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Using Two Formats of a Social Story to Increase the Verbal Initiations and On-Topic Responses of Two Adolescents with Autism Spectrum Disorders

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Abstract

This research used an alternating treatment design to investigate the relative effectiveness of participant specific social stories delivered using two distinct formats (i.e., technology-based, paper/book), on increasing the frequency of initiations and responses of two adolescents with ASD. Visual analysis of baseline, intervention, maintenance, and generalization data results indicated the intervention increased the frequency of initiations and on-topic responses regardless of delivery format; however, calculation of Percentage of Nonoverlapping Pairs and TAU-U for both formats indicated variable levels of effectiveness for each condition, with ranges of 43–86% and 0.02381–0.76190 respectively. Finally, despite varied results, both participants preferred the technology-based social story format and parents of both participants agreed the social story intervention increased communicative skills.

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The authors did not receive support from any organization for the submitted work.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Early Childhood, Elementary, Middle Grades, Reading, and Special Education Department, Fayetteville State University, 1200 Murchison Rd, Fayetteville, NC, 28301, USA

    Nicole Anthony

  2. Old Dominion University, Norfolk, USA

    Nicole Anthony & Jonna Bobzien

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  1. Nicole Anthony
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  2. Jonna Bobzien
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Contributions

NA conceptualized and presented study idea. NA carried out the experiment. NA lead the analytic plan and statistical analyses. NA wrote the initial manuscript. JB performed some analytic calculations. JB verified and contributed to the interpretation of the results. JB assisted with major and minor revisions of the manuscript. Both authors discussed the results and contributed to the final manuscript.

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Correspondence to Nicole Anthony.

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All authors certify that they have no affiliations with or involvement in any organization or entity with any financial interest or non-financial interest in the subject matter or materials discussed in this manuscript.

Consent to Participate

Informed consent was obtained from all individual participants included in the study.

Consent to Publish

The authors affirm that human research participants provided informed consent for publication of the images in Figures: 1a, 1b, 2a, and 2b.

Ethical Approval

All procedures performed in studies involving human participants were in accordance with the ethical standards of the institutional and/or national research committee and with the 1964 Helsinki Declaration and its later amendments or comparable ethical standards. The study was approved by the Old Dominion University Institutional Review Board.

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Anthony, N., Bobzien, J. Using Two Formats of a Social Story to Increase the Verbal Initiations and On-Topic Responses of Two Adolescents with Autism Spectrum Disorders. J Autism Dev Disord 52, 4138–4149 (2022). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10803-021-05298-w

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