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Investigating the Effectiveness of Paper-Based and Computer-Presented Social Stories for Children with Autism Spectrum Conditions in an Autism-Specific Special School

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Abstract

The current study investigated the effectiveness of Social Stories presented in paper-based and computer-based formats for children with autism spectrum conditions enrolled in an autism-specific school. Social Stories were created for two children, aged 9 and 14, to increase conversation initiations. One story was presented in booklet format, while the other was created and presented on an Apple iPad using the Stories2Learn app. Using a multiple-baseline-across-participants design for the research, significant increases in conversation initiation were observed in the participant who received the computer-based story, but not in the participant who received the booklet format. For the participant who did not initially respond to the Social Story, a second intervention phase was added, involving modelling, prompting and verbal reinforcement to augment the Social Story, and this led to increases in the target behaviour. Evidence of short-term maintenance of skills was observed, as well as some generalisation to other contexts. The results are discussed with reference to participant, intervention and social and environmental variables that may potentially moderate the effects of Social Stories.

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Author information

Authors and Affiliations

  1. Educational Psychologist, Dublin, Ireland

    Clara Nevin

  2. School of Teaching and Learning, College of Education, University of Florida, Gainesville, FL, USA

    Nigel Newbutt

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  1. Clara Nevin
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  2. Nigel Newbutt
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Correspondence to Nigel Newbutt .

Editor information

Editors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Culture and Learning, Aalborg University, Aalborg, Denmark

    Eva Brooks

  2. Department of Computer Science School of Science and Technology, Nottingham Trent University, Nottingham, UK

    David J. Brown

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Nevin, C., Newbutt, N. (2023). Investigating the Effectiveness of Paper-Based and Computer-Presented Social Stories for Children with Autism Spectrum Conditions in an Autism-Specific Special School. In: Brooks, E., Brown, D.J. (eds) Virtual Reality Games for Rehabilitation. Virtual Reality Technologies for Health and Clinical Applications. Springer, New York, NY. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-0716-3371-7_6

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