Evaluation of a Social Stories™ intervention implemented by pre-service teachers for students with autism in general education settings

Abstract

Pre-service teachers were trained to implement a Social Stories™ intervention to three students with autism in the general education classroom. A multiple baseline across students was used to assess the effects of Social Stories on classroom behavior and an alternating treatments design was used to compare two conditions. In one condition (immediate) data on student behavior was collected immediately following exposure to the Social Stories and in the second condition (delayed) data was collected after a delay of several hours following exposure to Social Stories. Results indicate some improvement in classroom behavior following Social Stories for all three students. No differences between the immediate and delayed conditions were noted in student behavior. Improvements in classroom behavior considered in tandem with treatment fidelity, social validity, and peer comparison data suggest Social Stories may not be a particularly powerful intervention in terms of the magnitude of behavior change, but that they may offer a simple, acceptable, classroom friendly intervention.