Social Stories and Comic Strip Conversations Workshop

Lisa Vallelly Service Lead for Paediatric ASD Service Clinical Lead Speech and Language Therapist

Social Skills

Children and young people with ASD have great difficulty mastering social skills. Social rules of behaviour and interaction are often confusing and overwhelming.

Social Skills
Social Skills can be taught and children and young people with ASD can acquire such skills if taught systematically. However the essence of social behaviour is the ability to relate to others in a mutually reinforcing and reciprocal fashion and to adapt social skills to the varying demands of interpersonal contexts (Howlin 1986) i.e. social competence. Social Competence ,however, requires an ability to use and apply these social skills in a range of contexts. This requires a degree of social understanding.

Social Understanding
Carol Gray (1998) defines social understanding as an understanding of the underlying, hidden messages that underpin social interaction a hidden code. Social understanding depends on an understanding of explicit and implicit social rules that govern everyday social encounters; it requires an ability to make decisions about the social skills we have in terms of when and where to use them.

Theory of mind
Theory of mind is essential and a key factor to aid social understanding and in turn social competence.
Water Balloon Game !!!

Theory of Mind
Definition: the ability to infer other people's mental states (their thoughts, beliefs, desires and intentions) and the ability to use this information to interpret what they say, make sense of their behaviour, and predict what they might do next .

Described by Simon Baron-Cohen (1995):

It is the ability to understand that others are not thinking what we are thinking.
This enables us to understand another's point of view.

It enables us to empathise.

Development of Theory of Mind

At 18-30 months
Typically developing children refer to a range of mental states, emotions, desires, beliefs, thoughts, dreams. pretence, etc.

Development Of Theory of Mind

At 3-4 years Experiments show the childs theory of mind is well developed- they are already capable of mindreading, and are aware of factors such as : False beliefs Emotions Pretence White lies

Smarties Experiment

Why is mind-reading important?

For making sense of social behaviour. For making sense of communication. For understanding intention, underlying meaning, listeners need for information.

To understand another's point of view.

Empathy.

Self reflection.

Developing Social Understanding

Social Stories and Comic Strip Conversations were devised by Carol Gray (1991) as an approach to help establish social understanding as a component to teaching social skills. The approach is founded on theories such as theory of mind and it uses a visual approach that recognises the visual learning style of individuals with ASD.

Aims of Social Stories and Comic Strip Conversations

To develop: Social skills Social prediction Social judgement Social understanding

Social Stories
Social story is a brief description of a social situation to aid a young persons understanding of social situations. Grays (2004) definition : A social story describes a situation, skill or concept in terms of relevant social cues, perspectives and common responses in a specially defined style and format

Social Stories
Purpose of social stories: Explain and provide information about a social situation or event. To provide information on the perspectives of others. To give direction to an individual re social skills and behaviour.

It is not the goal of the social story to change behaviour but to increase social understanding

Social stories

Step to step visual plan describing the social skill or behaviour that is appropriate for a certain social situation or event. Contains visual images to help the young person understand and remember. Offer clear coping skills that can be practised.

KEEP SHOES ON
Whenever I leave my house, I wear my shoes. I usually wear my shoes at school.

I wear my shoes outside.

My shoes keep my feet dry and warm. When I get home, I can take my shoes off again.

Looking While Listening

When someone is talking to me, I will try to listen. This is a very nice thing to do. Looking at the person who is talking to me is helpful. This lets the person know I am listening. Sometimes I try to look at a part of their face. I will try to do this so the other person knows that I am listening to them. The person who is talking to me will like this a lot.

Having a Substitute Teacher

My teacher at school is Mrs Jones. She usually is there everyday to take my class. Sometimes she isn't there. My teacher may be away learning new ways to teach. She may be ill. On those days I will have a substitute teacher. A substitute teacher knows how to help children learn. My teacher will have left work for me to do with my substitute teacher. That way the substitute teacher knows what to do. I will try to treat my substitute teacher like I treat my teacher. I will try to get on with my work and not worry about it. The substitute teacher is trying too. Mrs Jones will come back as soon as she can to teach my class again.

Guidelines for Writing Social Stories

Describe events and cues objectively. Focus on relevant and important information. Share information with literal accuracy. Write from the first person perspective in present or future tense. Title.

Social Story Sentences

Social stories are composed of different type of sentences:

Descriptive Sentences: describe what is happening in the situation and why. Directive Sentences : tell the child/young person what is expected of them as a response to the situation.

Social Story Sentences

Descriptive sentences should always outnumber the directive sentences.
Social Stories Formula Descriptive >2

Directive
1 directive sentence for every 2-5 descriptive sentences.

Having a Substitute Teacher

My teacher at school is Mrs Jones. She usually is there everyday to take my class. Sometimes she isn't there. My teacher may be away learning new ways to teach. She may be ill. On those days I will have a substitute teacher. A substitute teacher knows how to help children learn. My teacher will have left work for me to do with my substitute teacher. That way the substitute teacher knows what to do. I will try to treat my substitute teacher like I treat my teacher. I will try to get on with my work and not worry about it. The substitute teacher is trying too. Mrs Jones will come back as soon as she can to teach my class again.

Writing Social Stories

Title Loosing my DS.

Introduction If I lose my DS people can help. Body Mum and Dad know how to help me find my will try to think and look. Conclusion People can help me look for my DS.

DS. We

Writing Social Stories

Always use non committal statements. I will try to, sometimes, usually and avoid terms like always. Length of story will vary with reading age and attention levels. Always use vocabulary that the child or young person uses. Always present the information in a non threatening format. You can write a social story about anything to increase the child/young persons understanding. Read social stories daily and before the targeted situation and then gradually phase them out. Add illustrations to enhance the meaning of the text.

Comic Strip Conversations

Devised by Carol Gray.

Comic Strip Conversations is a conversation between two or more people which incorporates the use of simple drawings. They incorporate drawings, symbols and colour to illustrate detail, ideas and abstract concepts in conversations.
Systematically identifies what people say, do and think and emphasises what people may be thinking.

Comic Strip Conversations

Comic Strip Conversations help the child/young person: Identify what people say and do. Emphasise what people might be thinking. Allow basic conversational skills to be represented through pictures. Allow emotions to be represented by using colour Help child/young person understand where they are coming from. Help child/young person understand where others are coming from.

See You Later

I will see you at another time. I will see you later at lunchtime. We can play again when I see you tonight.
Or something else.

Draw as you talk

Use stick figures and symbols. Conversation symbols dictionary- enclosed at end of handouts

Talk

Thought

Comic Strip Conversationexample

Comic Strip Conversations

Questions that guide a Comic Strip Conversation: Where is the child/young person? Who else is there? What is the child doing? What happened? What did the child think? What did others do? What did others say and think?

Comic Strip Conversations

Allow you to get the childs perspective of a situation. Allow you to share with the child what others are thinking.

Comic Strip Conversation

Use colour to visually define the feelings and intentions of a speaker. Carol Gray (1994) suggested: Green good ideas, happy, friendly Red bad ideas, teasing, anger Brown comfortable, cosy Purple proud Yellow frightened Black facts, things we know Orange questions Combination of colours - confused

Correcting an incorrect colour

Class teacher joking with classroom assistant:

youre going to get detention

Child felt this was bad and therefore red words:

youre going to get detention

Acknowledge the child's response that yes in fact these words can be bad etc but in this situation the teacher was teasing and the words were friendly so in fact they are green words: youre going to get detention

Comic strip conversations often provide insight into a childs perspective of a situation and serve as an excellent prerequisite activity to the development of a social story. They can help to establish social understanding that can then be improved with a social story.

Summary
Social Stories and Comic Strip Conversations together are a tool designed to improve understanding and social skills.

Websites

www.thewatsoninstitute.org www.autismsocialstories.com