Using Social Stories and Visual Schedules to Improve Socially Appropriate Behaviors in Children With Autism

The current study investigated the effects of Social Stories written according to Gray’s specifications on on-task behavior in inclusive classroom settings in three children with autism. Using a multiple-baseline design across participants, modest improvements in on-task behavior were associated with implementation of an auditory-visual Social Story intervention. In follow-up analysis, the Social Story was replaced with a visual schedule component to augment the effects of Social Stories when there was room for improvement for one participant. Further improvement in on-task behavior indicates that strategies such as visual schedules may be an effective way to augment the effects of Social Stories. An effect size estimate calculated using Parker et al.’s percentage of all nonoverlapping data points procedure revealed a large effect ( d = 1.33) associated with Social Stories alone, which increased ( d = 1.7) when the visual schedule intervention applied to one participant was added to the analysis. Although Social Stories produced improvements in on-task behavior in children with autism, additional components, such as visual schedules, may be useful for optimizing performance.