A social story is a story that helps teach social skills to people who have difficulty understanding the emotions, behavior and thoughts of others.
They are often short stories that explain social situations that individuals find confusing or challenging. To do this, they use explicit teaching techniques. These techniques help to focus attention on key features such as social cues and simplify and scaffold understanding by eliminating extraneous information. In doing so, a social story helps to provide both insight into the reasoning behind a social situation as well as to outline methodical strategies or ways to respond appropriately.
Terry's Tips
Some students have difficulty understanding how to behave in social situations. It seems as if they do not want to have friends, but in truth, they do not understand that their behavior is turning their peers off. Social stories can help students develop an understanding of social skills.
Often social stories are developed to target a specific problem with one student. However, they can be used with an entire class to help them develop a higher level of understanding of social situations. Book Builder's features can be used to author social stories that include multiple levels of support to scaffold a student as they develop social and emotional understanding and skill.
