Social stories are short stories created by Carol Gray in 1991 to help people with autism and social disabilities understand social situations and contexts. They describe social cues and skills to improve social understanding. Social stories are especially beneficial for children with autism by addressing their theory of mind impairment and difficulties with perspective taking. They can be used to incorporate pretend play skills by outlining steps of pretend activities through text and pictures.

1. Social Stories
Incorporating
Social Stories
into
Pretend Play

2. What is a Social Story ?
 Individualized short stories
 Help a child interpret information/situations
 Help a child to plan the steps of an activity

3. Background
Created by Carol Gray in 1991

4. Social Stories can be used
with….
 Everyone!
 Most commonly used with Children with Autism.
 Also beneficial for children with social disabilities,
bilingual students, typically developing students,
students needing PT/OT, students with a speech
delay, children with ADHD/ADD, children with OCD,
adults with autism, etc.

5. Theory of Mind
 Impairment in perspective/social understanding (hard time seeing things from
any other perspective than their own and difficulty in certain social situations)
 Have difficulty with understanding another person's beliefs, thoughts, point of
view.
 Difficulty determining the intentions of others and how their behavior affects
others
 Social situations are unpredictable which can lead to withdrawl and isolation
from social situations
 Also known as mind blindness
 Simon Baron-Cohen, Alan M. Leslie and Uta Frith, in 1985, published
research that suggested that children with autism do not employ a theory of
mind
 According to Leslie, theory of mind plays a role in the deficits children with
autism have with childhood pretend play because it effects their capacity to
mentally represent thoughts, beliefs, and desires, regardless of whether or not
the circumstances involved are real.

6. Benefits
 Describes social cues
 Improves social skills and prepares the child/adult for new social
situations
 Breaks down a challenging social situation into steps
 Helps a child to understand rules and routines and become familiar
with the situation
 Breaks down a pretend play activity to outline the steps in
performing the activity through text and pictures
 Increases appropriate responding
 Increases social understanding
 Provides the child with the self-esteem and confidence to participate
in an activity.
 Prompts socially appropriate behavior
 Presents information in a clear, concise, and consistent manner with
accurate and structured information on what is happening

7. When To Use Social
Stories
The ways in which social stories can be
used is endless. A creative teacher
can use them to teach just about
anything.

8. Examples Of Social Story
Topics
 Brushing teeth  Putting away laundry
 Washing hands  Making a sandwich
 Playing with a friend  Going to a birthday party
 Taking turns  Getting your period
 Sharing a toy  Getting dressed
 Greeting friends  Dating
 Joining a social activity  Going to the movies
 Joining a conversation  Sitting appropriately
 Pretend Play  Playing soccer (or another sport)
 Playing board games  Being polite
 Preparing for a sleepover  Manners
 Going to the supermarket  Doing homework
 Preparing for a trip  Understanding emotions
 Going on an airplane  Saying sorry
 Taking a bus  Keeping hands to yourself
 Expressing frustration  Walking appropriately
 Asking for a break  Eating at the table
 Using the bathroom  Watching TV
 Going to the doctor  Standing too close
 Playing with a sibling  Using deodorant
 What to do when someone pushes you  Tying shoes
 Eye contact  Cleaning my room
 waiting my turn  Picking my nose
 Interrupting  Brushing my teeth
 Figures of speech  Taking a bath
 Asking questions  Getting a haircut
 Calling out  Saying I Love you
 Voice control  Lying
 Respect

9. Types of Social Stories
Books

Read the story and discuss/act out
 Interactive
Perform actions and complete certain
tasks in the story, while reading, in
order to learn a skill

10. Creating Social Stories
 Decide your audience/type of learner
 What Skill(s) would you like to address
 What Sentence structure do you want to use
 How will you evaluate its effectiveness/fade
it out

11. Sentence Structure/Format
 Simple language
 Simple and consistent pictures
 1 step per page

12. Sentence Structure
 Descriptive Sentences objective, most frequently
used (WHAT)
 Perspective sentences statements that describe
something from someone else's viewpoint (WHY)
 Cooperative sentences describe how another person
will help the student
 Directive sentences help the reader to identify a
suggested/appropriate response or choice in a particular
situation (PROMPTS THE BEHAVIOR)
 Affirmative sentences express a commonly shared
opinion
 Control sentences are statements written by the
student to identify personal strategies for handling a
situation

13. Fading out
 It is important to fade out a social story gradually as
the child becomes knowledgeable in the skill area
 Decreases prompt dependency
 In addition the social story should be used across
many situations/people in order for the child to
generalize the skills taught in the story to other
people/situations

14. I Love to Pretend!
Social Stories
By Ellen Viola Thalhamer III

15. About the books:
“I’m a Daddy” and “Let’s Play Doctor” are social story
books that were created in order to teach children
with autism how to pretend play. For children who
are learning to pretend play and socially interact
with their peers, these books will be helpful in
guiding them through the motions of pretending to
be a daddy or a doctor. For those parents/teachers
who focus on generalization, and receptive and
expressive language, real life pictures associated
with the stories have been added to the back of the
books.

16. Book Information:
 Website: www.ILovetoPretend.com
 Email: ILovetoPretend@hotmail.com

17. References
 Baron-Cohen S, Leslie AM, Frith U (1985).
"Does the autistic child have a 'theory of mind'?" (PDF). Cognition 21 (1): 37–46. doi:
10.1016/0010-0277(85)90022-8. PMID 2934210. http://ruccs.rutgers.edu/~aleslie/Baron-
Cohen%20Leslie%20&%20Frith%201985.pdf. Retrieved 2008-02-16.
 Leslie, A. M. (1991). Theory of mind impairment in autism. In A. Whiten, Ed., Natural
theories of mind: Evolution, development, and simulation of everyday mind reading.
Cambridge, MA: Basil Blackwell.
 Thalhamer III, Ellen Viola. I Love to Pretend! I’m a Daddy. Bloomington, Indiana: Author
House, 2010.
 Thalhamer III, Ellen Viola. I Love to Pretend! Let’s Play Doctor. Bloomington, Indiana:
Author House, 2010.
 The Gray Center. (unknown). Carol Gray. Retrieved October 12, 2010, from The Gray
Center for Social Learning and Understanding: http://thegraycenter.org/ssocial-
stories/carol-gray
 Wikimedia Foundation, Inc. (2010, September 27). Social Stories. Retrieved October 12,
2010, from Wikipedia The free Encyclopedia: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/social_studies
 Wallin, Jason. (2004). Social Studies. Retrieved October 12, 2010, from Polyxo.com
Teaching Children with Autism: http://www.polyxo.com/socialstories/