The use of Social Stories by teachers and their perceived efficacy

Teachers working with children with autism spectrum disorders were surveyed to determine the characteristics of children with whom Social Stories are used, how extensively they are employed and the types of behaviors targeted by teachers; how and why teachers use Social Stories (including the extent to which Social Stories conform to recommended construction); teacher's perceived acceptability, applicability and efficacy of Social Stories and how perceived efficacy varies across student characteristics, story construction and implementation. Social Stories were widely used to target a diversity of behaviors, with children of different ages who demonstrated varying degrees of autism, a range of cognitive ability and varying expressive and receptive language skills. The teachers surveyed use Social Stories as an intervention because they find them easy to construct and implement, and believe them to be effective, although there are perceived issues with maintenance and generalization. Cognitive ability and expressive language skills appeared to affect the perceived efficacy of the intervention; receptive language skills and level of autism did not. Sample Social Stories provided by teachers often deviated from the recommended guidelines. Social Stories that deviated from recommended construction were rated more efficacious than those that did not. Several directions for future research are discussed.