Make the Most Use of Social Stories in the Classroom Based on the Research

Tue, 25 Feb 2025 06:52:00 +0000

If you’ve worked in autism or special education, you’ve likely heard of social stories. Sometimes called social narratives, social stories have been widely used since the 1990s to help students understand specific situations, navigate social expectations, and develop coping strategies.

But here’s the thing—social stories aren’t a magic fix. Some people think that simply reading a social story to a student will change their behavior, but that’s not how they work. When used correctly, they can be a valuable tool, but they need to be structured thoughtfully and used in the right situations.

Let’s break down what social stories are, how they should be written, and what research says about their effectiveness.

What Are Social Stories?

Social stories were developed by Carol Gray in the 1990s. They are individualized stories designed to describe a situation from the student’s perspective.

They aren’t just meant to tell a student what to do. Instead, they provide information about:

Where and why the situation occurs.
How others feel and react in that situation.
What the student can do to navigate the situation successfully.

Because individuals with autism often have difficulty understanding others’ perspectives, social stories can help them process different viewpoints and expectations.

An Example of a Social Narrative

Here’s a simple example of a social story about waiting quietly:

“I go to kindergarten in Mrs. R’s classroom. Sometimes in school, I have to wait for the other children to finish their work before we do the next activity. Sometimes waiting is hard for me.

When I talk to myself, other kids can’t hear the teacher or do their work. My teachers want me to be quiet while waiting. When I feel like talking, I can ask Miss N for a toy to hold, or I can just talk to her.

If I’m quiet while waiting, I earn a token. When I earn enough tokens, I can pick a fun activity. My teachers will be very proud of me if I can be quiet.”

Carol Gray’s Components of a Social Story

Carol Gray’s model includes several types of sentences that help structure an effective social story:

Descriptive Sentences – Explain where, when, and why the situation happens. (e.g., “Sometimes in school, I have to wait for the other children to finish their work before we do the next activity.”)
Perspective Sentences – Describe how other people feel or react. (e.g., “When I talk to myself, other kids can’t hear the teacher or do their work.”)
Affirmative Sentences – Reinforce why the skill is important. (e.g., “My teachers want me to be quiet while waiting.”)
Directive Sentences – Suggest what the student can do. (e.g., “When I feel like talking, I could ask my teacher for a toy to hold or just talk to her.”)
Control Sentences – Help the student remember strategies. These can sometimes be written by the student.
Cooperative Sentences – Explain how others can help. (e.g., “If I need help waiting, my teacher can remind me to take deep breaths.”)

Carol Gray recommends using two to five descriptive, perspective, or affirmative sentences for every one directive sentence. This helps keep the story supportive and informative rather than just a list of rules.

What Does the Research Say About Social Stories?

Social stories have been used for decades, but research on their effectiveness is more recent.

Studies have found that social stories can be used for:

Increasing social skills
Introducing new situations
Reducing challenging behaviors
Teaching functional skills and choice-making

The AFIRM modules and the National Autism Center have both recognized social stories as an evidence-based practice for students with autism.

However, not all research has found social stories to be consistently effective.

A review by Test et al. (2011) found:

6 studies showed social stories were effective or very effective.
12 studies showed they were ineffective in making meaningful changes.

A 2018 meta-analysis by Qi et al. of 22 studies found:

7 studies showed strong evidence that social stories worked.
4 studies showed that students maintained the skill even after the intervention ended.
Social stories were more effective for reducing challenging behaviors than for increasing social communication.

A review of 41 single-subject studies, Leaf et al. (2015) found:

3 studies showed strong evidence that social stories worked.
17 studies showed partial effectiveness.
21 studies did not have convincing evidence of effectiveness.

One challenge with social story research is that they are rarely used alone. In real-world settings, teachers and therapists often pair them with visual supports, reinforcement systems, and other interventions. This makes it difficult to measure exactly how much impact the social story itself has.

Do Social Stories Work for Every Student?

The answer is no.

Some students respond very well to social stories, while others show little to no change.

For example, I worked with one student who loved social stories. Any time a new issue came up, I could write a social story on the whiteboard, and he would immediately engage with it. We would later put it on paper so he could review it, and it really helped him understand expectations.

For him, social stories made a huge difference.

But for other students, they didn’t seem to have much impact.

Because of this, social stories are best used as part of a larger strategy, rather than the only intervention.

Social Stories Are an Antecedent Strategy

Most experts classify social narratives as an antecedent strategy—meaning they help prevent behavior challenges before they happen.

A well-written social story:
✔️ Prepares a student for a new or difficult situation.
✔️ Helps them understand expectations.
✔️ Gives them tools to handle challenges.

But social stories work best when paired with other supports. For example, in the earlier waiting quietly story, the student also had a token system as a reinforcement strategy. And that’s why most of my social narratives in my store, like the Anxiety Toolkit, include significant visual supports and strategies in addition to the social stories themselves.

If we could just tell students what to do and expect them to follow through, we wouldn’t need social stories in the first place. Instead, they are one piece of the puzzle in helping students succeed.

Check Out These Social Story and Behavioral Toolkits

Click the pictures to check out the individual toolkits

Autism Social Stories Behavioral Toolkit Making Mistakes for Behavioral Self-Regulation Social Stories and 5 point scales, contingency maps and more

One problem I frequently get questions about is ways to handle differing opinions of the way to do things in the classroom. Frequently the teacher is newer to the classroom or school than the paraprofessionals.

Sometimes the paraprofessionals have more extensive experience than the teacher. Sometimes members of the classroom team come from very different backgrounds and have different ideas of how to handle discipline, interact with students, and how to implement strategies. This leads to differences in how the team members approach problems and can lead to differences between what the teachers want the class to reflect and what the paraprofessionals are comfortable with.

During our discussions, I’ve talked about how it all comes back to teamwork. Building a team from the beginning and continuing to foster collaboration as a team is the key to bridging the differences and getting everyone working together.

Our job in the classroom is stressful enough at times; adding interpersonal differences into the issue just complicates things more. So today I want to focus on 5 ways to build that teamwork to develop and maintain good collaboration among the staff.

1. Establish a Classroom Mission Statement

Imagine what you want the culture or the feeling of your classroom to be. Gather ideas from all the staff about what they think the environment of the classroom should be like. How do you think the staff should talk to students?

At the beginning of the year, share the classroom mission statement of what you want the classroom to be like and solicit ideas from the rest of the staff about how they feel.

I know that with everything there is to do, this may seem like a lot of talking and discussion. And talking about the culture of the classroom when people have different points of view might be hard to talk about at times.

However, it’s better to have these potentially uncomfortable conversations early rather than having a year in which everyone does their own thing and not everyone agrees with it.

As the teacher, you can lead this conversation and set out what you think are the important elements of the classroom mission statement. Important elements might include: positive interactions with and among the students and staff, more positive comments towards the students than negative, not talking about the students in front of them if at all possible, focusing on independence as the key goal for each student, and treating each student as an individual.

You may or may not want to write the classroom mission statement down and post it in the classroom. You may want to do it more informally and just have it posted through quotes or reminders that support the vision in the classroom.

Either way, focus on the 2-3 elements that you think best define the vision for the culture of the class.

A classroom mission statement might be:

In classroom 3, we value each student’s independence and need for individual attention. We want to provide positive models to our students in our language and actions and help them to be as independent in all skills as possible.

2. Value What Others Say

This may seem pretty obvious, but it’s important to make sure that you not only listen to others but you solicit team members’ input into how the classroom is run. When creating the classroom mission statement for the classroom, gather others’ input and listen to it.

If you can, incorporate it into the mission or focus of the room. If it’s not something you can live with, discuss it. In discussing it, listen carefully. It’s important to develop the classroom mission statement and solve problems collaboratively. This may not always be possible, but valuing others’ perspectives is critical to making it work.

3. Use “I” Messages

I messages are essentially starting statements with “I.” Saying “I feel that the classroom should focus on the positive behaviors the students show more than the negative.”

Focusing on things you have done or said in the past is another good way to put ideas out there without dictating or demanding people adopt your solution. It can soften a correction when you say, “So many times I have almost lost my cool with X student, and I had to just walk away and take a break.”

This makes having a differing idea or opinion easier to hear and makes you relatable by acknowledging that you have had the same struggle. In discussing issues within the classroom, use “I” messages as often as possible.

4. Keep the Focus on the Students, the Outcomes and the Goals

The most significant strategy that can be used to build collaboration within the class is to make sure that the focus stays on the most important piece of the job–the students. If you are disagreeing or feel you need to ask staff to do something differently, make sure you are stating it in a way that makes it clear it is for the good of the students. Having a classroom mission statement from #1 helps because you can refer back to it.

For instance, rather than saying,

You can’t yell at the students. It focuses on the negative behavior and only makes the behaviors happen more frequently.

Try saying,

I have a hard time with when Brian screams too and have to walk away sometimes to take a break to keep myself from yelling at him to stop. I know it’s really frustrating. Our data show that being positive with Brian and redirecting calmly is more likely to calm him down so we have to help each other try to stay calm with him.

Another example might be when a staff member is providing too much support for a student (e.g., doing his art project for him).

I know it’s hard to wait Sydney out when he is working in art because he is so slow to follow directions. It’s hard sometimes because I know that I think the rest of the class needs to move on but we are still waiting for him. It’s OK if Sydney doesn’t finish parts of the project. The important thing is we want Sydney (and all our students) to learn to be as independent as they can be, so focusing on his doing some smaller part on his own is more important that him finishing the whole project.

5. Ask How You Can Help

One of the surest way to help facilitate solutions to a problem is to ask how you can help solve it. It puts the problem out there as something to be solved rather than something the other person needs to stop/fix etc. Ask how you can assist them in giving a different response. Clearly if you have established a classroom vision statement and everyone is on board, it will be easier. If everyone isn’t onboard, it might be necessary to state the mission, but then ask how you can help to get them to buy into it.

Asking how you can help them takes the criticism out of the feedback and sets you up as an ally rather than a supervisor. Our goal is always to solve the problem rather than to be “right.”

Instead of:

I know that it’s really hard to stay right on top of Sally in the hallway, but you have to make sure she doesn’t pull the hair of the other kids.

Try:

I know that it’s really hard to stay right on top of Sally in the hallway and you have done a great job of that. And sometimes it’s really hard to catch her before she tries to pull hair. How can I help you with that?

Want tool to help get your classroom team on track? Check them out below!

Grab Everything You Need to Get Your Classroom Team Humming!

Set up your classroom with these paraprofessional schedules and zoning plans for managing your special education team. This toolbox includes cheat sheets, examples, and step-by-step directions to walk you through how to set up your classroom zoning plan for scheduling your staff.

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Imagine no more near-all-nighters to finish  each student's progress report!

With these sheets, you have the jumping off point to collect accurate and meaningful data so you are set for all the IEP meetings, progress reports, and parent communications. Let’s dive into how they can help you improve your IEP tracking process and answer some common questions about IEP data collection.

How Do You Collect Data for Special Education?

I’ve written about systems of data collection in the special education classroom in a previous podcast episode. And the key to effective progress monitoring and tracking IEP progress definitely involves putting a system for data collection in place. But what should you have in your system?

Collecting data in special education involves more than just checking off boxes—it’s about consistently tracking student progress in a way that reflects real growth over time. And it requires regular analysis of skills to determine if changes needs to be made in your instruction.

Whether you’re monitoring academic goals, behavior, or social skills, these IEP data collection sheets make it easy to gather the information you need. They’re customizable, so you can adjust them to fit each student’s specific goals.

Some features include:

Editable templates for customizing with individual student goals.
Space to record daily, weekly, or monthly progress.
Printable sheets that fit easily into binders or folders for quick access.

The ability to tailor these data collection sheets to each student’s IEP goals saves time and ensures that you’re capturing relevant, accurate data to inform your teaching strategies.

How to Record IEP Data with Ease

Recording IEP data is one of the biggest hurdles many special educators face. But it can be so much easier when you have examples that can be the right data sheet you need. With these editable IEP tracking sheets, you can efficiently document student progress while also easily interpreting the data to make instructional changes. These sheets allow you to:

Track progress across multiple areas, including academic, social, and functional skills.
Use probe data, event-by-event data, rubrics, work samples and more.
Easily interpret your data regularly with graph-as-you-go data sheets.

Because the data collection tools are editable, you can adapt them to the unique needs of each student and classroom.

You can buy the instructional data collection sheets here or click any of the images in this post.

So let’s look at the two forms of data collection that I use to initially set up a system of data collection.

What Are the Two Primary Data Collection Strategies?

When tracking progress for students with disabilities, two highly effective data collection strategies that I use to set up classrooms are naturalistic probe data and trial-by-trial data. Each method has its benefits depending on the skill or behavior you’re tracking, and these editable IEP data collection sheets make both strategies easy to implement.

1. Naturalistic Probe Data

Naturalistic probe data is collected in a student’s everyday environment, and I sometimes refer to it as sample data. This strategy is a great way to take data in real-life situations where skills are being used. Probes could be daily or weekly depending on the skill and the need. So, it’s also terrific for tracking data on a group of students by sampling one student’s data each day. Consequently, works well for monitoring progress on skills like social interactions, communication skills, or generalizing academic knowledge.

Group / Probe Data Sheets

With these IEP data collection sheets, you can:

Set up easy-to-use templates to record when a student independently uses a skill or what prompting was provided.
Create group data sheets to track specific skills in activities like morning meeting or recess using weekly samples using 1 data sheet.
Collect multiple trials of the skills as recommended by data collection research rather than just single or cold probes. This allows for better analysis of the data by having multiple points of data in each sample.
The probe sheets each have 5 spots for data to be collected. This gives you more data to use to make decisions about students’ performance.

By focusing on what the student can do naturally, naturalistic probe data helps you make informed decisions about their ability to apply skills in different environments—an essential part of any IEP.

Plus you can grab a free data sheet for taking group data probe data in our Resource Library.

2. Trial-by-Trial Editable Data Sheets

For more structured skills or behaviors, trial-by-trial data is key. This method involves recording the student’s response during each instructional trial. It’s particularly useful for discrete skills that are taught in a step-by-step manner, such as academic tasks or behavior replacement strategies.

The best part? These editable IEP data sheets include a feature that allows you to graph results as you go! This means you can track the student’s progress in real-time, making it easy to spot trends and adjust your teaching strategies on the fly.

Some advantages of using trial-by-trial data with these sheets include:

Monitoring every response the student makes, which is crucial for pinpointing where they might need additional support.
Automatically generating visual graphs to represent the data, so you can see progress at a glance.
Tailoring the sheets to fit each student’s specific goals and objectives.

By combining both naturalistic probe data and trial-by-trial data, these data collection sheets provide a comprehensive way to track and measure student progress in a variety of settings.

More Types of Data Collection Tools Included

While those are the 2 primary types of data sheets I ise to set up a system of data collection in the classroom, there are a variety of ways to take data on different types of skills in the classroom. So, this bundle also includes other editable forms to track other students’ needs and specific skills. And all of the data come in editable form and printable versions.

Graph-As-You-Go Task Analysis Data Sheets

These sheets are perfect for functional life skills and daily routines where you are tracking specific steps fo a task. An example is included for teaching handwashing. So whether you are using shaping or chaining strategies, these data sheets will show your students’ progress across the steps of the skill. And with as you graph directly on the data sheet, it’s easy to track students’ progress and analyze the data.

Work Product Labels

One of my go-to tools in data collection is work product, sometimes called permanent product. Work product is the easiest way to take data because you rely on the student’s work to tell the story. No graphing, no analyzing needed. However, it’s important that you have critical information like what kind of prompting was provided, what type of situation were you in, etc. And that’s where work product labels come in.

This is a set of staff cueing cards for cloze technique in my Nursery Rhymes (Hickory Dickory Dock) toolkit.

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Make the Most Use of Social Stories in the Classroom Based on the Research

What Are Social Stories?

An Example of a Social Narrative

Carol Gray’s Components of a Social Story

What Does the Research Say About Social Stories?

Do Social Stories Work for Every Student?

Social Stories Are an Antecedent Strategy

Check Out These Social Story and Behavioral Toolkits

Table of Contents

1. Establish a Classroom Mission Statement

2. Value What Others Say

3. Use “I” Messages

4. Keep the Focus on the Students, the Outcomes and the Goals

5. Ask How You Can Help

Want tool to help get your classroom team on track? Check them out below!

Want a Free Classroom Vision Tool With Values List?

How Do You Collect Data for Special Education?

How to Record IEP Data with Ease

What Are the Two Primary Data Collection Strategies?

1. Naturalistic Probe Data

Group / Probe Data Sheets

2. Trial-by-Trial Editable Data Sheets

More Types of Data Collection Tools Included

Graph-As-You-Go Task Analysis Data Sheets

Work Product Labels

Summer Resources That Will Help You Survive the End of the Year

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Telling Time Practice Task Cards

Easy to Prep:

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Great for Differentiating

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Want to Grab All the Practice Tools, Plus Instruction Tools? Check Out the Telling Time Curriculum Bundle

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As with most task boxes, you can make this task easier or harder with different tweaks.

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Office Work Task Box Video Tutorial

Tips for the Life Skills Math Measuring Task Box

Need more ideas for task boxes? Check out the resources below.

GET ALL THE VISUALS AND TASKS YOU NEED to start independent work task boxes in your classroom.

Click the images to buy in my store.

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