An Analysis of the Use of Social Stories in Teaching Social Skills to Children with Autism Spectrum Disorders

Social stories play a significant part in the teaching skills and behaviors to children with ASD who lack social skills. The purpose of this study is to analyze studies in which social stories were used for teaching social skills to individuals with Autism Spectrum Disorders (ASD). The present study includes a descriptive review and meta-analysis of single-subject studies that met the criteria. In all studies, social validity, maintenance, and generalization data were collected in 56.25%, 50%, and 31.25% of the respective studies. Although most studies showed that social stories were effective in teaching social skills to children with ASD in the descriptive study, in the meta-analytic study, the mean of Percantage of Non-overlapping Data (PND) scores for all studies was 63.43%, with a range of 0% to 100%. Results suggest that social stories should not yet be considered as evidence based practice for teaching social skills to individuals with ASD. However, social stories seem to be a promising practice that warrants future research. Results will be discussed extensively and future directions for research and practice will be addressed.