Professional paper
Social Stories in Working with Students with a Disorder of the Autism Spectrum
Monika Jakobović
; Centar za autizam Zagreb Zagreb, Hrvatska
Abstract
The aim of this paper is to present one of the methods of learning social skills: social stories. The paper first describes social skills and why some children with disabilities need to acquirie social skills. Then the students with autism spectrum disorders are defined, and the social stories, which were originally designed for them. Social stories are stories written from the perspective of students which explain the social situation or concept, describe the essential elements of the situation and suggest the expected answers. Furthermore, the paper explains how to make a social story on the basis of a functional behavioral assessment, the types of sentences which are used in a social story, and provides additional guidance for the application. The final consideration: a large number of children with disabilities must learn how to read and respond to non-verbal communication, which because of its ambiguity often don't succeed. Mastering social skills boosts self-esteem, independence and emotional resilience, and the use of social stories is an effective method of teaching social skills. This method is applicable to all students with disabilities who are in need of such help, and not just students with autism spectrum disorders. In the appendix three examples of social stories are given.
Keywords
social skills; social stories; students with autism spectrum disorders; reading emotions; functional behavioral assessment
Hrčak ID:
193890
URI
Publication date:
30.6.2017.
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