An investigation of the effect of social stories in teaching of social skills to children with autism

Abstract

ABSTRACT. The aim of this study is to help a child with autism in an inclusive preschool programme to introduce herself, to ask for help or information and to acquire skills to participate in daily activities through social stories. In this study, one of the single subject methods called multiple probe model with probe condition across behaviors is used. In order to teach social skills such as introducing herself, asking for help or information and participate in daily activities, social stories are written and these stories are visualized through pictures. The intended social skills are taught through social stories to the partcipant autistic child, then it is evaluated through observations whether these social skills are performed or not in the inclusive preschool programme. After criterion is met for teaching of intended social skills, withdrawal sessions of stories are done. Then, the data are collected through follow up observations two weeks later. At the end of the study, the effectiveness of social skill instruction through social stories and the follow up data show permanency of the taught skills. Keywords 166 SUMMARYPurpose and significance: Social stories have been developed for the purpose of helping autistic children to gain social skills and act as a therapy for their problematic behaviour. The purpose of this study is to investigate whether the social skills training program prepared along with the stories is effective or not for the autistic child to identify herself, request help or information and both gain and sustain participation skills to enable them participate in the ongoing activity.

Effect of Social Stories Designed and Presented by Pre-Service Teachers on Social Skills Acquisition of Children with Autism

“…Results obtained with graphical analysis demonstrated that SS were effective in children with ASD to achieve, generalize, and retain target social skills one, three, and five weeks after the instruction was terminated. This study's results are consistent with the results of other studies conducted on social skills instruction to children with ASD (Acar et al, 2016;Adams et al, 2004;Balçık & Tekinarslan, 2012;Bernad-Ripoll, 2007;Kuoch & Mirenda, 2003;Olçay-Gül & Tekin-İftar, 2016;Quilty, 2007;Xin & Sutman, 2011). The most significant characteristic that differentiates the present study from others is the fact that SS were designed and applied by PST.…”

“…It was determined in the maintenance sessions that the children maintained their acquired skills at the accuracy rate of 100%. This supports the results obtained from other SS studies in the literature (Acar et al, 2016;Balçık & Tekinarslan, 2012;Crozier & Tincani, 2007;Leaf et al, 2012;Olçay-Gül & Tekin-İftar, 2016;Sansosti & Powell-Smith, 2008;Schneider & Goldstein, 2010;Theiman & Goldstein, 2001;Thompson & Johnston, 2013;Turhan & Vuran, 2015;Quilty, 2007). Generalization data were collected from both children with ASD and PST.…”

“…In national/international literature, SS have been used in the instruction of quite different skills. These studies could be listed as social skills instruction (Balçık & Tekinarslan, 2012;Bernad & Ripoll, 2007;Theiman & Goldstein, 2001), self-care skills instruction (Hagiwara & Myles, 1999), prevention of problem behavior (Kuoch & Mirenda, 2003), and sexuality education (Süzer, 2015;Tarnai & Wolfe, 2008) of children with ASD. Furthermore, SS were studied with multimedia or interactive base (Sani-Bozkurt et al, 2017;Xin & Sutman, 2011) and combined with video modeling (Bernad & Ripoll, 2007) and taught to paraprofessionals (Quilty, 2007) and family members (Acar et al, 2016;Değirmenci, 2018;Olçay-Gül & Tekin-İftar, 2016).…”

Effects of Mother-Delivered Social Stories and Video Modeling in Teaching Social Skills to Children With Autism Spectrum Disorders

“…They are either directly read by the child or someone reads them to the child; then the child is expected to perform the behavior in a related social context. SS have been used for teaching social interaction and communication skills (Adams, Gouvousis, VanLue, & Waldron, 2004; Balcik & Tekinarslan, 2012; Delano & Snell, 2006; Hanley-Hochdorfer, Bray, Thomas, Kehle, & Elinoff, 2010; Olçay-Gül & Tekin-Iftar, 2016; Sansosti, Powell-Smith, & Kincaid, 2004; Scattone, Tingstrom, & Wilczynski, 2006; Thiemann & Goldstein, 2001), safety skills (Suzer, 2015), and play skills (Barry & Burlew, 2004; Kourassanis, Jones, & Fienup, 2015) to individuals with autism across various age groups.…”

Otizm Spektrum Bozukluğu Olan Okul Öncesi Çocuklarının Kaynaştırma/Bütünleştirme Ortamlarına Uygulamalı Davranış Analizinden Yansımalar

“…Findings of a single subject research revealed that social stories increased prosocial behaviors in four preschool children with ASD (Wright & McCathren, 2012). The results of another single-subject study by Balçık and Tekinarslan (2012) showed that social stories were effective in gaining the ability to introduce themselves, ask for help and participate in daily activities in a four-year-old child with ASD. Findings of another single subject study demonstrated effectiveness of Power Card Strategy, a story based intervention, in teaching appropriate social skills on the playgrounds for a five years old child with ASD (Spencer, Simpson, Day, & Buster, 2008).…”