If you’re working with a child with unique learning needs, you’ve probably heard all about the benefits and potential uses for social stories for students of all ages (even adolescents and young adults!).
Social stories can help young learners adjust to new routines, participate in conversations, develop certain life skills, or learn how to interact with peers. Whatever the situation might be, social stories can help tell kids what to expect and what might be expected of them.
While the benefits of social stories are obvious, creating them is much more complicated. It can be a daunting task, particularly if you are working with several students or aren’t sure how to craft the perfect narrative.
Fortunately, there are ways to make your life a bit easier. Consider these tips on how to write a social story, and you’ll be an old pro in no time.
What Are Social Stories?
According to Carol Gray, the original founder of social stories, social stories are used to “accurately describe a context, skill, achievement, or concept according to 10 defining criteria.”
A social story must:
- Have a goal
- Include a two-step discovery process
- Contain a title and introduction that identify the topic, a body that adds detail, and a conclusion that reinforces and summarizes the information
- Has a format that is tailored to the individual abilities, learning style, talented, interests, and attention span of the audience
- Have a patient and supportive voice along with vocabulary that:
- Has exclusive use of first- and/or third-person perspective statements (no second-person “you”)
- Contains past, present, or future tense
- Has a positive, patient tone
- Is literally accurate
- Has an accurate meaning
- Answers questions about where, when, who, what, how, and why
- Contains descriptive and coaching sentences (sentences that guide behavior)
- Has language that describes more than it directs
- Is constantly revised
- Has a plan for editing and implementation
Types of Social Stories
There are all kinds of social stories you can write. They can be used to:
- Explain how others might feel or react in a certain situation (including the student)
- Help a student cope with change in routine or unexpected events (like a fire drill)
- Assist with expected or unexpected behaviors (what to do when you are finished with an assignment)
- Accomplish self-care skills (such as grooming tasks)
- Describe what will happen at an event (like going on a field trip)
In short, there are very few situations in which a social story is not appropriate – you could even use them to teach important job skills! Social stories describe events more than they dictate what a student must do, making them good options for students who aren’t sure how to react to certain events.
How to Write a Social Story: Step-by-Step
1. Decide What Kinds of Topics to Tackle in Your Social Story
Social stories are normally written in first or third person, but never in second person. Writing a social story in second person diverts the story from being a descriptive story into being a directive one – that’s something you want to avoid.
Ideally, a social story should be written from the student’s perspective – “I went to the store” or “Adam went to the store” rather than “you went to the store.” They will answer the who, what, when, where, and why about a certain situation and the expected behavior that you would like to teach the student.
Therefore, the first thing you need to do is to identify the situation you’d like to cover in the social story. What kinds of situations do you find your student struggling in?
2. Vary Your Sentence Types
Carol Gray recommends that social stories should use both descriptive and “coaching” sentences. These “coaching” sentences are sometimes referred to as directive sentences, but that can be confusing given that we want the story to guide more than dictate.
Ideally, you should have at least two descriptive sentences for every coaching sentence. Descriptive sentences can be further broken down into factual, perspective, cooperative, and affirmative sentences.
Many people find it helpful to write one descriptive sentence followed by a directive/coaching sentence, then a cooperative and affirmative sentence. This kind of structure provides a nice “cause and effect” flow that might prove to be structured enough and helpful for students who struggle with abstract concepts.
Here is an example:
Descriptive Sentence: I ride the bus to school.
Perspective Sentence: Sometimes I get upset when I ride the bus because it is loud and crowded.
Directive/Coaching Sentence: I can put on my headphones and listen to music when I feel upset on the bus.
Affirmative Sentence: Staying relaxed on the bus is good for me.
Again, try to maintain a ratio of two descriptive sentences for every directive sentence to keep things more descriptive than directive.
3. Prepare the Story
After you’ve selected the topic and come up with some ideas for sentences, it’s time to put pen to paper (or fingers to keyboard!) and start crafting the story.
4. Add Some Pictures
Next, you will need to add some pictures to the story. Put the picture above the text so there is a clear link between the picture and the sentence. The pictures should be clear and represent the meaning of the story – now is not the time for fancy graphics or abstract artistic renderings! If you can, use visual support pictures or actual photographs of the child and the chosen situation.
5. Create Copies
Once you’ve written the social story and added in your pictures, you need to make copies. If you plan on using the social story for a large group, try to blow it up so that it will be visible for everybody who is viewing it. If you plan on using the book or many children, you will want to create multiple copies (enough for each student to bring one home) and consider laminating it, too.
6. Introduce and Read the Story
This is one of the most important steps in creating a social story, and one that tends to be forgotten. While the crafting and content of a social story are, of course, important, you also need to set aside ample amounts of time to read the story to the child. Make sure you choose the opportune time, introducing the social story when the child is in an amenable, approachable mood and ready to learn.
Read through the story several times and have the child read along if possible. You can also discuss personal experiences and make connections to real-world situations to make the story even more relevant.
7. Practice and Provide Feedback
After reading the story several times, consider role-playing to help further your child’s understanding of the expectations. USe positive feedback when your child displays the expected behavior after the social story is used, and don’t throw the stories out when you think you might be finished with them. Hang on to them and keep them accessible so you can reread and practice more as necessary.
8. Bonus Step – Have the Student Help When Possible!
Whenever possible, encourage the child to help you create his own social story. This will allow for more ownership and greater buy-in. You can guide the child with open-ended questions if necessary.
Who Are Social Stories Best For?
Social stories were first adapted for students with autism spectrum disorder. However, they can be useful for any student who might struggle with social skills, behavioral disorders, or any other similar problems with communication.
They can be used with individuals of all ages, particularly if you take the time to modify and adapt them to fit the students’ age and cognitive level. When they are customized to meet the needs of an individual student, they are no longer one-size-fits-all solutions but instead can be personally tailored to meet any need or desired skill set.
Social stories can even be used for students who struggle with emotional regulation. They can help decrease anxiety, teach rules, or even demonstrate tough social cues.
How to Adapt Social Stories for Students Who Are Nonverbal
Believe it or not, you can use social stories for children who are nonverbal. You will need to make some accommodations and adaptations, though.
For starters, make sure the stories contain simplified language. Use single words rather than long phrases and try to encourage nonverbal communication in the stories (you might point to pictures in the story rather than focusing on long chunks of text).
It’s even more important when crafting these social stories that they attune to a child’s unique interests. These social stories should contain visual supports with lots of pictures (in some cases, a social story for a nonverbal child might contain no text and be composed solely of visual aids). You might even use musically-adapted social stories to help get a point across.
Another helpful tip for creating a social story for a nonverbal child is to make sure the story contains pictures of the child himself whenever possible. This will make the story more relevant and is a good way to involve the child in the creation of the social story when having them write their own sentences might not be possible.
Social Story Templates To Try
If you are an educator working with children with unique learning needs, there’s a good chance that you don’t have time to craft a brand-new social story for every single situation you need to teach. That’s where templates can come in handy.
One thing you can do is to create a reusable “Mad Libs”-style social story template that you can use again and again. You can simply fill in the blanks with the sentences and terms you need to include to make an impact on your student.
A fill in the blank social story template is helpful because you can read the social narrative and have the student circle the best answer or fill in the text and images with his own answer. This is a great way to allow the student to choose his or her own solution and feelings based on the narratives. You can also use it to review parts of speech! Ultimately, these kinds of social story templates will give more ownership to the student.
You can use computer programs like Microsoft Word, Publisher, or PowerPoint to create your own social stories, but if you want to grab a quick social story template that you can use with your kids ASAP, check out our template below by entering your email.
You can also view some of Carol Gray’s original examples and social story samplers here.
Ultimately, crafting a social story to fit your child’s unique needs is not difficult. With some practice, you’ll be able to whip up tons of stories in no time!
Further Reading
- Carol Gray: The New Social Story Book
- Carol Gray: Comic Strip Conversations
- Carol Gray: A Social Story for the Rest of Us
- All titles by Carol Gray
- Carol Gray: What is a Social Story?
- Carol Gray: Social Stories 10.2
- Pandemic Social Stories Direct Access by Carol Gray
- Mike D. Brownell: Musically Adapted Social Stories to Modify Behaviors in Students with Autism: Four Case Studies
- Kylie Rymanowicz: Once upon a social story: Advantages, writing and presenting social stories
- Life Skills Advocate: Using Social Stories to Teach Internet Safety Skills to Teens
Very useful information