Friday, May 27, 2011

Social Skills: Social Stories

In working with our social groups, we found that some of the children need more help to understand the concepts.  Therefore, I have created a few Social Stories that serve to summarize some of our lessons and present visual aids along with the story.  (If you want to print these, open the link, right click on picture, click "save as" to a file on your computer, then you can print them.)


FRIENDS:  Addresses what friends should be.  Some of our clients may not ever have had a good friend.
FRIENDS Social Story on TPT

Here is a fun little video on YouTube about Friends:
Notebook Babies:  What is a Friend?
Notebook Babies:  Sharing




THOUGHTS:  Addresses the concept of "Good Thoughts vs. Uncomfortable Thoughts" and why you want people to have good thoughts about you.  It also reinforces the idea of "expected vs. unexpected behaviors".
 THOUGHTS Social Story on TPT 






EYE CONTACT:  Helps the child understand why we need to look at others.  It also explains that eye contact is not necessarily looking into someone's eyes and should not be "staring" at others.

Go to my TPT Store to purchase this three page story.





I will add more social stories that complement the Social Thinking curriculum as I develop them.

Here is a site called Teacher Tube.  Type in a search for "social story" to see what else they have available.

Joining in Play with Others
Personal Space

7 comments:

Anonymous said...

Parts of this story explain the pragmatic purpose of eye contact in a way that is easy to understand. However, I have an issue with page 9. It seems extremely inappropriate to suggest that secondary behaviors occurring with ASD such as inappropriate eye contact (staring) "makes people feel creepy" or "makes them feel like you may not be safe to be around" and will make them "have weird thoughts". Saying such things to any child, of any intellectual ability or developmental stage, could potentially make them feel as though they are "weird" or creepy", when in reality they have a difference in communication skills the SLP is trying to address.

Suzanne Herman, M.Ed., CCC-SLP said...

I understand your concern and this of course can be omitted if not pertinent to the child's needs. Some children have been taught to look at a person's eyes as a scripted behavior instead of as a social piece of an interaction that allows the child to gather info and make important observations. Some of them have a tendency to stare unnaturally at others which, in fact, makes them feel creepy; this can also lead to a host of problems depending on ages and situations: charges of harassment, intimidation, or stalking. The Social Thinking curriculum (trademarked) teaches about "weird thoughts" others have in such situations. It makes a point of distinguishing between the thought and not portraying the child himself as being weird. I personally have adopted the term "uncomfortable thoughts" because of a similar feeling about using the word "weird". In using Michelle Winner's work it is important to study it and understand how to use it sensitively. Time, effort , and trust must be invested and built when working on personal issues such ad social skills. It is much worse to allow such a problematic behavior to persist. What we try to teach is how those behaviors affect others which in turn affects them personally. With most people with ASD these things have to be pointedly stated not hinted.

Anonymous said...

I can only seem to view 3 pictures and the links are not working. So, most of it is not making sense. Is there something that I am missing here?

Suzanne Herman, M.Ed., CCC-SLP said...

I am sorry you having trouble. When I click on them they open. On the eye contact story I am getting a file error message but when I click the x, it goes away and I can see the pages.

Unknown said...

I requested access for these files, it won't let me see the stories without permission. I hope you will be willing to share these - they look like a great resource for some of my students! Thank you so much!

Suzanne Herman, M.Ed., CCC-SLP said...

I'm sorry the links aren't working for you. They work when I click on them. I will try to reload them next week.

Suzanne Herman, M.Ed., CCC-SLP said...

I have placed the Eye Contact Story file in my TPT store. You may access it for a small fee. Hopefully this will resolve issues with it not being available. https://www.teacherspayteachers.com/Product/Eye-Contact-Social-Story-2495007
I will be working on getting the other stories on TPT as well.