Differentiated Effects of Two Social Story™ Formats, Paper Versus Computer Assisted, on Aberrant Behavior in Children with Autism

Background: Social Stories™ are short stories often written for children with Autism Spectrum Disorder (ASD) to help individuals understand social situations (Gray, 1998) and many times results in the development of the necessary behavioral skills to engage in specific social activities (Crozier & Tincani, 2007; Scattone, Tingstrom, & Wilczynski, 2006). Despite evidence from previous studies that support using social stories on problem behaviors, researchers have recommended utilizing more rigorous controls to examine whether or not Social Stories is an evidence-based practice. Objectives: Determine the effectiveness of two social story™ formats on aberrant behaviors of children with ASD. In addition, determine the difference between the effects of a paper format versus the computer format was analyzed. Finally, determine the generalization of the skill across environments. Methods: The subjects were referred by a local autism center that provides services for children with autism spectrum disorder and their parents. The subjects' diagnosis of ASD was confirmed by a review of records and the completion of the ADI-R. The same social story was written for the three subjects in two formats, one paper and one interactive Powerpoint™. The researcher trained the subjects' respective teachers how to implement the social stories. The teachers described the story to their prospective students (i.e., subjects). The participants then read the story. After each student read the story, the teachers checked for understanding. The questions were standardized across participants. When the targeted students responded correctly to all of the questions, the intervention phase began. An ABABCBC multi-component reversal design was used for each participant (Kennedy, 2005). This design was selected because it allowed for replication of intervention effect within each participant, enhancing internal validity of the experiment. In addition, this design allowed for the comparison of the PowerPoint ™ Social Stories to baseline and to the paper format social stories. Thus, allowing for functional relation statements to be made. Results: The results indicated a decrease in the frequency of aberrant behavior for each subject. Outcomes were slightly better for the PowerPoint ™ format than paper format. Further, the results maintained across the training setting, indicated the skill could be generalized to other settings with a single prompt, and social validity assessments indicated that the PowerPoint ™ format was easily implemented and preferred by both teachers and subjects (i.e., students). Conclusions: In conclusion, findings of the present study contributed to the Social Story literature because it examined and compared two social story presentation formats and demonstrated that the social story decreased aberrant behaviors. In addition, the present study extended the literature by accessing maintenance and generalization of the social story and social validity from the participants.