Parents’ Perceptions of Their Children’s Social Behavior

Abstract

This article describes a family-centered collaborative approach to the development and socially valid assessment of Social Stories™ and comic strip conversations (CSCs) for supporting the social behaviors in children with autism spectrum disorder (ASD). Seventeen children with ASD (ages 4–12 years) participated in either an immediate or a wait-intervention control group. Parents’ perceptions of the effects of Social Stories™ and CSCs to promote more appropriate social behaviors were compared across baseline, intervention, and withdrawal phases of study. Visual analyses of subjective ratings indicated that the intervention was effective for 13 of 17 children (i.e., for 76.5% of cases). Perceived effects of treatment were linked only to the variable of verbal mental age with a minimum age of 3 years predicting success. The authors argue that Social Stories™ and CSCs lead to socially valid outcomes. Although there are exceptions, they are most likely to be effective for addressing social behaviors in the context of interpersonal conflicts when children demonstrate a minimum verbal age of 3 years. Implications, limitations, and directions for future research are discussed.