School counselors' use of the combination social storiesTM and video modeling intervention for social skills development of students diagnosed with Autism Spectrum Disorders

Abstract

Autism Disorder and related disorders such as Asperger’s Syndrome and Pervasive Developmental Disorder, Not Otherwise Specified, are collectively known as Autism Spectrum Disorders (ASD). These disorders are currently the fastest growing diagnosed disorders among children and have been found in 110 in 10,000 individuals. Individuals with ASD are delayed in social development according to diagnostic criteria. To address the social development delays of students with ASD, two research-based interventions have been developed: Social Stories and video modeling. Social Stories uses a specific combination of sentences to describe a social situation or a social skill in story form. Video modeling is an isolation of social skill steps delivered through a video medium to model the social skill. The purpose of this study was to combine Social Stories and video modeling (combined intervention) and investigate the perceptions of educational multidisciplinary team members (school counselors, parents, teachers) regarding the combination intervention for the development of social behavior in students with ASD. School counselors participating in this study delivered the combination Social Stories and video modeling intervention to student participants with ASD. Then, the perceptions of the school-based multidisciplinary team members were collected through qualitative questionnaires. These multidisciplinary team members’ perceptions were used in analysis of the combination intervention to develop the Qualitative Criticism. This Qualitative Criticism describes, interprets, and evaluates the pragmatic use of the combination of the Social Stories and video modeling intervention with students with ASD in schools from the perspectives of the school counselors, teachers, and parents of these students. Organized by case, team members of each of the student participants reflected on the strengths and weaknesses of these interventions for that student. Across cases, comments were analyzed by role (i.e., parent, teacher, school counselor). Then, these roles were combined into a cross-case analysis of multidisciplinary team