A Critical Review of Social Narratives

Social narratives, or story-based interventions, are defined as stories that describe social situations, appropriate social behaviors to display, and when to display the specified behaviors. Social narratives are a commonly implemented and empirically evaluated procedure used to improve social behavior and decrease the probability of aberrant behavior for individuals diagnosed with autism spectrum disorder. Although social narratives are a commonly implemented and evaluated procedure, recommendations about their use and effectiveness is conflicting. This paper reviews six interventions that fit the definition of social narratives (i.e., Social Stories (TM)/social stories, social scripts, cartooning, comic strip conversations, power cards, and social autopsies). Fifteen articles were analyzed across multiple methodological dimensions to determine the level of evidence (i.e., convincing, partial, or not convincing). Results of the analysis indicated that the majority of social narrative studies did not demonstrate convincing evidence. Recommendations for clinicians and future research are discussed based on the results of the literature review.