Social Stories™ are a social learning tool which uses personalized text and pictures to accurately describe a skill or situation. Social Stories™ depicts the learners’ point of view of a situation and identifies possible solutions to specific situations. Through Social Stories™, learners learn the appropriate and expected behaviors in different social settings (e.g. in the mall, library or public transportation). Social Stories™ can both increase appropriate behaviors and decrease inappropriate problematic behaviors. For instance, Chan and O’Reilly (2008) used Social Stories™ to increase appropriate social initiations and decrease inappropriate social interactions and vocalizations (e.g. making irrelevant comments) of two students with autism in an inclusive classroom setting.

Social Stories™ also enhance parents and teachers’ attention to the appropriate behaviors rather than only to the inappropriate behaviors, which results in better teaching to the learner about how to behave appropriately in social situations. In general, Social Stories™ is used prevalently and is also liked and implemented by parents and teachers (Dodd, Hupp, Jewell, & Krohn, 2008).

Chan, J. M. and O'Reilly, M. F. (2008). A Social Stories™ intervention package for students with Autism in inclusive classroom settings. Journal of Applied Behavior Analysis, 41(3),405-409.

Dodd, S., Hupp, S.D.A., Jewell, J.D., & Krohn, E. (2008). Using parents and siblings during a Social Story intervention for two children diagnosed with PDD-NOS. Journal of Developmental and Physical Disabilities, 20, 217-229.