Hi All,

I am very interested in learning about how to write a social story. I am working with a boy in year 5 who is on the Autistic Spectrum and i feel he would really benefit from these. Unfortunately, my SENCO doesnt really know anything about them which is somewhat frustrating!!

I have attempted to write one myself and i would be grateful if someone could let me know if it is any good and if not, please feel free to amend it for me!

Feeling upset and angry

When i am at school sometimes i play with my friends and sometimes we all get on really well and this makes me feel really happy.

Sometimes when we are playing or in the classroom we argue and this makes me feel sad. It is ok to feel upset when this happens. When i feel upset or angry i can go and talk to Mrs X or i can talk to my mum about it when i get home. They can help me to talk about my feelings and help me to sort out any problems i have.

It is important to play nicely with my friends which means sharing and taking turns and to remember that calling people names or swearing can make them cross with me.

Instead i can talk to an adult and get them to help me to talk about my feelings. This will make me feel alot happier.

If this is completely wrong would someone please let me know where i have gone wrong and what i should be doing

Many thanks

Looks good to me, I've been told about them by a speech & language trainer and written a few with a couple of children.

You've got the 'usually & sometimes' language and are covering only 1 area which are the main things I remember from the training.

Good Luck with it.

I think this is brillant for a first attemp

hope you dont mind but Ive made a couple of changes that you can totally ignore if you want

I know it may sound like I've repeated a few things but this is deliberate as it kind of compounds the information you are trying to get across



When i am at school sometimes i play with my friends and sometimes we all get on really well and this makes me feel really happy.

Sometimes when we are playing or in the classroom we argue and this makes me feel sad. It is ok to feel upset when this happens. When i feel upset or angry i can go and talk to Mrs X or i can talk to my mum about it when i get home. They can help me to talk about my feelings and help me to sort out any problems i have.

It is important to play nicely with my friends because then we will all be happy, playing nicely means we share, take turns and talk nicely to each other.

Sometimes people dont talk nicely to each other and they call them names and swear at them, this makes them unhappy and cross. I must remember to talk nicely to people and not call them names and swear or they will be unhappy and cross with me.

If I get upset or angry and feel like I want to call people names and swear at them i can walk away and find an adult and get them to help me to talk about my feelings. This will make me feel alot happier.

Oh thats great thanks!!!

Thanks for the amendment summertime, sounds great and i will use your one and i feel alot more confident to write another now that i know im doing the right thing!

Thanks again!

I worked with an autistic child last year and my observation is based on my knowledge of that child (of course we all know they are all different).

You couldn't give the child I worked with any kind of choice (he once spent a whole lesson deciding on what font to use for a title). In terms of the social story you have developed I would take out any OR or I CAN (as in I can if I want to) and make it more controlled I WILL.

I think this was because if he had a problem he had enough to cope with
without then having to make a decision about who he might tell and we
obviously needed him to tell somebody immediately and deal with it.

Could any kind person give me any ideas for a social story?

It is for a four year old boy who, when subjected to noise or gets upset for any reason, spits at people and throws things

how verbal is he, I'd consider symbols at that age as he wouldnt be able to read text and his auditory memory is probably not as good as his visual memory. you could use these two

Summertime thank you so much they are fantastic

He is quite bright and very verbal

He also enjoys having things read to him so i thought i could incoorporate a social story into quiet reading every day, although i may be missing the point of them, noone at school seems to have used them before!

Those symbols are great though thanks so much super speedy reply too!!

ok how about

most days (name) goes to school to learn and play with his friends. He likes playing with (insert what he likes). sometimes when (name) is at school and everyone is playing it gets noisy and it makes (name) ears hurt.

If there is too much noise (name) can put his hands over his ears to shut out the noise, he can also tell (insert staff names) and they will let him go somewhere quieter or ask (name) friends to be quieter

If there is too much noise (name) must remember to tell (teachers) or put his hands over his ears, he must remember not to spit or throw things because his friends and teachers don't like it when he does that.

if you can get him to put his hands over his ears then even if he doesnt remember or is too stressed to tell anyone at leasts its a visible clue to staff that he is getting stressed

That's fantastic summer, is it ok to modify a bit and use that?

I will let you know how it goes.

Have you thought of publishing a book?

Thanks for you help

sure thats just me thoughts but you will need to modify it cus you know the child and it needs to be individual to him

Your social story is great, well done!
I am seeking a little advice for a friend who is a one to one working with an autistic child. She wants to write a social story about the changes that will take place in the classroom over the school holidays (there is a lot of building work taking place/decoration/ rearranging etc). She can't obviously use a picture to show what the classroom will look like as none of us are actually too sure how it will look! Of course if she guesses and it is not exactly like the picture......yep that will definately confuse him!!!
Any suggestions as to how to deal with this would be really appreciated.

difficult one, I'd be tempted not to say anything as he wont have the social imagination to picture what it will look like and then that might stress him out

is it possible for someone to take photos during the holiday once the changes have taken place and then get them to him somehow, email to parents or even post them so that the parents can then prepare him before he returns

Perhaps he could come in a day or two later after the other children have had time to settle in to their new classroom too. That way the children will have had time to get used to all the new bits in the classroom so your child with ASD won't pick up on the 'ooh isn't it all new and exciting' vibes from the others and become upset or agitated.
Alternatively you could ask if he would be able to look round the classroom before the others come in, perhaps on Inset day so he can get used to how it looks, where things are etc before its full with children.

Hope that helps!

SN

We are in the process of moving to a completely new building which we know is going to really throw our children.

We have prepared them by making a book about the move and talking to them about it alot which has given them opportunities to ask things like 'are we taking the taps' (the things kids think of).

This week was the last sessions we will have in the 'old' place and the children actually seemed quite ok about it. We let them put some things in boxes to make it even more concrete in their heads and they went home with the 'moving' book we made.

I think you need to prepare the child that things are going to be different and be very truthfull (as we were) that we are not quite sure what it is going to look like - but make that exciting/interesting/something to look forward to/change is not always bad (that one was hard for us adults as we don't want to change either and the kids seem to be coping better than us at the moment!!!)

We are also making sheets for when they come to the new 'place' where they have to look for familiar things.

I think the most important thing I am trying to get across with my babble is to tell the child/parents that things will be different but be positive about it.

The idea of getting pics or a visit beforehand is excellent, we are doing that (visit before hand)