Social Stories and Comic Strip Conversations Workshop

1. Social Stories and Comic Strip ConversationsWorkshop Lisa Vallelly Service Lead for Paediatric ASD Service Clinical Lead Speech and Language Therapist

2. Social Skills • Children and young people with ASD have great difficulty mastering social skills. • Social rules of behaviour and interaction are often confusing and overwhelming.

3. Social Skills Social Skills can be taught and children and young people with ASD can acquire such skills if taught systematically. However the essence of social behaviour is the ability to relate to others in a mutually reinforcing and reciprocal fashion and to adapt social skills to the varying demands of interpersonal contexts (Howlin 1986) i.e. social competence. Social Competence ,however, requires an ability to use and apply these social skills in a range of contexts. This requires a degree of social understanding.

4. Social Understanding Carol Gray (1998) defines social understanding as – “an understanding of the underlying, hidden messages that underpin social interaction – a ‘hidden code’. “ Social understanding depends on an understanding of explicit and implicit social rules that govern everyday social encounters; it requires an ability to make decisions about the social skills we have in terms of ‘when’ and ‘where’ to use them.

5. Theory of mind is essential and a key factor to aid social understanding and in turn social competence. Water BalloonGame !!! Theory of mind

6. Theory of Mind Definition: “ the ability to infer other people's mental states (their thoughts, beliefs, desires and intentions) and the ability to use this information to interpret what they say, make sense of their behaviour, and predict what they might do next “. Described by Simon Baron-Cohen (1995): “It is the ability to understand that others are not thinking what we are thinking”. This enables us to understand another's point of view. It enables us to empathise.

7. Development of Theory of Mind At 18-30 months Typically developing children refer to a range of mental states, emotions, desires, beliefs, thoughts, dreams. pretence, etc.

8. Development Of Theory of Mind At 3-4 years Experiments show the child’s theory of mind is well developed- they are already capable of ‘mind-reading’, and are aware of factors such as : • False beliefs • Emotions • Pretence • ‘White lies’

9. Smarties Experiment

10. Why is mind-reading important? • For making sense of social behaviour. • For making sense of communication. • For understanding – intention, underlying meaning, listener’s need for information. • To understand another's point of view. • Empathy. • Self – reflection.

11. Developing Social Understanding Social Stories and Comic Strip Conversations were devised by Carol Gray (1991) as an approach to help establish social understanding as a component to teaching social skills. The approach is founded on theories such as ‘theory of mind’ and it uses a visual approach that recognises the visual learning style of individuals with ASD.

12. Aims of Social Stories and Comic Strip Conversations To develop: • Social skills • Social prediction • Social judgement • Social understanding

13. Social Stories Social story is a brief description of a social situation to aid a young persons understanding of social situations. Gray’s (2004) definition : “A social story describes a situation, skill or concept in terms of relevant social cues, perspectives and common responses in a specially defined style and format”

14. Social Stories Purpose of social stories: • Explain and provide information about a social situation or event. • To provide information on the perspectives of others. • To give direction to an individual re social skills and behaviour. It is not the goal of the social story to change behaviour but to increase social understanding

15. Social stories • Step to step visual plan describing the social skill or behaviour that is appropriate for a certain social situation or event. • Contains visual images to help the young person understand and remember. • Offer clear coping skills that can be practised.

16. KEEP SHOES ON Whenever I leave my house, I wear my shoes. I usually wear my shoes at school. I wear my shoes outside. My shoes keep my feet dry and warm. When I get home, I can take my shoes off again.

17. Looking While Listening When someone is talking to me, I will try to listen. This is a very nice thing to do. Looking at the person who is talking to me is helpful. This lets the person know I am listening. Sometimes I try to look at a part of their face. I will try to do this so the other person knows that I am listening to them. The person who is talking to me will like this a lot.

18. Having a Substitute Teacher My teacher at school is Mrs Jones. She usually is there everyday to take my class. Sometimes she isn't there. My teacher may be away learning new ways to teach. She may be ill. On those days I will have a substitute teacher. A substitute teacher knows how to help children learn. My teacher will have left work for me to do with my substitute teacher. That way the substitute teacher knows what to do. I will try to treat my substitute teacher like I treat my teacher. I will try to get on with my work and not worry about it. The substitute teacher is trying too. Mrs Jones will come back as soon as she can to teach my class again.

19. Guidelines for Writing Social Stories • Describe events and cues objectively. • Focus on relevant and important information. • Share information with ‘literal accuracy’. • Write from the first person perspective in present or future tense. • Title.

20. Social Story Sentences Social stories are composed of different type of sentences: • Descriptive Sentences: describe what is happening in the situation and why. • Directive Sentences : tell the child/young person what is expected of them as a response to the situation.

21. Social Story Sentences Descriptive sentences should always outnumber the directive sentences. Social Stories Formula Descriptive > 2 Directive 1 directive sentence for every 2-5 descriptive sentences.

22. Having a Substitute Teacher My teacher at school is Mrs Jones. She usually is there everyday to take my class. Sometimes she isn't there. My teacher may be away learning new ways to teach. She may be ill. On those days I will have a substitute teacher. A substitute teacher knows how to help children learn. My teacher will have left work for me to do with my substitute teacher. That way the substitute teacher knows what to do. I will try to treat my substitute teacher like I treat my teacher. I will try to get on with my work and not worry about it. The substitute teacher is trying too. Mrs Jones will come back as soon as she can to teach my class again.

23. Writing Social Stories • Title “Loosing my DS”. • Introduction “If I lose my DS people can help.” • Body “Mum and Dad know how to help me find my DS. We will try to think and look.” • Conclusion “People can help me look for my DS.”

24. Writing Social Stories • Always use non committal statements. ‘I will try to, sometimes, usually’ and avoid terms like ‘always’. • Length of story will vary with reading age and attention levels’. • Always use vocabulary that the child or young person uses. • Always present the information in a non threatening format. • You can write a social story about anything to increase the child/young persons understanding. • Read social stories daily and before the targeted situation and then gradually phase them out. • Add illustrations to enhance the meaning of the text.

25. Comic Strip Conversations • Devised by Carol Gray. • Comic Strip Conversations is a conversation between two or more people which incorporates the use of simple drawings. • They incorporate drawings, symbols and colour to illustrate detail, ideas and abstract concepts in conversations. • Systematically identifies what people say, do and think and emphasises what people may be thinking.

26. Comic Strip Conversations Comic Strip Conversations help the child/young person: • Identify what people say and do. • Emphasise what people might be thinking. • Allow basic conversational skills to be represented through pictures. • Allow emotions to be represented by using colour • Help child/young person understand where they are coming from. • Help child/young person understand where other’s are coming from.

27. See You Later…… • I will see you at another time. • I will see you later at lunchtime. • We can play again when I see you tonight. • Or something else….

28. Draw as you talk • Use stick figures and symbols. • Conversation symbols dictionary- enclosed at end of handouts Talk Thought

29. Comic Strip Conversation- example

30. Comic Strip Conversations Questions that guide a Comic Strip Conversation: • Where is the child/young person? • Who else is there? • What is the child doing? • What happened? • What did the child think? • What did others do? • What did others say and think?

31. Comic Strip Conversations Allow you to get the child’s perspective of a situation. Allow you to share with the child what others are thinking.

32. Comic Strip Conversation • Use colour to visually define the feelings and intentions of a speaker. • Carol Gray (1994) suggested: Green – good ideas, happy, friendly Red – bad ideas, teasing, anger Brown – comfortable, cosy Purple – proud Yellow – frightened Black – facts, things we know Orange – questions Combination of colours - confused

33. Correcting an incorrect colour Class teacher joking with classroom assistant: “ you’re going to get detention” Child felt this was bad and therefore red words: “ you’re going to get detention” Acknowledge the child's response that yes in fact these words can be bad etc but in this situation the teacher was teasing and the words were friendly so in fact they are green words: “ you’re going to get detention”

34. Comic strip conversations often provide insight into a child’s perspective of a situation and serve as an excellent prerequisite activity to the development of a social story. They can help to establish social understanding that can then be improved with a social story.

35. Summary Social Stories and Comic Strip Conversations together are a tool designed to improve understanding and social skills.

36. Websites • www.thewatsoninstitute.org • www.autismsocialstories.com