Social Stories

What is a Social Story?

_________________

Social Stories are a social learning tool that supports the safe and meaningful exchange of information between parents, professionals, and people with autism of all ages. The people who develop Social Stories are referred to as Authors, and they work on behalf of a child, adolescent, or adult with autism, the Audience.

Authors follow a defined process that begins with gathering information, discovering a topic that ‘fits’ the Audience, and the development of personalized text and illustration. Most frequently associated with short, simple Stories, there are also Social Articles for use with older or more advanced individuals. The Social Story Definition and ten defining characteristics (The Social Story Criteria) guide the development of every Story and result a patient, respectful, and unassuming quality that is the hallmark of the approach. It is that quality that distinguishes genuine Social Stories from social scripts, skill checklists, or ‘social stories’ that do not meet the current the definition.

There is only one definition for the term ‘Social Story’:

A Social Story accurately describes a context, skill, achievement, or concept according to 10 defining criteria. These criteria guide Story research, development, and implementation to ensure an overall patient and supportive quality, and a format, “voice”, content, and learning experience that is descriptive, meaningful, and physically, socially, and emotionally safe for the child, adolescent, or adult with autism.

How are Social Stories Used?

• Safety: Understanding safety may make it easier to follow some rules.
• Tragedies:  What a tragedy is and understanding tragedies on television.
• Discovery of Self and Others:  Each person is one of a kind.
• Advanced Concepts: Stories to address ‘elusive’ topics like stereotypes and resilience.
• Change: Changes in their daily life, including transitions. 

Additional Social Story Information:

Where did Social Stories come from?
The History of Social Stories

Is THIS a Social Story?
It is NOT a Social Story if… An initial screening instrument

How the Social Story Criteria keep pace with experience and research
Social Stories 10.0 – 10.2 Comparison Chart

http://socialworkpodcast.blogspot.com/2015/11/Bodenheimer.html

  My item of interest is a podcast on how to be a clinical social worker, what makes a social worker a bad social worker, how to utilize supervision, how to better serve your clients, dealing with transference, counter transference, narcissism, and the observing ego. This is a podcast we listened to at my placement during group supervision. I believe that this will be helpful for us as school social workers because in a school when you are dealing with teenagers it is easy to feel this need to establish rapport and bond with your students but I think it’s important that we learn how to do that in a way that doesn’t include over sharing and yet still feels human. I appreciated how this podcast spoke to what makes someone a bad social worker as we are all in our final placement and preparing to enter the social work field as new professionals I think that it is easy to feel hyper aware of your performance. This podcast discusses how we should be forgiving and maximize supervision now. I also thought this podcast might be helpful because the clinical social worker Danna Bodenheimer said in order to be a good social worker we must decide for ourselves what health and wholeness looks like and work from there; that was significant for me as I tend to feel pressure for the way that I do social work to look like my supervisor’s or professor’s way of providing services. This podcast relates to the school social work model because it reminds us to evaluate the services being provided to our students, enhance the professional capacity of school personnel, and practice professional consultation all while keeping in mind ethical guidelines.