The Benefits of Social Stories in a Prekindergarten Classroom

Abstract

There is evidence to support the benefits of using social stories for increasing social growth of children with autism. However, there has been little research done on the benefits of using social stories for children with low oral and/or social skills. This research examined the possible benefits of social stories with children in a regular education prekindergarten, Head Start classroom of non-autistic children. A target behavior of hand washing was selected for the seventeen children in the classroom to work on. The classroom teacher created a social story that would tell the children when they should be washing their hands during the school day. The social story was read every morning for three weeks. During the three-week social story intervention the children in the classroom gradually began to wash their hands without being reminded. Many of the children began repeating the story during the second week of intervention and by the third week some of the children were policing each other's behavior at the hand-washing sink.