Brief Report: A "Storybook" Ending to Children's Bedtime Problems--The Use of a Rewarding Social Story to Reduce Bedtime Resistance and Frequent Night Waking

Abstract

Use of a social story helped parents implement a multicomponent intervention using a familiar bedtime routine, thereby increasing the likelihood that implementation and effects occurred. The book format makes this intervention widely available to parents and professionals, with minimal costs and inconvenience.

Social Stories: Mechanisms of Effectiveness in Increasing Game Play Skills in Children Diagnosed with Autism Spectrum Disorder Using a Pretest Posttest Repeated Measures Randomized Control Group Design

“…Interestingly, social stories have also been shown to be effective with typically developing children (Burke et al 2004). Furthermore, a social story targeting the improvement of social skills was successfully implemented in a study with 69 children ages 3-4 that had specific language impairments (Pettigrew 1998) and in a study with 63 children ages 10-12 who had Learning Disabilities (Kalyva and Agaliotis 2008).…”

Clinical Management of Behavioral Insomnia of Childhood: Treatment of Bedtime Problems and Night Wakings in Young Children

“…Second, after the child falls asleep, they can be visited by the sleep fairy, who leaves a small token under the child's pillow (e.g., a sticker or penny). Initially, the sleep fairy comes every night, but after a few weeks, the sleep fairy comes on a more variable schedule, reinforcing the behavior of having the child stay in bed (Burke, Kuhn, & Peterson, 2004). Third, a bedtime pass can be used to prevent multiple requests or parental visits after bedtime (Freeman, 2006;Moore et al, 2007).…”

“…Primary outcomes include duration of child's sleep, sleep onset latency, and the frequency and duration of both problematic bedtime behaviors (e.g., crying or tantrums or leaving the bedroom) and night wakings (Burke et al, 2004;Durand & Mindell, 1990;Minde et al, 1994;Mindell & Durand, 1993;St. James-Roberts, Sleep, Morris, Owen, & Gillham, 2001).…”

Choreographies of Emotion: Sociological Stories behind Bedtime, Fairy Tales and Children's Books

“…Nevertheless, falling asleep without parents nearby is different from sleeping alone. Children start to take over their own bedtime reading, as they acquire and develop in school the necessary reading skills, and as parents value the child's engagement in various literacy-related activities at bedtime as a sign of their own orientation towards the significance of literacy in early childhood (Serpell et al, 2002;Burke et al, 2004). In other cases, children's lying down is often accompanied by television, school work or computer activities (De Almeida et al, 2011).…”