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Social Stories and Autism Ranking: Insufficient/Mixed evidence

Aims and Claims

Aims

The aim of social stories is to increase someone’s understanding of specific social situations, to make them more comfortable in those situations, and possibly to suggest appropriate responses when in those situations. According to Attwood (2000),

“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”.

Claims

There have been various claims made for social stories as an intervention for autistic people.  For example, Gray (1993) claims that “Social stories serve a wide variety of purposes. They appear to be particularly helpful in facilitating inclusion of students with autism in general education classes. They have been used successfully to introduce changes and new routines at home and at school, to explain the reason for others’ behaviors, or teach new academic and social skills".

Updated
17 Jun 2022
Last Review
01 Jul 2017
Next Review
01 Oct 2023