Social Stories for Adolescents and Young Adults

For young children with autism, social stories have long been used as a tool to help children learn how to behave and engage in various social interactions. Not only can social stories teach new social skills, but they can also educate learners on the best ways to regulate their behavior.

Until recently, social stories have long been used as an instructional tool only for very young children (those in preschool, elementary, and even middle grades). However, social stories are increasingly being used as effective tools for older students – even those who are beginning to explore the transition out of adolescence into adulthood.

But are social stories for adolescents the same as they are for younger children, both in terms of their execution and their efficacy? Here’s what you need to know.

The History of Social Stories

Social stories are often used as programming recommendations for individuals with autism or other pervasive developmental disorders. They can be used by both a family member, a teacher, a coach, or any other person in a student’s life to help enforce the development of various social skills.

The term “social story” was first coined by Carol Gray in 1991. The stories are designed to share information about how to react appropriately in a given setting. Social stories work because they address specific issues that children with autism might have, such as play skills, the use of body language, social communication, and understanding emotions.

Social stories have long been regarded as one of the best tools educators and parents have for producing positive long-term outcomes for individuals with autism. Initially, social stories contained four types of sentences with a “sentence type ratio.” These stories had descriptive, directive, perspective, and affirmative sentences. These stories were usually presented via written text.

Today, social stories can exist in other formats, like storytelling, singing, computer-based presentations, and even videos. They tend to have a few more additional components but always contain the four descriptive, directive, perspective, and affirmative sentences.

All social stories, at their core, should contain language that is at least 50% positive. Most sentences should be descriptive and not utilize terms like “you should” or “you need to.”

How to Implement Social Stories

At the core, a social story has several basic components. It will tell the viewer what the people in a particular situation might be thinking, doing or feeling, along with an appropriate sequence of events. The social story will also identify significant social causes and their significance and provide a script of what to say or do.

An effective social story covers the who, what, when, where, and why of a given situation. It can be used to meet several goals: to help a child understand a rule or routine, to prepare someone for an upcoming event, to solidify an abstract concept, or to reaffirm expectations.

For a long time, it was believed that social stories only worked with children who were higher functioning. However, now, we know that social stories can also be beneficial for students with more severe learning disabilities as long as those differences in ability are accommodated for in the delivery of the story.

For example, a social story for a child with a severe reading impairment might contain just one concept at a time with pictures added in for extra meaning.

It only makes sense that social stories can also work well for older children – even those approaching adulthood.

What’s crucial in creating a social story for an older child is that it is relevant. You need to start by thinking about the main goal of the social story. Usually, a social story is meant to directly teach a social rule or cue. You will need to be able to provide accurate information of the concepts that need to be learned.

Then, try to gather some information on the topic. Think about the following factors:

• When it occurs
• Where it occurs
• Who is involved
• What to do in the situation
• Why people behave in certain ways

You need to have a concrete, clear idea of the answers to each of these questions. If you can’t envision the correct answer yourself, how can you expect your student to be able to learn that concept?

Then, tailor the text. A social story will contain several core aspects. It will be written from a first-person perspective, ideally in three parts consisting of an introduction, body, and conclusion. It will use positive language (try to avoid terms like “do not” and “shouldn’t”) and will have at least two to five descriptive, perspective, and affirmative sentences.

While social stories for young children are usually quite short, those for older kids can be a bit longer. Usually, they’re about one to two paragraphs, written on a single page. You can use pictures, but keep them age-appropriate. The student should always be the main character. Make sure you take the reading level of your student into consideration, too.

Beyond these basic guidelines, you have some liberty to be a bit creative. You can tailor the social story to the needs of the student with which you are working, along with his or her personality and background.

Does the student enjoy comics? Make a social story that is a comic strip! Are videos more ideal? That’s another option you can explore. Some of the most commonly used social stories for teens and young adults include:

• How to avoid peer pressure
• How to say “no” to a date
• What to wear to a job interview
• How to react in various bullying situations
• How to ask relevant questions
• Internet safety
• How to accept a job offer

It can be awkward to initiate a social story with a teen. To be fair, starting a conversation about any of these relevant topics for teens can be awkward! Try to use the social stories as conversation starters and steer the conversation in the appropriate direction to cover all of your student’s needs.

Here’s a good formula to follow when creating a social story:

• Begin by explaining the current behavior. What’s going on? What’s the problem?
• Next, explain the targeted behavior.
• Offer alternatives to the behavior.
• Resolve the situation in a positive way.

Best Alternatives to Social Stories

While some research states that the research that states that the effectiveness of social stories is questionable, most practitioners agree that social stories are not ineffective.

Simply put, social stories shouldn’t be one piece in the puzzle. Social stories are most effective when used in conjunction with other interventions – and that’s true of using social stories both with young children and with young adults.

There are other alternatives to using social stories as behavioral interventions. One is Cool vs. Not Cool. This program is a discrimination program that is meant to be played at a structured indoor game. It works best with a group, but involves role playing and is a fun way for students to learn play skills.

As you might expect, this strategy works best for younger children, although it could work well with older students depending on the context and cognitive level of the students in question.

You might also want to consider strategies like social cartooning, which can help define and describe social expectations in a more accessible way.

One of the common trends among all of these alternatives, social stories included, is that they provide students with clearly structured social situations and well-defined expectations. When students know what to expect, they are better able to react and behave appropriately in a given situation. Teaching skills like imitation and context clues can be effective.

Another effective – yet often overlooked – strategy? Find peers who model strong social skills and pair your child with them. This will not only provide peers with strategies for communication and response but it can also help keep the skill development as natural as possible.

Leave a comment below to let us know what your favorite strategy is.

How to Transition Out of Using Social Stories

Much of the effectiveness of a social story has to do with the delivery. There is a significant amount of research that shows that strategies like priming, positive reinforcement, imitation, and prompting are effective ways to teach students with autism. Therefore, your use of social stories should include all of these methods as well.

Social stories are most effective when they are simple and used to describe single behaviors. They are also most effective when children are allowed to read the stories on their own and ideally, right before they are expected to engage in the target situation.

There will come a time when social stories are no longer effective – or realistic – for certain students. Therefore, it’s important that the transition out of the use of social stories starts automatically – from the very beginning of their use.

While you are using social stories, it’s important that you don’t neglect other parts of communication that will be essential for success in adulthood. For example:

• Teach context clues and how to reference the behavior of those around you for clues on what to do (for example, if everybody is clapping, you should clap, too)
• Celebrate strengths of a student and teach the student how to use those strengths in everyday social interactions (if sense of humor is a strong point, teach appropriate use of humor in various social situations)
• Teach empathy and reciprocity – often, students with autism have trouble “reading a room,” so to speak, and need specific training in how to adjust their behavior given certain cues
• Make training in positive social interactions a regular part of everyday routines – instead of occasional lessons

Examples and Case Studies to Help You Get Started

There are all kinds of apps and programs you can use to create social stories. A few worth mentioning include Pictello, Book Creator, and Pic Collage, all of which can help you put together multiple photos and chunks of text to create an engaging social story.

These are great introductory tools, but if you would like to be formally trained on how to create social stories, you should check out this training module. It’s a great way to train yourself on how to develop effective and applicable social stories for learners of all ages.

Still not sure where to start?

Just enter your email below to receive social story templates.

In the first template, I’ve provided you with a worksheet that can be used to create your own social story. You’ll be able to walk through each step to figure out which components are necessary in your story.

In this second template, you will find an example that is a bit more specific. This template deals with a common situation for adolescents with autism – the tendency to be late for classes or jobs.

You can change this template to meet the specific situation you are trying to address. You can also simply change the name and background information of the student in question to match the profile of the student with whom you are working.

Do Social Stories Work For Adolescents and Young Adults?

If you are considering using social stories with older children and young adults, don’t be deterred by the assumption that these techniques are only effective for very young children. While social stories don’t work with everyone – and should rarely be used as a sole intervention tool – they can definitely be one piece of a very effective puzzle.

Thinking about trying social stories? Use a few of the examples we’ve given you above. Make sure you consult with the key people involved in a situation, too, to help give you a better idea of how you can make the social story more effective.

A social story is most effective if you have an idea of why an individual is engaging in a specific behavior. Conducting a detailed behavioral analysis and meeting with other stakeholders will help you figure out why a child is struggling with a certain behavior so that you can create a more targeted, more effective social story.

Don’t forget to evaluate your success afterward, too! Whether you’re a parent or an educator, the best thing you can do when implementing social stories for an adolescent – or for a child of any age – is to be constantly revisiting, reviewing, and revising your approach as needed. Good luck!

Further Reading

• Life Skills Advocate blog: How To Write a Social Story (Step-by-Step Guide)
• 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
• Pandemic Social Stories Direct Access by Carol Gray
• Jean Hamersky: Cartoon Cut-Ups: Teaching Figurative Language & Humor
• Beverly Vicker: Behavioral Issues and the Use of Social Stories
• Nebraska Autism Spectrum Disorders Network at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln: Social Stories
• Behav Anal Pract: The Effects of the Cool Versus Not Cool Procedure to Teach Social Game Play to Individuals Diagnosed with Autism Spectrum Disorder
• Anastasia Kokina, Lee Kern: Social Story Interventions for Students With Autism Spectrum Disorders: A Meta-Analysis
• Cool vs. Not Cool curriculum
• Life Skills Advocate: Using Social Stories to Teach Internet Safety Skills to Teens