Children with Autism Spectrum Disorders: Social Stories and Self Management of Behaviour

Abstract

Introduction: This paper presents the findings of an experimental research that determined the effect of a social story intervention on development of self management of behavior in children with autism spectrum disorders (ASD). Social stories, developed by Carol Gray, are simple stories that describe social events and situations that are difficult for a person with ASD to understand. A social story facilitates social understanding between people who have ASD and those who interact with them. Aim: The study was conducted to determine the efficacy of social story based intervention on development of self management skills in children with ASD Methods and Procedures: A sample of 20 children with ASD (aged 10-14 years) was randomly selected from 5 schools and remedial centres in Mumbai. The children were assigned to treatment and control groups (N=10 each) after a pre intervention assessment on the Rating Scale for Self Management (RSSM) I and II. The RSSM, developed for the study, was an instrument for observation of self management behavior. RSSM I was used by the authors and the selected children’s teachers to observe the children’s self management of class room and play behavior while the children’s parents used RSSM II to observe their general behavior. The children in the treatment group were given 15 individual sessions of social story intervention. Six social stories were written for each child. The treatment included reading the social story to the child, reading of the story by the child, answering questions based on what was read, role play wherever possible, and follow up at home (for social stories on general behavior) by making the child read the social story. The control group children participated in the regular intervention activities of their schools/centres, during the treatment phase. Post treatment, both groups were reassessed on RSSM I and II. Results and Conclusion: A comparison of pre and post scores on RSSM of treatment group children showed a significant improvement. Also, their mean performance on RSSM post treatment was significantly higher than that of the control group. This indicated that social stories intervention was effective in enhancing self management behavior in children with ASD.