It's particularly useful for creating social stories. I haven't used it, but I know some other clinicians who have. Does anyone else know what a social story is? I tried to explain it last night, and it didn't work very well, so I'll give an example of one I used this summer with a client of mine who had autism. (Side note, sometimes it feels very ironic that I (most likely) have an autism spectrum disorder and I am helping to treat children with autism. I kind of like it
)
Anyway, this story was used to help a 5-year-old with autism express that he wanted something specific without having a meltdown:
"Sometimes, I go to see my speech teacher. I play games with her and we have fun. There are lots of toys in my speech room. Sometimes there is a toy that I really like to play with. That toy is not always in the room. That is okay. If there is a toy that I really want to play with, I can use my nice words to ask for it. I can say, "Miss krisi, can we please play with the space station today?" Miss krisi will do her best to put the toy I ask for on the schedule. Sometimes, she cannot get that toy for me on that day. That is okay. She will bring it to my next speech session. When I use my nice words to ask for the toys I want, I am happy because I will get to play with that toy this session or the next session."
Essentially, it's just a positive and reassuring script to give children the tools they need to communicate and participate with others. In this case, the little guy I was working with would just start to cry and tell me what he DIDN'T want to do--which meant that I really didn't know what WOULD make him happy. One day, he really wanted to play with the space station, but I didn't have that planned for the day. He got very upset and all he would say was "We will NOT pretend to be astronauts." Eventually, I found out that he didn't want to pretend to be astronauts because he really wanted to play with a space station toy that I had brought in during the previous session.
