Social Stories in LIFE Skills

History of Social Stories™

Social Stories were first created to help people with autism cope with social situations. It’s a great idea, however, to use Social Stories for any student who needs social skill building or who is struggling with problem behavior.

At its core, social stories in LIFE Skills or in any setting describes a situation, a skill, or relevant social cues that are specific to a student. The overall goal of a social story is to share social information in an easily understood way for a particular person and situation.

Using Social Stories in LIFE Skills

In the classroom, a teacher can create a social story to talk about routines, social interactions, and target behaviors that address the needs of a particular student. With all the flexibility, you can really address specific needs. The key is to write from a student’s perspective. You want to make it all about the student. You also want to use a level of concreteness that a student can really relate to.

Using social stories in LIFE Skills can go beyond just students with Autism. Although that was their original intent and where a lot of the research started, they work for anyone. Any student who has a hard time predicting what happens in different social situations can have successful outcomes with the repetition that comes from social stories.

---

---

Creating Social Stories in LIFE Skills

When you are looking to target a behavior or improve a student’s behavior, social stories may do the trick. When you pair a social story with images of the actual student, it transforms. It becomes a true personalized social story. It also becomes a wonderful visual script on how to behave and what to expect. Though social stories do not work 100% of the time, most professionals say that efficacy is above 90%. This intervention only works with lots of repetition. You’ll also want to use praise, to practice through role play, and then to generalize.

Sentence Types for Creating Social Stories

There are four basic sentence types that are used to create social stories. They are:

• Descriptive Sentences. These are factual statements like “Some children ride the bus to school”.
• Perspective Sentences. These are statements that describe someone’s thoughts, feelings, or physical condition. An example: “Sometimes riding the bus makes me sad, but I have to ride it to and from school”. This can also refer to other people’s feelings and opinions. Example: “The driver likes it when I sit in my seat on the bus”.
• Directive Sentences. These describe the behavior choices in a social situation. Example: “when I get on the bus I sit down on the seat”.
• Affirmation Sentence. This tells the common cultural opinion. Example: “It is important to stay in your seat on the bus so you can be safe”.

You can also add a sentence on WHO can help when a student is in a specific situation. In this example, it is the bus aide or driver. You may also include analogies to explain different situations if appropriate for the student.

Want More on Social Stories?

There is a great tip and resource sheet from Vanderbilt Kennedy Center available online.  My Aspergers Child also a post that includes video social stories you can access online. There is just a huge list of videos available that you can start using today with no prep! You’ll find an in depth guide for social stories including FAQs and supporting studies from the University of Pittsburgh. There’s also text for social stories you can use today, just add pictures of your targeted student from PBIS World.

There are just so many ways to use social stories in LIFE Skills- there’s no reason not to start today!

---

More on Teaching with Social Stories

Are you still needing more information on how to teach students using social stories? No worries, we have the best article about that here: How To Use Social Stories in Special Education.

You can also snag a set of social stories PERFECT for your classroom by clicking here: https://www.noodlenook.net/tptstories