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Social Stories Are Helping Autistic Kids To Become More Social

23rd February 2022

Social and communication skills are important for every human being to live happily in the world. Language skills are another significant thing while children having speech problems are taught body languages or sign languages so that they can learn to interact socially. Teaching social communication skills to special kids is a very special quality the SEN teachers that possess. Children with special gifts like autism, learning disabilities, ADHD, down syndrome, etc., need constant support in improving their social skills.

Improving social skills in autism is not an easy job but the process is absolutely interesting. SEN teachers having certification in PG Diploma in Autism or Online special education courses for teachers have the potential to figure out methods how to incorporate social skills in special kids. A postgraduate certificate in SEN courses will give you the opportunity to associate yourself with children having extraordinary talents and cater to their needs as well.

WHY SOCIAL STORIES?

Social stories are becoming one of the most popular strategies that SEN educators are executing to help special kids communicate without any hesitation. Research has stated that children learn how to adapt to social skills more when they are exposed to social stories. Facial expressions, social situations, eye contact, etc., can be taught and explained to children having special gifts to improve their social interaction skills.

When it comes to a child with autism, the basic problem is that they take a lot of time to develop social and interpersonal skills. As a result of which, they take a lot of time to interact with other people. Professional practices are conducted by Special education needs teachers to teach children how to overcome their challenges and come up with fluent and awesome interactive skills.

To help autistic kids to encounter their social communication and socio-emotional reciprocity social stories contribute to a great extent. Devised by Carol Gray in the 90s, social stories are based on real-life incidents that help kids to deal efficiently with real-life problems where they learn about several activities, social norms, descriptive events, and communicate expectations accurately. While creating social stories SEN teachers must be aware of the mental capacities of special kids.

HOW TO CREATE SOCIAL STORIES?

There are 3 fundamentals of scripting social stories and these points must be kept in mind for real!

Short: The social story is crisp and subtle as children with autism have a low attention spectrum.

Specific: The message should be kept direct and in the first person is the key as for autistic kids it is hard to deal with passive tones or indirect communication.

Simple: Children with ASD experience cognitive challenges and hence stories should be devoid of any complicated scenarios.

Well, writing a social story does not have to be extremely creative but it should have proper relevance to any specific event that explains certain rules or norms or behavioral patterns that kids must be able to learn nonchalantly. These stories must be pretty constructive and excellent has to be done before framing the script so that they match the wavelength of the autistic kids. Besides, there must be a specific goal that the story is looking at either to increase the socio-emotional interaction of kids or things like that. Teachers must give special attention to the fact that such stories should not have a pessimistic tone and the visual representation should be pleasant and smooth.

Thus, when teaching social communication skills while improving such skills in autism SEN certified educators must take the help of social stories. Such stories will elevate the intelligence of kids and will motivate them to come out of their self-restraint. This is indeed a brilliant approach to helping autistic kids to face challenges, fight back, and march forward as triumphant!
 

Written By: Sheetal Sharma