What is a Social Story?

What is a social story?

Social stories are short and simple stories that target specific behavior concerns by demonstrating and breaking down the appropriate and desired behavioral response.

Children, especially those with neuro-diversity, benefit from concrete examples and models. Depending on their functioning level, they may not be able to comprehend abstract ideas.

Significant research has been conducted that demonstrates the effectiveness of social stories in improving behavior outcomes, especially when a child sees a preferred character and/or themself engaging in the preferred behavior. The more individualized the better.

How does it work?

Using artificial intelligence I can create images of engaging and recognizable characters demonstrating the behaviors we want to see children mimic.

For example, last summer my 4 year old was struggling significantly in swim lessons. She would scream the whole time and insisted on holding on to her swim teacher with both hands which prevented her from doing any swimming.

I decided to make her a customized story about swim lessons using AI generated images of a girl with her description and characters she likes, like a little blue dog and a Polynesian Princess.

When she opened the book to the first page with a girl matching her description she got so excited and exclaimed, "Look Mom, it's me! And I'm swimming!"

The next week in swim lessons, after reading her book several times allowing her to visualize herself and her favorite characters happily participating in swim lessons, we saw a dramatic improvement. No more screaming and with minimal prompting she was willing to let go of her instructor and start learning how to swim.

What topics and struggles can they address?

Honest answer- literally anything! But here's a few common ones:

• staying with your grown up

• how to handle when the answer is no

• dealing with anxiety inducing situations (swim lessons, going to the doctor, going to church, concerts, etc.)

• keeping hands to self

• eating dinner

• what to expect on vacation

• appropriate classroom behavior

• independent living skills

Check out the store for ready made resources or contact me to discuss creating a fully customized story for your child!