need and want to share the common bond of friendship with others. Traditionally, making friends is viewed as a natural and simple ongoing process. Children with disabilities, particularly learning disabilities, do not always make friends as effortlessly and easily as do their nondisabled peers. Through the use of children's literature, children with learning disabilities can be taught valuable skills that will enable them to make and maintain friendships.

Asher, S. R. , & Renshaw, P. D. (1981). Children without friends: Social knowledge and social training. In S. R. Asher &J. M. Gottman (Eds.), The development of children's friendships (pp. 273-296). New York: Cambridge University Press.
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Rosenthal, A. L. (1997). Using metacognitive strategies to teach students social skills. Teaching Exceptional Children, 29(3), 29-31. |
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Selman, R. L. (1981). The child as a friendship philosopher. In S. R. Asher &J. M. Gottman (Eds.), The development of children's friendships (pp. 242-272). New York: Cambridge University Press.
Google Scholar

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Google Scholar

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Friendship and Stories: Using Children's Literature to Teach Friendship Skills to Children with Learning Disabilities - Katherine L. DeGeorge, 1998

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
Friends are people who know and like each other. All human beings need and want to share the common bond of friendship with others. Traditionally, making friends is viewed as a natural and simple ongoing process. Children with disabilities, particularly learning disabilities, do not always make friends as effortlessly and easily as do their nondisabled peers.

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Paper

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‎Over 30 million people set their ideas free with Paper®, the award-winning immersive sketching app. SKETCH WITH CONFIDENCE Paper's perfectly-tuned tools make it easy to sketch, collage, paint, draw-wherever your thoughts take you. Wave goodbye to distracting menus and let natural gestures guide you...

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Navigating Social Situations | Examples of Social Stories

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Navigating Social Situations | Examples of Social Stories

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Help students with social anxiety deal with social situations at home, school, or the community with role-play examples. Make your own stories tailored to each student's needs.

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Storybird

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Cool Cat Teacher Blog: 7 Ways to Incorporate Social Emotional Learning (SEL) Into the Classroom

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From the Cool Cat Teacher Blog by Vicki Davis

Follow @coolcatteacher on Twitter

Social emotional learning is a hot topic these days. Some states are trying to write SEL into their state standards. Truly, when many of us read about emotional intelligence many years ago, we started discussing social emotional learning. Simply put, SEL is about helping our students develop the emotional awareness, thinking, and behavior to be successful.

If a child knows everything about history but can't walk down the hall without hitting or insulting someone, clearly we haven't educated that child. Likewise, we see children who get along with everyone but struggle to read or do math. We need to teach both academic and personal skills.

Responding to the proliferation of conversations about social emotional learning, I'd like to offer a few simple steps to help schools put SEL into their classrooms. In my opinion, some things that are classified as SEL seem to be suspect, while other things, like metacognition and adaptability, are what we need to teach.

Exactly What Is Social Emotional Learning?

First, let's define social emotional learning. According to the book Building Academic Success on Social and Emotional Learning: What Does the Research Say?:

"We define SEL as the process through which children enhance their ability to integrate thinking, feeling, and behaving to achieve important life tasks.

Those competent in SEL are able to recognize and manage their emotions, establish healthy relationships, set positive goals, meet personal and social needs, and make responsible and ethical decisions" (Elias et al., 1997; Payton et al., 2000).*

Wow! That sounds like a lot. However, if we think about it, growth mindset, metacognitive behaviors, and interpersonal skills are all things we've been using in schools for some time. Let's break this down and look at some ideas for integrating SEL in the classroom.

1. Identify What SEL Means at Your School

Because the research talks about multi-age consistency and how SEL should be integrated across all areas of a school (including extracurricular), I'm convinced that it's vital to understand and agree upon what SEL means at your school.

TeacherVision (this post's sponsor) brings SEL into their lessons with the FutureFit framework. It could be a good starting point. But whatever you decide, it's important to have conversations about which SEL topics your school will discuss and reinforce throughout your system. Whether it's growth mindset, kindness, adaptability, or creativity, you can go many directions with this.

One word of caution, however - not everything labeled SEL is necessarily something that you may choose to tackle. While reading about the research and work on SEL, I was filled with concern at some topics that arose. For example, so many children don't have adults in their lives to help them answer the hard questions:

"Why am I here?"

"How do I handle death?"

"What about suffering?"

These are just a few of the questions that young people ask about life. And certainly, some SEL advocates argue that these are topics for teachers in schools to discuss with kids.

My struggle with asking these important questions about human existence is that such thinking can and should be greatly impacted by parents, religious affiliation, and other people of influence in children's lives. As teachers, how successfully can we transcend the bias of our own personal belief systems? It is often the temptation of schools to prepackage "easy answers" when, in reality, some things in life have no easy answers.

So, with this caution in mind, the vital first step is understanding the traits and topics that will become part of your SEL framework. The answer for a religious school may be quite different from that of a public school, for example. I'm not sure that one size fits all. But please don't let this deter you from talking SEL, because I believe every school needs to tackle this topic.
(In my opinion, FutureFit stays away from this sensitive area and may be a good start for some of you. I've included their graphic below.
2. Identify Disconnected Students in Your School

Before you can educate, you've got to relate. So wherever you are in your SEL conversation, here's something you can do right now. There are kids walking halls who lack a relationship with anyone at your school. How do you find these students and help build connections with them?

Principal Nancy Blair has a genius idea. Halfway through the year, she gave her team five minutes to

"...list the names of all the students that they knew; not only ones they were currently teaching, but any students whose names they knew. And we compiled a list.

"And then we found all the children that nobody in the building, 60-some teachers, nobody mentioned. And then talked about why does this happen? How can this happen? And what do we need to put in place to make sure this doesn't happen?

"We over time have continued that kind of practice to make sure that every child has some kind of positive contact with people, that somebody really knows them. We take the time to build relationships with children through teambuilding activities and just conversation."

So, after you've given some time for teachers and students to get to know one another, take time to identify the disconnected students. Then, actively plan to connect these students to help them build healthy relationships with a teacher or staff members. Be intentional about it.

We can talk about SEL all we want to, but without a relationship with teachers, it's difficult to help kids "establish healthy relationships." Building these connections is an important starting point.

3. Understand That SEL Should Be a Continuous Effort

Helping students "recognize and manage emotions" starts with helping them identify those emotions and express them privately to their teachers. Here are several examples of how teachers and administrators are helping students by making a continuous effort to incorporate SEL into their classrooms.

Mood surveys. When students walk into Jennie Magiera's classroom, she has them complete a mood survey in Google Forms. She says that it helps her relate better to her students.

Private feedback. Teacher Kyle Schwartz asks her students, "What do you wish your teacher knew?" and sees powerful results and relationships.

Catch students doing great things and amplify it. Great teachers and administrators notice what is happening and build on those experiences. For example, at Will Parker's school, the teachers noticed that girls were posting positive Post-it notes in the girls' bathroom. So they nurtured the kindness, and it grew. When they shared what was happening on the school Facebook page, the story went viral. Kindness became part of their culture, because teachers noticed what was happening and administrators amplified the experience.

Create teachable moments. But perhaps the greatest example of noticing comes from Principal Tim Hadley. A young man came to school with his head shaved in honor of his grandfather who was fighting cancer. After students began making fun of the young man, Tim decided to act. In a public assembly with the whole school watching, Principal Hadley shaved his head. He says,

"I think I walked away really truly understanding for the first time how deep and how connected we really are and how much we really need each other - from students all the way to staff. We all have a battle that we're all facing, and we all need support in that. And in the end, we only have each other."

As teachers and administrators relate and look for teachable moments, we can make social emotional learning part of everything we do. Often, problems are the canvas upon which we paint the most powerful life-learning lessons.

We can talk all day, but seeing adults live their lives well creates unforgettable memories that students will recall until they are in a rocking chair at old age.

4. Integrate SEL Into Core Curriculum

This recommendation is one of the more difficult for some teachers who use books and activities that focus on content without incorporating SEL.

For example, Carol McLaughlin, a second grade teacher in Alabama, initiated a project with the Birmingham zoo. Her students researched animals who they didn't see at the zoo and worked with zoo officials to recommend animals that kids would like. As part of the process, they had to discuss habitat and why some animals would not thrive in Alabama's hot environment.

Helping kids understand that the needs of animals should be considered is a step toward building empathy, even though they were studying habitats. As teachers, we must work to integrate social and emotional learning into our core subjects.

Today's sponsor, TeacherVision, lets you find supplementary lessons, activities, and projects that use SEL as part of teaching traditional content. They wanted me to write about SEL to help educate teachers on why it is important to use SEL in lessons. Try them out.

5. Teach SEL When Using Technology

Recently Dr. Michelle Zimmerman gave four examples of how SEL can be used in relation to technology.

Interestingly, she has been finding that face-to-face social skills do not translate to social skills while using technology. She says,

"But there are studies that have been showing up that [indicate that] even if you've gotten kids to be able to dialogue and converse in person and work through some of those differences, that same dialogue doesn't work the same when it's over a technological device.

"So, one of the most important things that I noticed is - teachers [need to] really intentionally use those as positive examples and find those students who are effectively using technology to build others up and then model it themselves."

So remember that if students in your school are able to give peer feedback, you'll also have to teach and reteach effective social and emotional skills when empowering peer feedback online. For example, your third graders might do a great job giving face-to-face feedback on essays. However, when they start giving feedback online in Seesaw (an online portfolio tool), you'll have to model and teach how to interact effectively.

Teachers are often surprised that, although they've taught kindness in the face-to-face classroom, students forget it when online. That's because they need to see and understand what kindness looks like in online spaces. This takes modeling. In both our face-to-face classrooms (the bricks) and online classrooms (the clicks), we must intentionally show what each SEL category looks like.

6. Enable Hands-On Learning and Service Projects

Some schools make time for "intercessory" projects or "minimesters." They'll set aside a week twice a year for special interdisciplinary projects. This is an excellent time to incorporate social emotional learning into the mix.

For example, at my school, we have done something that we call the Flint River Project. For one week, we split into teams and study the local Flint River. Literature teams write about the river. History teams research, document, and write about the history. My team of student filmmakers bring together comprehensive films about each of the projects. This hands-on project helps our students appreciate the local river while also helping us teach conservation and healthy relationships between students in multi-age teams.

7. Partner With Families and Communities

In the end, SEL is a team effort. All of the adults in a child's life help shape that child's ability to cope with emotions, behave in ways that help him or her succeed, and interact with others. The more closely we can work together to help children learn these skills, the more successful children will become. Creating partnerships is one way to do this.

For example, teacher Pauline Roberts created the sciracy project for her fifth graders. They merged science and literacy to become community consultants on sustainability practices. Students went into the community and worked with a variety of businesses.

Angela Maiers promotes the Choose2Matter movement, which helps kids do work that matters in the community and around the world.

And we cannot deny that students will have questions about things like death, suffering, and tragedy (especially when disaster strikes). When this happens, we must be in close communication with parents, youth workers, religious leaders, and those who can help children cope. When we partner and have healthy relationships around children, we show children that it can be done.

Social Emotional Learning Is Important

But in the end, education is not just about facts and content. We want children to be successful, and success isn't built upon knowledge alone. It also grows from life skills, emotional and physical health, and our ability to interrelate successfully. We are a world full of people who need knowledge about how to work together for a brighter future - and only some of that knowledge can be found in books.

Better social emotional learning in schools will take all of us. Hopefully, discussing these seven areas will give you a start.

__________

Footnotes

* Building Academic Success on Social and Emotional Learning: What Does the Research Say? (The Series on Social Emotional Learning) (Kindle Locations 250-253). Teachers College Press. Kindle Edition

Disclosure of Material Connection: This is a "sponsored blog post." The company who sponsored it compensated me via cash payment, gift, or something else of value to include a reference to their product. Regardless, I only recommend products or services I believe will be good for my readers and are from companies I can recommend. I am disclosing this in accordance with the Federal Trade Commission's 16 CFR, Part 255: "Guides Concerning the Use of Endorsements and Testimonials in Advertising.)

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7 Ways to Incorporate Social Emotional Learning (SEL) Into the Classroom

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From the Cool Cat Teacher Blog by Vicki Davis Follow @coolcatteacher on Twitter Social emotional learning is a hot topic these days. Some states are trying to write SEL into their state standards. Truly, when many of us read about emotional intelligence many years ago, we started discussing social emotional learning.

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Social Story Field Trip by One Giggle At A Time | TpT

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Get your students field trip ready with this engaging social story! What better way to help guide little ones in their positive behavior decision making!

In this book, students learn about:

field trip expectations

field trip procedures

walking procedures (for trips in walking distance)

bus procedures (for trips that are further away)

This product can be printed out as a hard copy or projected onto the Smart Board for viewing.

BONUS.... This product also includes:

student name tags for field trip

organizational planning page for grouping kids for the trip

organizational group notes for chaperones

This is a great resource to use as a whole class read aloud as well as for small group readings and individual use for students with autism or behavioral disorders.

This product includes multiple ideas for use in the classroom, including large group, small group, and individual instruction.

If you like this product, it is part of a series of Social Stories I have written and currently sell in my store! You can check out ALL my Social Stories HERE!

You may also like:
Field Trip Organization Social Story Field Trip Wagon Trails Classroom Management Celebration Tag Set
Don't forget that leaving feedback earns you points toward FREE TPT purchases....and I love reading your feedback!

Also, follow me and be notified when new products are uploaded. New products are always 50% off for the first 24 hours they are posted. It pays to follow me!

As always, please contact me with any questions!

Thank you so much,

Diane Romo

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Get your students field trip ready with this engaging social story! What better way to help guide little ones in their positive behavior decision making!In this book, students learn about:field trip expectationsfield trip procedureswalking procedures (for trips in walking distance)bus procedures (fo...

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The Discovery of Social Stories - Carol Gray - Social Stories

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Note: If you are beginning the Social Story history here, the article, "From Canada to Mexico: Welcome to New and Past Subscribers" (Gray, 1990b), provides a quick overview of the history of Social Stories prior to 1990.

"If the goal is independence, teach on an island. If the goal is interdependence, teach everywhere else." (Gray, 1991)

"Overall, the stories have been nothing but absolute success and have instilled excitement and enthusiasm in all of us down here in Cincinnati." (Garand, 1992)

"Why do we announce we will make dinner in "just a minute" when in fact we don't even know what we're having yet? Why do we tell someone we love the new tie they gave us... while we simultaneously plan to return it the next day? Miraculously, most of us can make sense of all this. Individually and collectively, we know what to do, and can recognize mistakes when we make them. Even for those

things we can't quite explain we have explanations for..."That's life," and "Life goes on." For children with autism, I believe the questions may be more numerous, and the explanations harder to come by." (Gray, 1992a)

In 1990, Nelson Mandela was freed. It was also the year of the Gardner Heist, the biggest art theft in history. In the United States a gallon of gas cost $1.28, we were watching "Home Alone" at the movies and "Cheers" at home. By this point in time, I was no longer listening to current hits on the radio as I drove to work. I sang along to anything from the sixties on my short commute. I have been doing so ever since. Also in 1990, Adobe Photoshop software was released, and we were beginning to write web pages. It was the year that I had a conversation with one of my students, Eric; the 'tipping point' that led to the first Social Story.

My Conversation with Eric

Eric was a student with autism in our grant-funded inclusion and vocational program. He had a problem with interrupting, an issue that extended back fifteen years to his early childhood. Regardless of what Eric's high school instructors said, he had a response. It didn't seem to matter if the instructor was talking with Eric individually, or if Eric was part of a small group or with the entire class. When Eric had something to say, he said it.

For years, I tried to teach Eric to raise his hand, wait for a turn to talk, and listen when others are talking. In my office, when Eric and I discussed why and how students raise their hands, he would raise his hand when I asked him to practice. Despite Eric's sincere and frequent promises to 'Stop interrupting,' his interrupting continued unabated. Despite a decade of positive behavior plans and interruption interventions, Eric had never held his comments back or raised his hand in class hand for a turn to speak.

An all-school assembly with a guest speaker marked a major turning point. The speaker walked onto the auditorium stage. He began by saying, "I'm going to talk to you today about change...". Eric had never been fond of change, and today was no exception. He shared his comments from his seat, loud enough for all to hear.

I was unable to attend the assembly. Still, I saw Eric's interruption of the assembly on video. That evening at home, I played the videotape several times. I consumed a lot of ice cream, straight from the container. I was frustrated; thinking it was time to move on. I decided that I would seek a kindergarten teaching position in the spring.

What did I have to lose? I called Eric down to my office to review the videotape of the assembly. We called it Social Reading (Gray, 1990g), a strategy that utilized videotaped sequences and a large display tablet for notes to support critical conversations with our students.

Eric and I watched the videotape of the assembly several times, and took notes to compare our perceptions of what had occurred. Eric said there were two people in the assembly: Eric and the speaker. Suddenly Eric's 'interrupting' made sense to me. Eric was doing what I had taught him to do as a young child; if someone talks to you, you answer. From Eric's perspective, he was attentive, responding to his teacher who, at the time, was the invited speaker.

After Eric had shared his description of the assembly, it was my turn. I told him that I saw about 500 students. In the course of comparing our notes, Eric said he wanted to "...stop interrupting". He began to create a list of things he needed to do to stop interrupting: Raise my hand. Listen when others are talking. Give others a turn. It was a list of all of the behaviors I had tried to teach him over the last several years. Eric returned to class with his list. For the first time in any class, Eric raised his hand.

Recently, I discovered a long lost Morning News that contains other details about my conversation with Eric that day. The article, "The Road to Independence is Lined with People" (Gray, 1991d) does not mention the assembly. Our conversation also included a discussion and review of video of Eric interrupting in his class. In addition, it mentions the use of 'social packets' to reinforce what Eric had learned and support generalization to other settings and over time.

For years, Eric had confidently told me that he would, "Stop interrupting.' I mistakenly had assumed he knew what that meant. Despite my knowledge of Eric's social impairment, somewhere I was harboring a mistaken attitude that Eric and I have the same set of social equipment. At the same time, I had underestimated his potential. Previous to the assembly conversation, if someone had asked me if Eric had the ability to apply an accurate description of an event to his behavior, I would have said 'no.'

The conversation between Eric and I was a turning point. We had invested years into the interrupting issue, and the importance of taking turns in conversation, without success. Placing the same information in writing made a critical difference. Eric understood and applied what he read.

The First Social Stories

At this time, I was also a consultant for students with autism in nearby Holland, Michigan. Tim, a kindergarten student, was having difficulty in his weekly physical education classes. I came to observe. Tim became very upset as the class played a game called "Charlie Over the Water" (an excerpt from my notes are below, right). Taking what I learned from Eric, I wrote a story titled, "Charlie Over the Water" (Gray, 1990a), to help Tim learn the rules to the game. Tim reviewed the story once a day and just prior to the next gym class. When the teacher announced that they were going to play "Charlie Over the Water" again, Tim raised his hand. He wanted to be Charlie and played the game calmly and competently.

I began writing additional stories with the help of my assistants. There were other areas where Tim was having difficulty. We responded with stories, for example, "It's Time for Recess at VanRaalte" (Gray, 1990d) and "Lines" (Gray, 1990e). Success with one story led to others. A few stories were unsuccessful.

We were curious about stories that had 'worked'. What did they have in common? At face value, each story addressed a different topic. Looking past the varied content, we discovered that the successful stories shared a patient and positive tone. We used that as a guide and began writing stories for other students.

The positive experiences with stories caused us to look again at the social packets that we had been using to support our students. They took on increased importance, and began to expand our thinking. An article in the next issue of The Morning News titled, "On Losing a Job" (Gray, 1990f), described how social packets saved a vocational placement. The preface in the same issue mentions Tim's stories. We encouraged subscribers to share ideas related to the use of stories to "...pool our resources" (Gray, p. 7). Things that previously seemed beyond the capabilities of our students, might be well within reach. We closed the issue with "Guesswork" (Gray, p. 8).

We were now in the final months of our Challenge Grant funding. In the May-June 1991 issue of The Morning News, we published excerpts from our completed curriculum manual, titled, * "The Curriculum System: Success as an Educational Outcome" (Gray, 1991a). The following September, the last grant-supported issue of The Morning News closed with two articles. First, "To the People of our Mailing List: Thank You" (Gray, 1991e) expressed our appreciation to our subscribers along with a complimentary copy of "The Curriculum System" manual. In the last article, "On Chances and Pit Bull Terriers", I wrote: "Teaching in the community is teaching toward planned goals and challenges, among factors we cannot always control. It's the classroom with the community invited. The last five years, it's been a great place to teach" (Gray, 1991b, p. 8).

A short time later, Future Horizons in Arlington, Texas, published "The Curriculum System: Success as an Educational Outcome" under the name, "What's Next? Preparing the Student with Autism or Other Developmental Disabilities for Life in the Community". It is out of print, but the original pre-published manuscript is available to download here.

In the summer of 1991, at the Autism Society of America's annual conference in Indianapolis, I shared the activities of our grant and the resulting Curriculum System manual. I mentioned our successes writing stories for students with autism. I was very nervous because I was incredibly shy about speaking before large groups at the time. To add to the anxiety, Ruth Sullivan, Ph.D., a well-respected pioneer in the field of autism, was in the audience. Joy Garand (Joy's is now married, she's Joy D. Nichols), a teacher from Ohio, was also in the audience.

A few months after the conference, Joy sent me a letter (Garand, 1991). I recall reading her letter as I walked down the hall leading to my office. I never looked up; walked right past my office. I was so impressed that Social Stories were 'working' in Michigan and Ohio! In fact, I had to see it myself. I traveled to Cincinnati, where I was impressed by Joy's infectious enthusiasm and amazed by the success of her students and the stories she was writing for them. My visit with Joy gave me the confidence I needed to publish the first article describing Social Stories with a series of general guidelines (Gray, 1991).

Joy and I began collaborating. Early the following year, Joy wrote a second letter to describe her experiences with social stories. She also shared some of her stories with me, which I included in, "How to Write Social Stories" (Gray, 1992b). It was the first effort to teach others to write social stories. Shortly after that, we decided there must be at least "150 Ways to Describe Life" (Gray, 1992a). So, we did! We asked subscribers to submit topics for the first Social Story Book, and taught 150 Psychology students (just down the hall from my office) to write them! The final book contained 208 stories.

The Social Story Book (Gray et al., 1993) was made available to our subscribers at cost. It came in a three-ring notebook with a floppy disc that made it possible to tailor stories to a specific audience. We revised the book and went to a second printing in August of the same year; a third printing in February of 1994. We could not keep up with the demand, and quickly learned that we were a school district, not a publishing company. Future Horizons, in Arlington, Texas took over distribution. The cover of the book is pictured at the beginning of this article.

Dr. Edna Herron, on the Editorial Board of the professional journal, Focus on Autistic Behavior, learned about Social Stories and encouraged me to submit an article describing the approach. I asked Joy Garand if she would be a co-author. "Social Stories: Improving Responses of Students with Autism with Accurate Social Information" (Gray & Garand, 1993) was the first description of Social Stories in a formal journal. It presented a researched-based rationale and suggested the first guidelines for writing Social Stories. (We appreciate the permission to make it available here. We've also included our original copy of the article.)

In Closing

The Social Story philosophy was in place long before the first social story; the definition of Social Stories and information on how to write them has seen more of an evolution. There are sound basics that have been there since 1990. The changes that have occurred have been in response to experience with Social Stories, research findings, and protection of the quality, integrity, and safety of the approach. See The Morning News & Jenison Autism Journal/The Best of The Morning News/Social Stories for a list of additional articles and documents that chronicle the evolution of Social Stories.

There is little doubt that the extraordinary experiences provided by the Challenge Grant changed how we viewed autism and our students. It led us to an important philosophical shift. We abandoned rusty in-our-way assumptions, which allowed us to see what was there all the time; to observe and note the obvious. Our student's perspectives, their vantage point, thoughts, and ideas were valid and due equal respect.

Throughout the grant, right from the very beginning, we publicly shared our mistakes. Grant related experiences made us aware of an entirely new kind of mistake; mistakes rooted in beliefs that weren't true and faulty interpretations of student behavior. Without the grant and the change in philosophy and perspective that it created, we would not have Social Stories. The grant passed an important baton to the stories we were learning to write.
References

Garand, J. (1991). Personal correspondence.

Garand, J. (1992). Personal correspondence.

Gray, C. (1990a). Charlie over the water. Unpublished story.

Gray, C. (1990b). From Canada to Mexico: Welcome to new and past subscribers. The Morning News. September, 2-3. Jenison, MI: Jenison Public Schools.

Gray, C. (1990c). Guesswork. The Morning News. November-December, 8. Jenison, MI: Jenison Public Schools.

Gray, C. (1990d). It's time for recess at Van Raalte. Unpublished story.

Gray, C. (1990e). Lines. Unpublished story.

Gray, C. (1990f). On losing a job. The Morning News. November-December, 2-4. Jenison, MI: Jenison Public Schools.

Gray, C. (1990g). Social reading? The Morning News. September-October, 4-5. Jenison, MI: Jenison Public Schools.

Gray, C. (1991a). Excerpts from The Curriculum System manual. The Morning News. May-June, 4-7. Jenison, MI: Jenison Public Schools.

Gray, C. (1991b). On Chances and pit bull terriers. The Morning News. September, 7-8. Jenison, MI: Jenison Public Schools.

Gray, C. (1991c). Social stories. The Morning News. November-December, 1991. Jenison, MI: Jenison Public Schools.

Gray, C. (1991d). The road to independence is lined with people. The Morning News. January, 1-3. Jenison, MI: Jenison Public Schools.

Gray, C. (1991e). To the people of our mailing list: Thank you. The Morning News. September, pp. 3-4. Jenison, MI: Jenison Public Schools.

Gray, C. (1992a). 150 ways to describe life. The Morning News. September-October. Jenison, MI: Jenison Public Schools.

Gray, C. (1992b). How to write Social Stories. Jenison, MI: Jenison Public Schools.

Gray, C., Broek, E., Cain, S. L., Dutkiewicz, M., Fleck, C., Gray, B., Gray, J., Jonker, S., Lindrup, A., & Moore, L. (Eds.). (1993). The social story book. Jenison, MI: Jenison Public Schools.

Gray, C. & Garand, J. (1993). Social Stories: Improving responses of students with autism with accurate social information. Focus on Autistic Behavior. 8:1, pp. 1-10.

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The Discovery of Social Stories - Carol Gray - Social Stories

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Note: If you are beginning the Social Story history here, the article, "From Canada to Mexico: Welcome to New and Past Subscribers" (Gray, 1990b), provides a quick overview of the history of Social Stories prior to 1990. "If the goal is independence, teach on an island. If the goal is interdependence, teach everywhere else."

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Social Story- Hands are not for Hitting or Hurting by Lauren DePalma

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This 13-page social story is created for use with students from preschool to 1st grade. It is ideal for use in character education lessons, social groups, speech therapy lessons or in autistic support or life skills support classrooms. With simple wording and graphics, the story focuses on the proper use of hands and the common theme of "hands are not for hitting or hurting." I have found this story especially helpful with students who have behavioral needs and are learning replacement behaviors.

**For durability, print on cardstock if available, laminate and spiral bind.

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Social Story- Hands are not for Hitting or Hurting

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This 13-page social story is created for use with students from preschool to 1st grade. It is ideal for use in character education lessons, social groups, speech therapy lessons or in autistic support or life skills support classrooms. With simple wording and graphics, the story focuses on the prope...

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Please Don't Run? Social Story

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Free Social Story Please Don't Run: This Package Includes : 11 pages

Many children teens and even adults with Autism or a Developmental Disability maybe runners. My own son Niam used to be a flight risk. I am happy to announce those days are behind us. Teaching our children not to run can be difficult. I found myself always saying "Don't Run" either during or after the fact. I created this social story to be read to your child or with your child to discuss before an outing about not running and the dangers of it.

We all know the dangers of running, and, I found as my son grew I could not outrun him. This is why tackling this issue is so important. Please don't take it lightly.

Pair this free social story " Please Don't Run" with some of our other great resources like Free Token Boards and Free Data Sheets to create a unique and personal program for your child.

Hope this books helps you. This book is available in a girls and boys version. The story is the same, but one story is for the boy and one story is appropriate for the girl.

This free social story can also be used as part of a reading program or behaviour management program. Use the book to talk, ask questions and answer questions.

This is a great ABA Resource, school education program, social story and free printable worksheet for your students as part of a home living program, parental resources and school program to reinforce important skills for children with Autism and other developmental disabilities.

The resource can be laminated for longevity and used in the classroom or at home to help your child learn an essential life skill.

Check out our other great social stories for teachers and students. We have many social stories you can download for your student.

From our family to yours, we encourage learning and hope you enjoy these materials. I want to see all of our children reach their best potential.

Please leave some feedback and share us on social media.

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Please Don't Run? Social Story: Pages 11

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Free Social Story Please Don't Run: This Package Includes : 11 pages Many children teens and even adults with Autism or a Developmental Disability maybe runners. My own son Niam used to be a flight risk. I am happy to announce those days are behind us.

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Stories about Anger Management and Impulse Control

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This site offers two free books that address social skills.
Jennifer (the author) is planning to add two more books to the site in September.

Free Children's Stories

The first book teaches students a strategy to manage anger using deep breathing and "train yoga." I like how it actually teaches children the words and the actions to take when they are angry and then encourages them to think of a solution. (It's very similar to Tucker Turtle from the CSEFEL site, but it's nice to have another avenue to teach the strategy.)

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Free Stories about Anger Management and Impulse Control

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This site offers two free books that address social skills.Jennifer (the author) is planning to add two more books to the site in September. Free Children's Stories The first book teaches students a strategy to manage anger using deep breathing and "train yoga."

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Suki's Kimono • Wise Owl Factory

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This post has a free printable with pocket chart card words for the book Suki's Kimono. This book was written by Chieri Uegaki and was illustrated by Stephane Jorisch.

This is a story all children can relate to as Suki wants to wear what she wants to wear to the first day of school, regardless of the advice of her family. Suki's grandmother had visited during the summer and given Suki a cotton kimono, and that is what Suki wishes to wear on the first day of school. She is going to wear the geta (wooden clogs) that day, too! The older girls advise her to wear something else, something cool! They walk ahead of Suki on the way to school that day. She makes a friend on the playground after the friend asks why she is dressed so weird. Suki doesn't think her clothes are weird, and explains why she has them on. She demonstrates a dance for this class that she learned at a Japanese street festival with her Grandmother. Of course, the story ends well.

Most children have had at least a time or two when they wanted to wear something that wasn't quite right for the occasion, or for sure they wanted to drag along a toy that wasn't a good idea. Because children can relate to Suki's having her own ideas, they will understand this story. Interwoven through the story are six Japanese terms that are defined at the very beginning of the book. So along with the story, children will learn the words kimono, obi, geta, and more Japanese vocabulary. Japanese written with the Roman alphabet is called Romiji, according to my daughter who recently visited Japan.

My free PDF is for the teacher today, and has pocket chart vocabulary words from the story matched with their meanings.

Click on these words for the FREE printable, or click on the photo below.

Thank you for reading, Carolyn

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This post has a free printable with pocket chart card words for the book Suki's Kimono. This book was written by Chieri Uegaki and was illustrated by Stephane Jorisch. This is a story all children can relate to as Suki wants to wear what she wants to wear to the first day of school, regardless of the advice of her family.

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Social Stories for Autism | Social Story Examples 

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Most of us take for granted the ability to anticipate how others will react, think and behave in social interactions. Those who experience social roadblocks often find it difficult to predict the actions of others, which sometimes leads to fear or erratic behavior. Social stories offer a bit of distance between the person and the new or difficult social scheme, and allows for frequent practice at the individual's own, comfortable pace.

In Sarah's case, she worked with teachers, speech pathologists, and her parents, with a fun story about riding the bus, until she felt comfortable enough to take the next step. It helped her navigate around her social roadblock in her own time, and on her own terms.

What Are Social Stories?

Writing a Social Story

Many stories can be used again and again for different people, but likely you will want to have a more personalized social story to help specific individuals with their own personal roadblocks. A social story is meant to be instructive and safe, so it is important not to make a typical comic or too complicated of a story. There are a few tips to consider when writing one:

Start with a Goal in Mind

Choose a Specific Situation

Maintain a Positive Tone

Use Simple Language

Tailor for the Individual

Start with a Goal in Mind

Writing a social story takes special consideration because the basis of the story comes from the perspective of the individual facing the social roadblock. Determine the goal of the story before beginning: what problem do you want to solve?

Is there a situation that causes her to act out or meltdown? Is there a scenario from which he tries to escape? Are there planned changes to a routine?

The answers to questions such as these make great subjects for social stories. Finding the underlying issue might require a little digging by interviewing teachers, friends, parents, and others with unique insight into the social roadblock. Once you identify the problem, you can look for ways to address it.

Choose a Specific Situation

Social stories tell the story of specific situations. If an individual has severe anxiety over a change in routine, choose one situation, such as a dental appointment, and create a simple, but detailed, story. A detailed story focuses on a few key points:

Social Cues

Appropriate Social Responses

What They Might See/Hear/Feel During the Event

What to Expect Other People to Say/Do

What Might be Expected of Them and Why

For Sarah, the unexpected noise of the bus was difficult to process, and she wasn't sure what to say to kids or the driver. A simple story helped her anticipate the normal bus noise, gave her suggestions of greetings for the driver and the students, and applauded her efforts for taking the step of riding the bus.

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Social Stories for Autism | Social Story Examples & Templates

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Most of us take for granted the ability to anticipate how others will react, think and behave in social interactions. Those who experience social roadblocks often find it difficult to predict the actions of others, which sometimes leads to fear or erratic behavior.

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Social Story Blurting Out In The Classroom by Educating Everyone 4 Life

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Blurting Out is a FREE social story to help students learn to listen to others while they are speaking and why it is important to follow the classroom rules.

Social Stories are a great way to promote positive behaviors in the classroom.

Social Stories are a visual guide to describe interactions, situations, behaviors, skills or concepts. This story will help children on the autism spectrum, children in your special education class, children in primary grades, or children in an inclusive classroom.

This story will help ease anxiety and stress during playtime and during instructional time. It will also help teach the children how to respond appropriately. Parents are welcome to a copy of this resource as well.

You can use this as a printable for an individual student, as posters, or in anyway which best serves your students.

I have included a color copy of this social story and a blackline master of this social story.

If you would like to view of my other products just click on the links below.

Interactive Notebook- Social Skills

Social Stories: Sharing

No Pushing Social Story

How To Make Eye Contact (Social Story)

Restroom Procedures

Social And Emotional Activity Pack

Social Skills - How Would You Feel?

The Fire Drill

How To Use My Voice In Class

Book Reports For Primary Students

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Terms:
Copyright © educatingeveryone4life. All rights for this social story are reserved by author. This social story is to be used by the original downloader only. Copying for more than one teacher, classroom, department, school, or school system is prohibited. This product may not be distributed or displayed digitally for public view. Failure to comply is a copyright infringement and a violation of the Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA). Clipart and elements found in this PDF are copyrighted and cannot be extracted and used outside of this file without permission or license. Intended for classroom and personal use ONLY. See this social story file for clip art credits.

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Social Story Blurting Out In The Classroom

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Blurting Out is a FREE social story to help students learn to listen to others while they are speaking and why it is important to follow the classroom rules. Social Stories are a great way to promote positive behaviors in the classroom. Social Stories are a visual guide to describe interactions,...

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Social Story: Transitions at School by Brooke Reagan | TpT

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Social Story: Transitions at School

A social story teaching about transitions and how to handle them.

HALF AND FULL page social story versions included.

Colored version and black and white printer friendly version.

Activity to check for understanding included.

This social story is included in my social story bundles:
Social Story Volume 1: 12 Stories Social Story Bundle 2: 36 Social Stories
If you have any questions, please email me at BrookeReaganTPT@gmail.com

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Social Story: Transitions at SchoolA social story teaching about transitions and how to handle them.HALF AND FULL page social story versions included.Colored version and black and white printer friendly version.Activity to check for understanding included.This social story is included in my social s...

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Social-Emotional Learning and at-risk Children and Youth – Journal of Global Engagement and Transformation

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Author Note

Yvonne I. Larrier, Indiana University South Bend; Tinisha Lewis, GCSCORED Inc., Caribbean. Correspondence concerning this article should be addressed to Yvonne Larrier, Counseling & Human Services Department, Indiana University South Bend, South Bend, IN 46615. E-mail: ylarrier@gcscored.com

Abstract

More and more, behaviors of children, youth, and communities are being classified as at-risk in societies locally and globally. Behaviors associated with the at-risk classification are aggression at home, school and in the community, underperformance and underachievement at school, and truancy. Acquiring social emotional competencies (SECs) is an effective way of diminishing and eventually eliminating these behaviors. Acquiring these SECs from as early as kindergarten acts as a protective factor against maladaptive and risky behaviors later on in life. Social emotional education, or learning, is the acquisition of five core skills: self-awareness, self-management, social awareness, responsible decision-making, and relationship skills. As children and youth acquire these skills, they are better able to relate to self, others, and situations. These highly developed SECs can be seen in children's enhanced academic achievement and performance, decreased incidents of violence, improved school attendance, and empathy.

Keywords: Social-emotional learning, at-risk children and youth, mental health

Risky Behavior

According to Feinstein (2002), an individual is considered at-risk for a specific event or condition "...if they are suitably susceptible to that event and if it has not yet occurred" (p. 328). In today's society, there are many negative factors that affect children and youth at various stages of their lives. Risky or negative behaviors at the early stages of a child's life, including aggression, antisocial attitudes, poor academic performance and achievement, and truancy, can be curbed or prevented with the help of family members, the school, and the community's involvement (Bierman et al., 2003).

According to Terzian, Andrews, and Moore (2011), "risky behaviors can be associated with serious, long-term, and - in some cases - life-threatening consequences. This is especially the case when youth engage in more than one harmful behavior" (p. 1). Simple disciplinary incidents of behaviors, when not addressed early in a child's academic career, can lead to further risky behaviors such as poor academic achievement and performance, as well as intra- and interpersonal difficulties. When not addressed, these behaviors can result in children and youth becoming susceptible to engaging in drug use, among other risky behaviors, later in their lives (Bierman et al., 2003).

A report by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (2013) found that in any given year, one in every five children (20%) in the United States would be diagnosed with a mental illness that would adversely impact their lives at home, school, and in the community. In addition to this, fewer than one in five children diagnosed have received appropriate treatment. The National Center on Addiction and Substance Abuse (2011) found that one of the main health issues that plagued youth within the United States was substance abuse. Furthermore, alcohol was considered the most favored addictive substance among youth, followed by marijuana, cigarettes and prescription drugs.

According to the National Center on Addiction and Substance Abuse (2011), prior to the age of 18, nine out of ten high school students met the criteria for addiction, and began illegally drinking, smoking, and using prescription drugs. The Center also found that 34.4 million (46.1%) children and youth under the age of 18 lived with an adult substance abuser.

Factors Contributing to the At-Risk Children and Youth Crisis

There are multiple reasons for children and youth's at-risk behaviors. Examples include lack of adult supervision, television commercials, exposure to behaviors such as domestic violence, bullying, and trauma, along with societal issues and lack of social emotional competencies (SECs). A study conducted by Weisman and Gottfredson (as cited by Durlak, Weissberg & CASEL, 2007), found a contributing factor for children and youth who engaged in at-risk behaviors stemmed from the lack of adult supervision given to them after school. The probability of children and youth engaging in at risk behaviors, experiencing poor academic performance and achievement, and decreased school attendance, increased when they were left unsupervised.

The research of Snyder, Milici, Slater, Sun, Strizhakova (as cited in the National Center on Addiction and Substance Abuse, 2011) showed as well that youth who viewed alcohol commercials on television were more likely to use and abuse substances. The researchers identified that "... 7.5 percent of all alcohol product advertisements-and 9.0 percent of all such advertisements on cable television - appear on programs where the underage audience is more than 30 percent" (pp. 72-73).

Being a bully also puts a student in the at-risk category. If this behavior is not addressed early in a student's life, it tends to produce future at-risk behaviors; not only for themselves as a perpetrator, but also for their victims and for the bystanders. Bullying can disrupt an entire school, community, and the well-being of various families by leaving permanent social and emotional scars on children's lives. All individuals are affected - the victim, the perpetrator, and the bystanders (Brackett, Rivers, & Salovey, 2011).

The bullied child is susceptible to depression, anxiety, and suicidal ideations. The perpetrator of the misconduct experiences feelings of hostility, anxiety, and depression, and subsequently later, substance use, abuse, and antisocial behavior. The bystanders watching the bullying taking place, experience feelings of hopelessness, insecurity, and thereafter symptoms of a traumatic experience (Brackett, Rivers, & Salovey, 2011).

According to UNICEF (2006), there are approximately two hundred and seventy-five million (275,000,000) children globally who are exposed to violent behaviors in their home. Children who are exposed to this kind of environment tend to be at-risk for becoming victims or perpetrators of abuse. Abuse also affects their physical, emotional, and social development. This is sometimes externalized through poor academic performance and achievement, poor school attendance, bullying, and other negative prosocial behaviors. At the core of bullying, substance use and abuse, domestic violence, poor academic performance and achievement, poor school attendance, and other negative social emotional behaviors are a lack of social emotional competencies (Bierman et al., 2003; CASEL, 2015b; Payton et al., 2000; Weissberg & Cascarino, 2013 ).

Social Emotional Learning

According to CASEL (as cited in Weissberg and Cascarino, 2013), social emotional learning (SEL) is the ability to obtain and effectively apply the "knowledge, attitudes, and skills to understand and manage emotions, set and achieve positive goals, feel and show empathy for others, establish and maintain positive relationships, and make responsible decisions" (p. 10). Social-emotional competence is as critical to children and youth's intra- and interpersonal success as reading and math competences are to academic and career success. Weissberg and Cascarino (2013) discussed five social emotional competencies that aptly fit under three broad domains: cognitive, emotional, and behavioral. The five SECs are: self-awareness, self-management, social awareness, responsible decision-making, and relationship skills.

Self-Awareness

Self-awareness is the ability to recognize accurately the way one's thoughts and emotions influence behavior. This ability also allows an individual to identify and label their feelings and further identify and develop their strengths and positive qualities. This competency can be seen as foundational to the other four competencies (Weissberg & Cascarino, 2013; Weissberg & O'Brien, 2004).

Self-Management

According to Weissberg and Cascarino (2013), self-management is the ability to control one's thoughts, emotions, and behaviors in various settings and situations. It also involves setting personal, social, career, and academic goals, and working towards them.

Social Awareness

Social awareness is other-awareness. It is the ability to identify and understand the thoughts, feelings, and behaviors of individuals and groups, whether they are similar or different from one's own (Weissberg and O'Brien, 2004).

Relationship Skills

Relationship skills is the ability to create and maintain healthy and rewarding relationships with various individuals and groups by communicating effectively, actively listening, working together, discussing conflict productively, and looking for and providing help when needed (Weissberg & Cascarino, 2013).

Responsible Decision-Making

Responsible decision-making is the ability to make proper and respectful choices about one's behavior and social interactions based on one's ethical standards. This involves the realistic evaluation of the consequences that could result from one's actions, concerns of protection, and the well-being of oneself and others (Weissberg & Cascarino, 2013).

Benefits of Acquiring Social Emotional Competencies

The acquisition of social emotional competencies has innumerable benefits to the individual regardless of their age, gender, geographic location, socioeconomic status, religious and sexual orientation, and educational background. Children and youth who present few protective factors and a higher number of risk factors can benefit from participating in programs that have, at their core, social emotional skills acquisition and training. For example, at the individual level, acquiring SECs helps to equip children and youth with empathy, self-awareness, and problem-solving skills. It allows them to be more focused and attentive in class, responsible, sympathetic, have a clearer life purpose, and to have a sense of contentment that positively influences self, others, and situations within the home, school, community, and future workplace (CASEL, 2015c; Jones & Bouffard, 2012; Weissberg & Cascarino, 2013; Zins & Weissberg, 2004).

Pasi (2001) noted that, "In a society where the importance of appreciating diversity, multiculturalism, and equity must be underscored, these students also learn to value differences and demonstrate increased sensitivity to the feelings of others" (p. 4). Durlak et al. (as cited by CASEL, 2015b) confirmed Pasi's (2001) findings when they found that students who obtained quality social emotional education improved their attitudes, relationships, and beliefs regarding self, others, and situations.

Within the home setting, acquiring social emotional competencies equip children and youth with qualities such as kindness, peacefulness, respect, and openness (CASEL, 2015a; Fredericks, Weissberg, Resnik, Patrikakou, O'Brien, 2014). According to CASEL (as cited in Weissberg & Cascarino, 2013), social-emotional skills are important because they prepare children and youth to become productive citizens. These skills lead to improved work ethics and collaboration skills, enhanced work performance, and increased creativity and innovation.

The Payton et al. (2000) study posited that the social emotional learning framework could be used to direct a variety of research-based prevention programs that could target health, substance abuse, violence prevention, sexuality, character, and social skills within communities. In addition to this, social emotional learning frameworks can also provide positive engagement and cohesion within communities. According to Durlak et al. (as cited by CASEL, 2015b), within the school setting, the acquisition of social emotional competencies provides better adjustment and academic performance, which have been shown to improve attitudes and behaviors. These include a greater motivation to learn, an in-depth commitment to school, more time dedicated to schoolwork, and increased positive classroom behaviors.

The implementation of social emotional competencies has also shown fewer negative behavioral problems in children and youth (i.e. aggression, bullying, disruptive classroom behavior, delinquent behaviors, and ill-discipline) and less emotional pain (i.e. depression, anxiety, social withdrawal, and stress). Furthermore, the acquisition of SECs has been shown to produce better grades and test scores in children and youth as well; those with SEL in a study scored a range of 11 percentile points on average more than students who did not acquire social emotional competencies (CASEL, 2015b).

According to Albright and Weissberg (2010), children and youth SECs are enhanced when they are reinforced at home and at school. Parents and teachers who display highly developed social emotional competence influence the manner in which they think about and interact with their children and students. When parents and teachers use similar strategies to promote the acquisition of SECs, the transition between home and school becomes more consistent and continuous. This increases the likelihood of improved intra- and interpersonal relationships between children and their parents, teachers, siblings, and peers. Research has supported the notion that school-family SEL programming positively impacts student success (Albright & Weissberg, 2010).

CASEL (2015a) reported that children who participate in comprehensive social and emotional learning programs characterized by safe, caring, and well-managed learning environments and instruction in social and emotional skills, tend to experience a reduction in risk factors and an increase in protective factors such as enhanced school attachments, increased academic achievement and performance, decreased behavioral referrals, decreased bullying reports, etc. This increase in protective factors creates a learning environment that promotes school attendance and, by extension, graduation rates (CASEL, 2015a).

In addition to the primary responsibility of providing academic and other cognitive skills to students, schools now have the added responsibility of prevention and intervention work in the areas of substance use, violence, bullying, truancy, and school dropout. CASEL reports that, when schools and students engage in multi-year, integrated approaches to a social emotional education, students and schools experience major gains across domains (CASEL, 2013). Engaging the home, the entire school community, and the community in which students live, learn, and love from as early as kindergarten until high school, yields positive benefits for all involved (CASEL, 2013, p. 9).

A study conducted with 324 low-income students and 112 kindergarten and first-grade teachers, found that there were significant effects of high-quality teacher-child relationships in kindergarten having future influences on math achievement in first grade (McCormick, O'Connor, Cappella & McClowry, 2013). These results were confirmed by McCormick, Cappella, O'Connor and McClowry (2015) in their study on the relationship between social emotional learning and academic achievement. They found that there were improvements in math achievement as well as emotional support among a similar population.

Jones and Bouffard (2012) studied the relationship between social emotional learning, mental health, and risky behaviors in children and youth. They found that many educators and parents realized that children who had strong social and emotional skills performed better academically, had healthier relationships with peers and adults, and were able to positively make emotional adjustments and experience mental health.

By teaching children and youth social emotional competencies, there are noticeable improvements in behaviors and academic performance and achievement (CASEL, 2005). Jones and Bouffard (2012) supported the findings of CASEL (2005) when they reported similar data from Illinois, USA, school leaders towards students at their school. They observed that the acquisition of social emotional competencies increased students' performance levels at school, improved their learning environment, and increased attendance levels and graduation rates.

Conclusion

In conclusion, the acquisition of social emotional competencies is as critical to student success as are numeracy and literacy competencies. The acquisition of social emotional competencies is indisputably and inextricably central to the intra- and interpersonal success of children, youth, and adults across settings. In order for all of our societies to attain wholeness, all stakeholders must be fully engaged in the social emotional development of all children and youth, and those who influence and inspire them.

References

Albright, M. I., & Weissberg, R. P. (2010). School-family partnership strategies to enhance children's social, emotional, and academic growth. Retrieved from https://static1.squarespace.com/static/513f79f9e4b05ce7b70e9673/t/5307ad29e4b0ebfe8b 3ed620/1393012009663/school-family-partnership-strategies-to-enhance-childrens-social%2C-emotional%2C-and-academic-growth.pdf

Bierman, K. L., Hops, H., Brown, C. H., Oetting, E. R., Clayton, R. R., Sloboda, Z.,...& Greenberg, M. T. (2003). Preventing drug use among children and adolescence (in brief). Retrieved from https://www.drugabuse.gov/publications/preventing-drug-abuse-among-children-adolescents/acknowledgments

Brackett, M. A., Rivers, S. E. and Salovey, P. (2011), Emotional Intelligence: Implications for Personal, Social, Academic, and Workplace Success. Social and Personality Psychology Compass, 5: 88-103. doi:10.1111/j.1751-9004.2010.00334.x

CASEL. (2005). Safe and sound: An educational leader's guide to evidence-based social and emotional learning (SEL) programs. Retrieved from http://static1.squarespace.com/static/513f79f9e4b05ce7b70e9673/t/5331c141e4b0fba62007694a/1395769665836/safe-and-sound-il-edition.pdf

CASEL. (2015a). Frequently asked questions about SEL. Retrieved from http://www.casel.org/social-and-emotional-learning/frequently-asked-questions/

CASEL. (2015b). Outcomes associated with the five competencies. Retrieved from http://www.casel.org/social-and-emotional-learning/outcomes/

CASEL. (2015c). Social and emotional learning core competencies. Retrieved from http://www.casel.org/social-and-emotional-learning/core competencies/

Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (2013): Retrieved from: https://www.cdc.gov/childrensmentalhealth/features/kf-childrens-mental-health-report.html

Durlak, J. A., Weissberg, R. P., & CASEL. (2007). The impact of after-school programs that promote personal and social skills. Retrieved from http://www.uwex.edu/ces/4h/afterschool/partnerships/documents/ASP-Full.pdf

Feinstein, A. R. (2002). Principles of medical statistics. New York, NY: Chapman & Hall/CRC.

Fredericks, L., Weissberg, R., Resnik, H., Patrikakou, E., & O'Brien, M. U. (2014). Schools, families, and social and emotional learning: Ideas and tools for working with parents and families. Retrieved from http://education.praguesummerschools.org/images/education/readings/2014/SEL_and_families.pdf

Jones, S. M., & Bouffard, S. M. (2012). Social policy report: Social and emotional learning in schools from programs to strategies. Retrieved from http://www.srcd.org/sites/default/files/documents/spr_264_ final_2.pdf

McCormick, M. P., Cappella, E., O'Connor, E. E., & McClowry, S. G. (2015). Social-emotional learning and academic achievement: Using causal methods to explore classroom-level mechanisms. AERA Open, 1(3), 1-26.

McCormick, M. P., O'Connor, E. E., Cappella, E., & McClowry, S. G. (2013). Teacher-child relationships and academic achievement: A multilevel propensity score model approach. Journal of School Psychology, 51, 611-624.

Pasi, R. J. (2001). Higher expectations: Promoting social emotional learning and academic achievement in your school. New York, NY: Teachers College Press.

Payton, J. W., Wardlaw, D. M., Graczyk, P.A., Bloodworth, M. R., Tompsett, C. J., Weissberg, R. P. (2000). Social and emotional learning: A framework for promoting mental health and reducing risk behavior in children and youth. Journal of School Health, 70 (5), 179-185.

Terzian, M. A., Andrews, K. M., & Moore, K. A. (2011). Preventing multiple risky behaviors among adolescents: Seven strategies. Retrieved from http://www.childtrends.org/wp-content/uploads/2011/09/Child_Trends-2011_10_01_RB_RiskyBehaviors.pdf

The National Center on Addiction and Substance Abuse. (2011). Adolescent substance use: America's #1 public health problem. Retrieved from http://www.centeronaddiction.org/addiction-research/reports/adolescent-substance-use

UNICEF. (2006). Behind closed doors: The impact of domestic violence on children. Retrieved from http://www.unicef.org/media/files/BehindClosedDoors.pdf

Weissberg, R. P., & Cascarino, J. (2013). Academic learning + social-emotional learning= national priority. Retrieved from http://static1.squarespace.com/static/513f79f9e4b05ce7b70e9673/t/52e9ce21e4b0ac9708 20f94d/1391054369190/weissberg-cascarino-phi-delta-kappan.pdf

Weissberg, R. P., & O'Brien, M. U. (2004). Creating connections for student success. Retrieved from https://static1.squarespace.com/static/513f79f9e4b05ce7b70e9673/t/526a22f3e4b0f35a9effc404/1382687475283/creating-connections-for-student-success.pdf

Zins, J. E., & Weissberg, R. P. (Ed.). (2004). Building academic success on social and emotional learning: What does the research say? New York, NY: Teachers College Press.

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Social-Emotional Learning and at-risk Children and Youth

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Yvonne I. Larrier, Indiana University South Bend; Tinisha Lewis, GCSCORED Inc., Caribbean. Correspondence concerning this article should be addressed to Yvonne Larrier, Counseling & Human Services Department, Indiana University South Bend, South Bend, IN 46615. E-mail: ylarrier@gcscored.com More and more, behaviors of children, youth, and communities are being classified as at-risk in societies locally and globally.

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Christmas season is here! Ready, get, set, give! - StoryWeaver

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Christmas season is here! Ready, get, set, give!

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The story is about kids helping community . Apart from academics and extracurricular activities, chil

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Print this Teacher Guide
Teacher Guide

Social Stories

Comic strip social stories model positive social interactions and behavior norms to students with ADHD, autism spectrum and other developmental IEP classifications.

Getting Started

While many teachers use Carol Gray's trademarked Social Stories™ in their classrooms, few use them correctly. Why? The evidence-based formula can seem time-consuming and overwhelmingly complex. It doesn't have to be. The rules, steps and samples below can be used in a comic strip template to create quick, easy and effective social stories.

Social stories are not classroom procedures in picture form or interventions for misbehaviour. Social stories do not include steps, directions, tips or commands.

Social stories for students with autism spectrum disorders are like phonics lessons for students with reading disabilities. While most students learn to read "naturally" by following along as an adult reads aloud, some students need to be explicitly taught the basic rules of phonics. Similarly, while most children learn social norms by observing their caregivers and peers, students with certain developmental disabilities need explicit instruction to recognize appropriate behavior and communication expectations.

Social stories describe a common social experience using literal, step-by-step language so that a student can understand what they can expect from any given situation, and what others will expect of them. Educators can illustrate these communication expectations using comic strips. Students can also create their own comic strip social stories to practice conversation skills and appropriate responses to common situations.

Opening Discussion

Use the below guidelines to create simple and effective social story comic strips.
SIX RULES

1. Use first (I) person perspective for young children and third (he/she) person perspective for older students. Never use second person (you) perspective to avoid a negative tone.

2. Use literal, positive, objective observations instead of subjective opinions, negative judgments or any non-literal statements that could lead to misinterpretations, false assumptions, negative emotional responses or harmful, unsupervised action.

3. Use descriptive sentences (following directions helps the teacher) instead of directive sentences (I should try to follow directions; I must). If the story contains coaching sentences (I will try to follow directions; I can), there must be twice as many descriptive sentences as coaching sentences.

4. Include a relevant title, introduction (to provide necessary context), details (to clarify) and conclusion (to summarize the overall goal).

5. Answer the questions who, what, when, where, why and how.

6. Make the story meaningful and relevant by incorporating past, present and future information that the student can relate to and generalize to various settings. Ask the student and/or parents about the student's perspective, interests and strengths to make the social story relevant and engaging.

FIVE STEPS
Create one comic strip to illustrate each social goal or intended positive social story. Each comic should illustrate who, what, where, when, why and how this social story will take place. The answers to these questions are often combined into one sentence so that an entire social story may be just three sentences long. Identify the goal or intended positive social story before illustrating answers to the following questions in a social story comic strip:

1. Where and when does the social story take place?

2. Who is involved?

3. What concepts, activities, experiences, social actions or interactions are expected as the "norm" from all individuals involved (in the goal/intended positive social story)? What does it look, sound, smell, feel, taste like from the student's perspective?

4. How is the student expected to behave? How does this look, sound, feel, etc. from the student's perspective?

5. Why is this behavior positive, productive and necessary for the student and others involved? What is the reason for the behavior?

SAMPLE SOCIAL STORIES
Don't remake the wheel. Depending on if you are introducing a complex concept, classroom procedure or everyday social interaction, adapt the following sample sentences to illustrate each step of your own social story. Insert each descriptive sentence into a thought or dialogue bubble in a multi-panel social story comic strip.
Sample Topics & Titles

How to greet a stranger

What do I do when I feel sick in class?

What do I do when I feel frustrated?

How to share toys at recess

Sample "When, Where, Who?" Sentence Starters

Wherever I go...

During recess, I...

At home, my parents and I...

Before school, my bus driver...

After lunch, my classmates are...

In line at the grocery store, other customers...

While I wait for the bus in the morning...

When I need to go to the bathroom during class, my teacher tells me...

Sometimes, my classmates want to...

Sample "What?"Sentences

The fire alarm sounds loud.

I have a question in class.

We sit in our chairs to eat lunch at our desks.

The teacher calls my name to ask me a question.

The sink is for washing my hands after using the toilet.

I feel frustrated when my pencil breaks.

I feel nervous when my teacher calls on me.

One classroom rule is to enter the classroom silently.

Sample "How?" Sentences

I follow directions the first time.

I raise my hand before asking a question.

I wash my hands before leaving the bathroom.

I wait for my friend to finish talking before I start talking.

When I don't understand something, I raise my hand and wait to be called on to ask my teacher for help.

Sample "Why?" Sentences

Following directions helps my teacher.

Listening without interrupting lets my friend know that I am listening.

When someone helps me, I say thank you so they know they were helpful.

I cover my ears and breath deeply to feel calm when there are loud noises.

When someone asks me a question, it is polite to answer their question.

If I don't understand a question, I ask them to rephrase the question so I can understand.

Activities:

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Assign the activity directly to your students by clicking Save & Assign to Group.

Make a Comic Strip or Storyboard

Teacher-Guided Social Story

Share with students after discussing the social situation.
View Activity

Make a Comic Strip or Storyboard

Student-Guided Social Stories

Prompt students to include appropriate settings, characters and peer and personal dialogue.
View Activity

Make a Comic Strip or Storyboard

Behavior Interventions & Difficult Situations

Complete after discussing an "unsuccessful" social behavior, interaction or experience.
View Activity

Poster (Extension / Modification)

Create a Poster of cause and effect situations to illustrate appropriate dialogue responses to common peer or teacher comments or questions.

Mind Map (Extension / Modification)

Create a Mind Map of appropriate words or actions to express frustration, anger, stress or another challenging emotion.

Concluding Discussion

Social stories are one of the most, if not the most, effective tool to model positive social interactions and behavior norms to students with ADHD, autism spectrum and other developmental IEP classifications. Comics maximize the effectiveness of social stories by giving students a visual and kinesthetic method to process complex social concepts. Start creating you own social story comic strips today!

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Pixton Activity: Social Stories 1 Teacher-Guided Social Story

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Intro

Choose one social situation at a time to review with students. Create a social story to model the "correct" social "norms" of that situation. See the "opening discussion" for detailed instructions to create an effective social story. After you share your social story comic with your student, they can re-create or revise their own social story conversation to practice appropriate communication during common social interactions.

Instructions

Create a Storyboard or Comic Strip social story to illustrate ideal behavior during a common social interaction:

Include an appropriate title, description and/or dialogue for each panel.

Include an appropriate illustration for each panel.

Refer to the "opening discussion" for detailed instructions to create an effective social story.

See the rubric for grading guidelines.

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Pixton Activity: Social Stories 2 Student-Guided Social Stories

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Intro

Choose one social situation at a time to review with students or ask the student to decide on a challenging or confusing social situation. Instruct your student to create a social story to model the "correct" social "norms" of that situation. See the "opening discussion" for detailed instructions to create an effective social story. Students should create their own social story conversation to practice appropriate communication during common social interactions. One option is to provide the topic, setting, characters and "other" character's dialogue, while your student simply fills in their own appropriate dialogue responses. The second option is to provide the topic and let your student brainstorm the likely setting(s) and dialogue of all characters involved. This more advanced option will help older students build their social understanding and independence.

Instructions

Create a Storyboard or Comic Strip social story to illustrate ideal behavior during a common social interaction:

Include an appropriate title, description and/or dialogue for each panel.

Include an appropriate illustration for each panel.

See the rubric for grading guidelines.

Print this Activity
Pixton Activity: Social Stories 3 Behavior Interventions & Difficult Situations

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Intro

Social stories are never meant to be a consequence or punitive behavior intervention. They are never meant to be administered in a critical or negative way to scold a child or correct a child when they are upset. Social stories can be used in a calm, safe and positive environment to discuss an alternative to misbehavior or any "unsuccessful" social experience.

For older students, one example is to brainstorm a work experience, internship, job interview or co-op type situation to problem solve about what to do in difficult situations. Students can improve upon job experiences by first discussing a problem they had and how they did handle it (in a less than ideal way), and then creating a comic character to re-create the "problem" situation to handle in a better, positive way in the future.

Instructions

Create a Storyboard or Comic Strip social story to illustrate the "revised", updated, positive behavior to replace an "unsuccessful", negative or unproductive behavior or social interaction that the student has experienced:

Include an appropriate title, description and/or dialogue for each panel.

Include an appropriate illustration for each panel.

See the rubric for grading guidelines.

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Print this Teacher Guide Comic strip social stories model positive social interactions and behavior norms to students with ADHD, autism spectrum and other developmental IEP classifications. Getting Started While many teachers use Carol Gray's trademarked Social Stories™ in their classrooms, few use them correctly. Why? The evidence-based formula can seem time-consuming and overwhelmingly complex.

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Social Story Library

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This link that brought you to this page must be clicked using mobile Safari on an iPhone, iPad or iPod with the latest version of the Social Story Creator and Library app installed.

Please download and install the app free app from the App Store.

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This link that brought you to this page must be clicked using mobile Safari on an iPhone, iPad or iPod with the latest version of the Social Story Creator and Library app installed. Please download and install the app free app from the App Store.

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How to Foster Community in the Classroom With Social Contracts | Edutopia

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Social Contracts Foster Community in the Classroom

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When students and teachers collaborate to create shared behavior expectations, the whole class is invested in the norms.

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Social Story Taking Turns by One Giggle At A Time | TpT

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Students will easily learn and understand the importance of patience and taking turns from reading and discussing this best selling social story. What better way to help guide little ones in their positive behavior decision making!

In this book, students learn about:

patience

taking turns to speak

taking turns to be line leader

not always being the first to finish your work

not always being the first to gather materials

This product can be printed out as a hard copy or projected onto the Smart Board for viewing.

This is a great resource to use as a whole class read aloud as well as for small group readings and individual use for students with autism or behavioral disorders.

This product includes multiple ideas for use in the classroom, including large group, small group, and individual instruction.

If you like this product, it is part of a series of Social Stories I have written and currently sell in my store! You can check out ALL my Social Stories HERE!

You may also like:
Social Skills Activities Taking Turns Classroom Management Celebration Tag Set
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Thank you so much,

Diane Romo

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Students will easily learn and understand the importance of patience and taking turns from reading and discussing this best selling social story. What better way to help guide little ones in their positive behavior decision making!In this book, students learn about:patiencetaking turns to speaktakin...

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Social Skills Comic Strips for Social Stories Print 

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Comic Strip Social Scenes came about from my social skills groups I serve at the middle school level. Very visual, my students needed pictures and role play to get the messages of social rules down pat. They also LOVE comic strips (Avengers, anime, etc.). I tried to make them as generic as possible but it is impossible for me to create social stories that are personal for every one of your students! Feedback Testimonial: On October 30, 2016, Carron F. said: "This is one of the BEST bundles for social skills I have ever seen!!! I teach ESE 6-8th grade and I am using your materials in an interactive notebook. My students love the comic format! AWESOME PACKET!!!!!" It is my hope that you will read these examples, explain them to your students, and then create personal comic strip social stories for your students. Please know your audience and who you intend these social stories for. It is impossible for me to create personalized social stories for your students-that's your job! This unit will assist you with writing personalized comic strip social stories for your students.
You can print these in black and white or in color. Special thanks to Smarty Symbols for the clip art. I print mine on regular copy paper and place them in my student work folders (three ring paper folders). We go over them, role play them and talk about the solution to the problem. We think about how the people are feeling in the story and what made them do what they did. We answer tons of questions about them! If my student is still confused or if the behavior continues, we write another comic strip social story and talk about it in a different way, if needed.
According to the Autism Spectrum Institute, 2008: "Individuals with Autism Spectrum Disorder (ASD) have trouble interpreting social situations and understanding speech as quickly as most social interactions require. A comic strip conversation is a conversation between two or more people using simple illustrations in a comic strip format. They show children how to behave in a socially acceptable manner and conform to social standards. The effectiveness can be enhanced by incorporating a child's favorite cartoon character into the illustration."
The index for this unit contains:

Sample Comic Strip

Passing Gas

Getting Negative Attention

Losing a Game

Is it Bullying?

Stereotyping

Don't Pick Your Nose

Don't Brag

Authority Figures

Bad Habits

Listening to the Teacher

Joining in the Conversation

Criticizing Others

Playing with Others

Participating

Brush Your Teeth

Staying on Topic

Inappropriate Comments

The Lunch Table

Use Good Hygiene

Blank Comic Strip Page

Real life samples of Comic Strip Social Scenes

If you like this unit, you will also like:
Pragmatic Checklist Social Skills Social Skills Money Saving Bundle Social Skills Interpreting Facial Expressions
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Social Skills Comic Strips for Social Stories Print & Go Speech Therapy

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Comic Strip Social Scenes came about from my social skills groups I serve at the middle school level. Very visual, my students needed pictures and role play to get the messages of social rules down pat. They also LOVE comic strips (Avengers, anime, etc.). I tried to make them as generic as possib...

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Life Skills – What the Chrysanthemum Knows — by CHRYSANTHEMUM STORIES

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What the Chrysanthemum Knows -- by CHRYSANTHEMUM STORIES

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Posts about Life Skills written by Autumn Rennie

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Anger management and poor impulse control begins with self-awareness, following with the introduction and practice of coping skills.

This product includes a sweet story of a shark that becomes angry when things do not go his way. His anger is shown in both his physical sensations and his actions. After being pointed out the friendship consequences of his anger outbursts, the shark is introduced to magic fish that offer helpful strategies to reduce his anger. The shark sees the benefits of using these coping skills and the readers will as well.

Begin this lesson with reading the story and explain the below strategies are to be used proactively when the urges/impulses to act out are strong. The strategies are to be practiced proactively, although may be used to redirect misbehavior when appropriate.

The product includes the following:

19-page social story about anger signs and coping skills.
18 coping skill task cards with the "magic fish"
6 physical signs of anger task cards with sharks
6 behavioral signs of anger task cards with sharks
30 Color friendly (BW) task cards to be used for coloring in.
5 different activity pages to be used with task cards for discussion, problem-solving, and prompting role plays.
BONUS pages

Additional Uses:

Laminate, punch a hole in the coping skills cards and place a loose-leaf ring in the hole for easy viewing and prompting.
Decorate and glue angry sharks on the outside of lunch bags (representing the shark) and place coping cards inside the bag for random selection for problem-solving.
Make extra copies of the deep breaths and provide as nonverbal reminders.
Use bonus pages for coloring in and continued discussion.

A therapeutic activity that may be used in addition to this story is Things That Bite. Other related Products
* ANGER Porcupine Pokes: Flip Book Art Craft
* Anger Self-Control Fortune Tellers
* Anger Signs & Coping Skills: THE ANGRY SHARK SOCIAL STORY 4 Behavior Management
* Button Pushers Game: Learn Triggers, Anger Stages, and Coping Skills
* Do It Yourself ANGER TOOL BELT craft for your coping skills tool box
* My Anger Road Map: Learning to Identify Triggers and Signs to Manage Anger
* Pushing My Anger Buttons: Worksheets and Task Cards
* Taking Space: Personal Time Outs for Anger and Self-Control Game
* What Pushes Your Buttons: Anger Triggers
* ANGRY ANTS: Cognitive Behavioral Therapy CBT Group for Negative Thinking
* Angry Activties To Shake Off Your Inner Monster: Task Cards and Worksheets

To save 20%, check out the Anger BUNDLE.

Copyright © Mental Fills. All rights reserved by author. This product is to be used by the original downloader only. Copying for more than one user is prohibited. This product may not be distributed or displayed digitally for public view. Failure to comply is a copyright infringement and a violation of the Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA). Clipart and elements found in this PDF are copyrighted and cannot be extracted and used outside of this file without permission or license. See product file for clip-art and font credits.

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Anger Signs & Coping Skills: THE ANGRY SHARK SOCIAL STORY 4 Behavior Management

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Anger management and poor impulse control begins with self-awareness, following with the introduction and practice of coping skills. This product includes a sweet story of a shark that becomes angry when things do not go his way. His anger is shown in both his physical sensations and his actions. ...

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How Teachers Can Help Students Co-Regulate Their Emotions in the Discipline Process | Edutopia

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Helping students regain their calm after misbehavior doesn't mean there are no consequences-it ensures that the right lesson is learned.

Jim West / Alamy Stock Photo

Our schools are currently seeing a dramatic increase in students of all ages carrying in anxiety, adversity, and trauma from a variety of adverse childhood experiences (ACEs). Social and emotional learning programs are critical for addressing these emotional and mental challenges, but we must also rethink our discipline procedures and policies. We need to understand that traditional discipline works best with the children who need it the least, and works least with the children who need it the most. Discipline ideally is not something we do to students-it should be a quality we want to develop within them.

For students with ACEs, traditional punishments can unintentionally retraumatize and reactivate their stress response systems. Recent research in school discipline is grounded in the neuroscience of attachment, which emphasizes the significance of relationships. Those relationships begin with an adult in a regulated, calm brain state. It takes a calm brain to calm another brain-this co-regulation is something that students with ACEs may have missed out on. Their school can be an environment where they feel safe and connected even when they make poor choices.

This doesn't mean giving students a pass for misbehavior: There are still consequences for poor choices, but regulating the feelings and sensations a student is experiencing is the initial step, one that is critical for a sustainable change in behavior.

Emotions are contagious, and when a teacher is able to model a calm presence through their tone, facial expression, and posture, students are less likely to react defensively. When the teacher listens to what is beneath the behavior, focusing on the student's feelings, this type of validation says to the child that the teacher sees them and is trying to understand. When the teacher takes deep breaths, gets a drink of water, and creates space for reflection for a minute or two, they are modeling the regulation skills they want to see from students.

Co-Regulating Behavior With Students

If I'm the teacher, co-regulation-the process of helping a student who has made a poor choice of behavior to regain their composure-begins with the awareness of my own sensations and feelings when I am disciplining the student. It entails a willingness to regulate my own brain before I act on that discipline. Personally, I try to commit to three quick routines that feel doable to calm me in a short period of time: taking three deep breaths, texting a friend or pulling an affirmation from a prepared jar, and stretching and moving for a minute.

It's much better to wait for a few minutes when we're feeling irritated and angry before we discipline, and this is also excellent modeling for students. Students read our nonverbal communication, so paying attention to our facial expression and posture in addition to our tone of voice is critical when teaching the behaviors we want to see.

Focusing on the student's sensations and the feelings that lie beneath the behavior help us to understand the root causes and patterns of a behavior we might discover when there is rising irritation and anger. I may have a minute or two to redirect-by suggesting that the student go and get a drink of water or take a couple of deep breaths to calm down with me before we talk about the problem.

Creating a friend-in-need system could be helpful so each student has a buddy or even another adult in the building to go to when they begin to feel agitated. For the friend-in-need system, teachers ask students to select one or two peers or adults at the school who they trust and feel comfortable with if they need to take a break and be in another environment or talk through those challenging moments. This is preventative discipline and a way for students to have options when they begin to feel negative. These calming strategies are taught ahead of time and become a part of our procedures and classroom agreements or guidelines.

"That must feel awful."

"You seem really angry."

"You seem really frustrated."

"What a difficult situation you're in."

Validation is powerful way to calm an agitated and angry student. It's calming to be understood and felt by another. Some things you can say to help a student feel validated:

Validation opens the door for teacher and student to discuss choices and consequences and to create a plan of action for the next time there's a conflict.

I once heard that it is critical that a teacher's brain should resemble a thermostat rather than a thermometer when it comes to disciplining a student. What does this mean? Like a thermostat, the teacher needs to maintain a steady temperature throughout a moment of conflict, with a goal of creating conversation and a plan of action with a student who understands their choices and the consequences of those actions. The teacher needs to model the behaviors they want to see and to model self-care and respect during the discipline process.

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The Role of Emotion Co-Regulation in Discipline

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Helping students regain their calm after misbehavior doesn't mean there are no consequences-it ensures that the right lesson is learned.

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Using Video Self-Modelled Social Stories to Teach Social Skills to a Young Child with Autism

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The present study investigated the effectiveness of combining Social Stories and Video Self-Modelling (VSM) to teach social skills to a three-year-old child with autism. A multiple-baseline across behaviors design revealed that video self-modelled Social Stories were effective at improving all three target behaviors: greeting, inviting to play, and contingent responding. In addition, these behaviors successfully generalized across settings, toys, and communication partners. Concomitant behavior changes, namely, increased levels of communicative behavior and levels of social engagement were also observed. These results support the effectiveness of video self-modelled Social Stories and illustrate the potential of combined intervention techniques for remedying the social deficits faced by this population.

1. Introduction

Autism is a neurodevelopmental disorder affecting approximately 60 per 10,000 children worldwide [ 1, 2]. The isolating nature of this disorder, which results from the core deficits in social interaction and communication, poses significant challenges to the affected population and their families.

Social Stories and Video Modelling are two relatively novel approaches which appear to hold some promise as emerging intervention strategies. Social Stories [ 8, 9] are short personalised stories designed to teach children with autism how to manage their behavior during social situations by describing where the activity is likely to take place, when and how it will occur, the emotional perspectives of others involved, and potential responses the target child could display. There is some support for using Social Stories with children with autism for a range of social skills including increasing social initiations and contingent social responding [ 10], increasing the number of appropriate social interactions during free play [ 11], increasing socially adaptive behaviors [ 12], and increasing levels of appropriate social engagement [ 13]. Some studies have also shown Social Story interventions to produce generalization of acquired skills across settings [ 10, 13]. Thus although the research base on Social Stories is still quite limited, this intervention strategy appears to hold promise [ 14].

Video-Self Modelling (VSM), made possible through a process called "video feed forward" [ 20], where editing allows observers to view themselves performing at an advanced level, is thought to be a particularly efficacious use of this technique. Although Sherer et al. [ 21] reported no difference in the rate of task acquisition as a function of type of model (self or other), others have argued that self-modelling may promote increased self-efficacy, self-confidence, and motivation in the child [ 22, 23].

The effectiveness of VSM has been demonstrated in improving behaviors such as language and social initiations [ 23], appropriate verbal responses to questions [ 24], and spontaneous requesting [ 25]. Incorporating to varying degrees, the explicit use of reinforcement (live reinforcement and embedding within the video), self-management procedures, prompting, explicit instructional rules and multiple exemplars, these interventions have led to rapid and significant gains for participants, with successful generalization across settings in many cases [ 23- 25]. In a recent review of the effectiveness of video modelling interventions including VSM with individuals with autism, Delano [ 26] concluded that the positive results from the 19 studies reviewed are promising. In the few cases where the intervention was not immediately effective, video-modelling rather than VSM was used and the target behavior was social initiations. Therefore, Delano [ 26] suggested that when specifically teaching social initiations, VSM might be preferable to video-modelling and additional procedures may need to be incorporated in the intervention.

Social Stories and VSM share several features. Both utilise visual as well as auditory receptive channels, thus capitalising on the relative strengths in visual processing of many individuals with autism. There are obvious differences as well. Scripted Social Stories are highly structured and cue the reader by providing explicit descriptions of the salient elements of the social environment, while VSM is minimally demanding for social interaction and provides opportunity for multiple exemplars/models. A combination of the two involving a real life depiction of a scripted Social Story, thereby capitalising on the strengths of both, could prove an effective intervention for this population. It might be particularly useful for children for whom book reading or story time is aversive.

Several researchers have explored the use of video modelling in combination with Social Stories. Hagiwara and Myles [ 27] combined electronically presented Social Stories with peer modelling vignettes presented in a computer-based format to teach hand washing and on-task behaviors to three children with autism. Thiemann and Goldstein [ 10] investigated the combined effects of written text and pictorial cuing with supplemental video feedback on the social communication of five children with autism. Recently Sansosti and Powell-Smith [ 28] employed a computer-based format to present video modelled Social Stories to increase the social communicative skills of three high-functioning children with autism. Presented as a self-advancing slide show using a computer program, content of the personalised Social Stories was read out by a voice over and then modelled by a similar aged peer. Children viewed their video modelled Social Story once a day in their school setting, immediately before the targeted event occurred (e.g., recess). Overall video modelled Social Stories were effective in improving rates of social communication of participants, though additional social reinforcement and teacher prompting were needed in two cases, and generalization of skills was only observed for one participant. In summary, the VSM/Social Story package may be an effective strategy for teaching social skills to children with autism, one which capitalises on the strengths of both these techniques.

The present study explored the application of a Video Self-Modelled Social Story (VSM Social Story) procedure in teaching a boy with autism three social skills: greeting, inviting to play, and contingent responding to social initiations by others. It was predicted that the presentation of a VSM Social Story containing reinforcement, multiple exemplars, and explicit rules would increase the rate of social initiations in the training setting. It was further hypothesised that social initiations would generalise and be observed outside of the test setting with novel stimuli and situations beyond those specifically modelled. Furthermore, it was hypothesised that increases in social initiations would be accompanied by concomitant behavior changes, namely, increases in levels of verbal/communicative behavior and social engagement/interaction.

2. Method

2.1. Participant

The participant (pseudonym Jesse) was aged 3 years 5 months at the commencement of training. Independent to this study, Jesse had received a formal developmental assessment, identifying problems with language, socialisation, and repetitive/obsessive behaviours present before age 3, thus fulfilling the criteria for a diagnosis of autism according to the DSM-IV R (Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of the American Psychiatric Association-Fourth Edition Revised). This clinical impression was supported by his score of 34.5 on the Childhood Autism Rating Scale [ 29], indicating a mild to moderate level of autism. He was recruited from an early intervention center for children with developmental delays and disabilities, based at a university campus.

At time of recruitment, Jesse attended a two-hour program twice a week at the early intervention center and also met with a speech therapist for a two-hour, one-on-one session every fortnight. His verbal skills, specifically labelling and requesting, were reported to have recently improved, but his social skills remained limited. Jesse did not generally display spontaneous vocal social initiations. Observed initiations prior to baseline included vocal requests for items such as a preferred toy or object, requests for help or assistance, nonvocal requests for attention by pointing, and nonvocal requests to play or engage in an activity. Pilot testing revealed that Jesse did not respond well to the reading of trial Social Stories and his parents reported that Jesse had a general aversion to being read to.

2.2. Setting

All video presentation sessions were conducted in the family room of Jesse's home. All test sessions were also conducted in Jesse's home, using the exact locations depicted in the videos: the front door, family room, meals area, and kitchen. Generalization probes were obtained through free-time observations both at Jesse's home and at the early intervention center.

2.3. Dependent Measures and Data Collection

Two social initiatory behaviors-"greetings" and "inviting to play"-and a third social skill, "contingent responding", were identified in consultation with the parents and via three 20-minute, free-time observation sessions at both the home and the early intervention center. Specific antecedents to the behaviors, which could serve as visual cues, were identified and a listing of his preferred toys and tasks was also obtained. This information was used to create contextually and environmentally relevant Social Stories and VSM scenes with appropriate reinforcement elements to evoke motivation [ 30].

Dependent measures were the frequency (by opportunity) of the three target behaviors-"greeting", "inviting to play", and "contingent responding". In addition, two concomitant measures, the frequency of vocal/communicative behavior and frequency of social engagement/interaction, were obtained. Behavior specifications for the dependent and concomitant measures are provided in Table 1.

Data were collected by the first author and Jesse's parents. The parents were trained in the observation and recording procedures and also provided with instruction sheets for review as required. Test session data were collected by the first author, with the exception of two specific data points per session, where naturalistic and contextually relevant replication of video scenes for the greeting behavior, namely, "dad coming home from work" and "Jesse coming home with dad to mum", required parental recording. The parents also recorded anecdotal data including particular reactions to or distractions during the video viewing sessions.

2.4. Experimental Design

A single-subject, multiple-baseline across behaviors design was employed to assess the effectiveness of the intervention. The study comprised of three phases: baseline, intervention, and follow up. Each phase was executed consecutively in a time-lagged fashion across the three target behaviors once a stabilised shift in performance was evident for the previous target behavior.

2.5. Materials

2.5.1. Social Story Content

Three Social Stories were designed, each addressing one of the three target behaviors and adhering to the recommended Social Story structure of two to five descriptive, perspective and/or affirmative sentences for every directive sentence [ 9] (The Social Stories are available from the first author on request).

2.5.2. Video Content

Three self-modelled videos were produced, with each video specifically targeting one behavior. As Jesse had an aversion to books, the sentences of the Social Stories were translated into a dialogue between two animated puppets, thereby retaining the structure, meaning, and content of the Social Stories but without the traditional book format. After an initial scene containing the title of the film accompanied by music, each video began with a cartoon animation featuring a puppet tiger and elephant. This animation was constructed using iStop Motion. A real-life representation of the animated Social Story followed, with the participant acting out/modelling the behavior described in the animated Social Story. At the conclusion of each scene, when the desired behavior was displayed, the frame would freeze, and explicit rules reiterating the target behavior were stated in both text and voice-over such as "When I see someone, I say hello". Introduction of rewards followed, such as text and voice-over saying "WELL DONE!", "GOOD BOY!", and "EXCELLENT", stars, audio cheering, and images of the participant engaging in desired activities. Each video consisted of three examples of the target behavior, thus each video displayed three natural-scenario vignettes, at the conclusion of which reinforcement was provided as described above, followed by a fade-out and 3-second pause (blank screen) leading into the next scene. The "greeting" video for example consisted of: (a) animated Social Story; (b) video modelling scene 1: dad comes home from work and says "hello" to Jesse and Jesse says "hello" back, reinforcement provided (as described above); scene 2: researcher comes through the front door and says "hello" to Jesse and Jesse says "hello" back, reinforcement provided; scene 3: Jesse walks through front door with dad and says "hello" to mum and mum says "hello" back, reinforcement provided. Each video was between three and five minutes long.

A video recorder, Apple Macintosh computer and toys including a truck, a book, play-doh, and a Mr Potato Head were also required for the construction of the films and throughout test sessions.

2.6. Procedure

Prior to any data collection, the project was approved by the Monash University Standing Committee on Ethics in Research involving Humans.

2.6.1. Video Production

Footage for VSM was obtained by using a digital camera to record a series of orchestrated play sessions featuring Jesse and his parents (as communication partners). Scripts were devised and rehearsed with Jesse's parents for each scenario. As vocalisations by the participant were mostly faint and mumbled, recordings of an aged-matched peer saying Jesse's lines were used. The raw footage was edited on an Apple Macintosh laptop using the editing program FinalCut Pro to remove all unwanted behaviors and obvious prompts to produce sequences of the participant correctly performing the target behaviors. The final products were then formatted to three digital video disks (DVD; one for each target behavior) and a copy was issued to the parents.

2.6.2. Observation Procedures

Fifty-minute observation sessions were conducted twice a week, in the early evening at Jesse's home throughout baseline, intervention, and follow-up phases. The first 20 minutes of these sessions included an in vivo reproduction of the scenes featured in the videos, thereby creating three opportunities (directly corresponding to the three scenes depicted in each video) for Jesse to display each target behavior. This generally involved making specific toys or stimuli accessible to Jesse by discretely laying them out within his vicinity. In an effort to allow spontaneous and natural elicitation of the target behaviors, we capitalized where possible on authentic occasions, such as the father's arrival home from work and the researcher's arrival to the home on observation days as opportunities to assess Target Behavior 1-Greeting. (As the elicitation of this behavior was initially relatively weak, verbal prompting was introduced for a series of four sessions. This involved a single prompt by parents such as "Jesse, say hello" at the given opportunities. Prompting was not provided for any of the other behaviours). The remaining 30 minutes of the observation session was free-play time during which no further contrived opportunities were created to elicit target behaviors. The entire 50-minute session provided opportunity for Jesse to display generalization of the target behaviors using novel items or stimuli, that is, not those specifically modelled in the videos.

Generalization data was also collected during free-play times at the Early Intervention Centre.

2.6.3. Baseline

Baseline measures were obtained both pre and post video production to account for any incidental learning during the film making process. Baseline procedures entailed the in vivo reproduction of the various scenarios depicted in the videos. Typically this required Jesse being instructed to go to the relevant setting where the specified play materials were laid out and where the communication partner/s then performed their actions.

2.6.4. Intervention, Video presentations

Jesse viewed the target video three times daily at approximately morning, mid-day, and early evening, requiring between three and five minutes per viewing. Upon introduction of each new Target Behavior, Jesse continued to view the videos from the previous phases. All viewing sessions were conducted by Jesse's parents in the family room of their home. Parents used the instructional delivery "It's time to watch your movie" but no further information, prompts, or reinforcement were provided. To ensure adherence to protocol and increase treatment fidelity, parents completed procedural checklists and recorded anecdotal incidents such as distractions or the presence of other people during viewing sessions.

2.6.5. Follow-Up

Follow-up data were obtained 3 weeks after the intervention ended. During this phase no video modelling was provided and data were obtained by conducting test sessions and generalization probes as described above.

2.6.6. Interobserver Reliability

The first author coded and scored all test and generalization sessions. In addition a trained second observer (graduate student) attended and independently observed 30% of the observation sessions in each phase for all three target behaviors. Total agreement reliability was calculated by dividing the lesser frequency by the larger and multiplying by 100%. The mean total agreement reliability was 95% (ranging from 90-100%).

2.7. Treatment Fidelity

An advantage of video as a medium for intervention is the capacity it affords for consistency and control of the treatment. In addition treatment fidelity was monitored via a procedural checklist for Jesse's parents including prompting delivery of the verbal instructions, and recording the number of times the video was presented and any anecdotal observations. The researcher observed 10% of video viewing sessions conducted by the participant's parents to ensure the accuracy of protocol adhesion.

2.8. Social Validity

Social validity was measured using a parental satisfaction questionnaire on completion of the study. The observed concomitant behavior changes provided further evidence of the social validity of the intervention.

3. Results

The data for the target behaviors and concomitant behaviors during VSM training and generalization sessions were plotted. The data for the target behaviors were visually inspected to determine whether a functional relationship existed between VSM training and any observed behavior change. In addition, descriptive data analyses are presented for the associated concomitant behaviors and social validity results.

Figures 1 and 2 display the frequency of the three target behaviors, expressed as percentages of opportunities, across baseline, intervention and follow-up phases, for testing data (scripted) and generalization data, respectively.

3.1. Greeting

In baseline Jesse engaged in none of the scripted greeting behaviors (Figure 1) in the test settings although he did exhibit one generalized greeting to a grandparent (Figure 2). Following commencement of the intervention, increases were first noticed by the third test session, with 33% (one out of three) successful completion of the target behavior. The introduction of verbal prompting at session 5 was associated with a marked increase of the target behavior to 100%. Test session greetings maintained at between 60% and 100% for the remainder of this phase (phase mean 62%), and this target behavior was maintained with the participant performing at 100% in follow-up.

Generalization of greetings, both at home and the early intervention center, was exhibited throughout intervention and follow-up phases (see Figure 2). Generalized greeting at the home was seen from the first session in the intervention phase, despite an absence of the behavior in training settings at this time. Home generalizations remained variable throughout the intervention phase (mean 48.5%). Maximum generalization coincided with the introduction of prompting in testing sessions. In the early intervention center, a steady increase was apparent across the intervention (mean 37.5%) and follow up (mean 66%) phases in generalized greetings.

3.2. Inviting to Play

During baseline Jesse displayed a fluctuating level of this target behavior with a single invitation to play (33% successful completion) on three occasions in the training setting (mean = 10%) and on four occasions in generalized settings (mean = 10%). Following commencement of the intervention, frequency of the behavior in the test setting increased markedly (mean = 69.7%), and maintained in follow up (mean = 100%).

Significant generalization of inviting to play was observed at home with mean scores of 9.9%, 79.2%, and 100%, respectively in baseline, intervention, and follow up phases, with no data points overlapping those observed in baseline. In the early intervention center, a steady increase in observed invitations to play were recorded from zero at baseline to a mean of 41.5% during the intervention phase and 75% in follow up.

3.3. Contingent Responding

In baseline low rates of contingent responding were observed in both test (mean = 6%) and generalization (mean = 17.2% at home, zero at the early intervention center) settings. Upon implementation of the intervention, a rapid increase in frequency of responding behaviors was evident in the test setting (mean = 66%). This trend was also apparent in the follow up phase (mean = 82%).

Increased generalization of contingent responding relative to baseline was also evident with mean scores of 8.3%, 66%, and 100%, respectively in baseline, intervention, and follow up phases in the home and zero, 50%, and 50% in the equivalent phases in the early intervention center.

3.4. Concomitant Behaviors

Figure 3 graphically depicts the concomitant behavior frequency scores (verbal communication, instrumental social engagement, and noninstrumental social engagement). During baseline, Jesse exhibited a relatively low rate of verbal communication and social engagement. Implementation of Treatment 1 (greeting) was associated with slight increases in levels of these behaviors, once again this increase being most apparent with the introduction of verbal prompts. Further increases in all three concomitant behaviors were evident throughout Treatments 2 and 3, with these levels being maintained in the final follow up phase.

3.5. Social Validity Results

The parental satisfaction questionnaire and parental interviews assessed the perceived effectiveness of the intervention in teaching Jesse to greet, invite to play, and respond contingently. The parents' responses indicated that they perceived acceleration in Jesse's communicative development and in overall social functioning and general behavior across the intervention period. In addition, the parents reported specifically on qualitative changes in Jesse's execution of the target behaviors over time, becoming less mechanical and more genuine. Particular improvements in the quality of target behaviors were evident at follow-up with elimination of direct copying of the language used in the videos and with Jesse displaying each target behavior accurately, in his natural speaking voice, in the correct social context and with the absence of other verbalisations from the videos. Improved quality of the behaviors included specifications added to invitations to play, such as accurately identifying (naming) who he was inviting and what he actually wanted to play with, for example "Stacey, let's play ball".

Anecdotal observations also revealed the emergence of spontaneous farewelling behavior by the participant. Jesse began to exhibit "goodbye" behaviors independently and consistently from approximately session 10, through to the end of the follow up phase. Parents reported similar occurrences in encounters with others.

4. Discussion

The current study explored the effects of using video self modelled Social Stories to teach three social skills to a young child with autism. The results support the hypothesis that presentation of VSM using the structure of Social Stories, and containing reinforcement, multiple exemplars, and explicit rules would increase the rate of social initiations displayed by the child. As anticipated, the results also showed that social initiations generalized and were observed outside of the test setting and with novel stimuli. The effectiveness of the intervention was demonstrated across three social behaviors: greeting, inviting to play, and contingent responding. Furthermore, the data support the prediction that increases in social initiations would be accompanied by concomitant behavior changes, namely, increases in levels of vocal communicative behavior and social engagement/interaction.

These findings are in accord with previous research demonstrating a positive effect of using Social Stories in teaching greetings [ 31], initiating comments and contingent responses [ 10, 13], and video modelling in teaching-related behaviors including conversation skills [ 17], play-related statements [ 19], and inviting to play [ 18].

Furthermore, the rapid acquisition of the target behaviors noted in the present study is consistent with previous findings on the effects of VSM in teaching social skills to children with autism [ 23- 25]. With the exception of "greeting", increased target skills were displayed following the very first video viewing. The initial delay in eliciting greetings may be due to the noninstrumental nature of this behavior relative to either inviting or contingent responding. Nonetheless, following the addition of prompting, greeting behaviors also improved to a level comparable to the other target skills.

Although prompting was also introduced in the present study to strengthen greeting behaviors, prompts were only offered briefly and, upon their withdrawal, the desired behavior was maintained, including in follow-up. In addition, the present study resulted in generalization across all three target behaviors. Methodological comparison of the video content used by Sansosti and Powell-Smith [ 28] and the present study reveals several variations which may account for these differences. Sansosti and Powell-Smith did not apply any reinforcement principles within the video modelled Social Stories, whilst the present study provided verbal, visual and auditory reinforcement in the forms of praise, depictions of the participant engaged in enjoyable tasks, stars, audio cheering, and other musical sound effects. Moreover, Sansosti and Powell-Smith [ 28] appear not to have provided multiple examples of the targeted behaviors in the peer modelled videos, whereas three variant scenes for each self-modelled target behavior were incorporated in the present study. Further research on the possible benefits of inclusions such as explicit rules [ 32], embedded reinforcement [ 23] and multiple exemplars [ 33], as were utilised in this study, appears justified.

The observed trends in the concomitant behaviours in the current study-though not sufficient to demonstrate a functional relationship-support previous findings that targeting social initiations can lead to collateral improvements in other, nontargeted areas of functioning [ 6, 7]. The anecdotally reported development of spontaneous "farewelling" behaviors was an unanticipated outcome of the current study. Though not formally observed, the parents' obvious surprise at the emergence of this behavior was indicative of its novelty. Not previously reported, this is an intriguing result for an intervention of this kind. The apparently spontaneous occurrence of farewelling behavior may represent a generalization of greeting behavior based on the premise that both these skills belong to the same response class. Others [ 5, 10] have suggested that treating social behaviors within a similar response class will ultimately lead to positive changes in related but untreated behaviors.

Though time limitations constrained both the frequency and duration of our postintervention maintenance-assessment, all three target behaviors and the concomitant behaviors were successfully maintained at three-week follow-up, with increased frequency and quality of performance compared to the intervention phase. Anecdotal observations during the intervention indicated that initially Jesse often displayed target behaviors using the exact same language and vocal intonations as were presented in the videos including other verbalisations such as communication partners' lines and verbal reinforcements presented in the video. At follow-up, however, marked qualitative improvements were evident, strengthening evidence for the social validity of the outcomes of the study.

As is true of all within subject designs, the external validity and generalizability of these results can only be established through replication. Of particular import in this instance is the degree to which existing attending and imitation skills of the child with autism are required; this teaching technique may only be effective for children with autism who demonstrate these skills. Further research establishing the generalization boundaries here, and possible strategies for teaching such attending and imitation skills when not present would be of value, as would systematic replications varying treatment intensity (duration and exposure frequency) when working with children with more severe deficits.

In summary, this study investigated the effects of combining two recently developed and as yet underresearched procedures for remedying the social deficits of a young child with autism. Video self-modelled Social Stories stand as a promising intervention, being straightforward and efficient to implement with possible applications across a wide array of behaviors. This package presents a tool appropriate to autism as it maximizes visual strengths and accounts for attention weaknesses, while also remaining an enjoyable and motivating activity for children. Further research is needed to determine the replicability of the present findings and possible limitations of the procedure.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.title
Using Video Self-Modelled Social Stories to Teach Social Skills to a Young Child with Autism

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
The present study investigated the effectiveness of combining Social Stories and Video Self-Modelling (VSM) to teach social skills to a three-year-old child with autism. A multiple-baseline across behaviors design revealed that video self-modelled Social Stories were effective at improving all three target behaviors: greeting, inviting to play, and contingent responding.