This article describes research showing that social stories help children with autism improve their social interactions.

Five boys with autism (6 to 12 years old) were the focus of this study. All five had difficulty with social communication and interactions. These children were each paired up with non-autistic peers who could interact with them while the authors observed these interactions. Four social stories that described four social skills were written and introduced to the students. These skills were: 1) getting a friend to look at something; 2) starting to talk to friends; 3) asking questions; and 4) continuing a conversation. Once each child understood the stories, the social interactions of each child were observed over several weeks, and videotaped. The videotapes were then shown to the children so they could observe their own behavior. Observers reported that the social interactions of each child improved during the time the social stories were used, and for most of the children, this effect lasted after the social story was not being used anymore.