The efficacy of social story applications turned into musical activities on children with developmental disabilities regarding social skills teaching

This study aims to examine the efficacy of social story applications transformed into musical activities on children with developmental disabilities in teaching social skills. The children with developmental disabilities who participated in the study were taught the social skills "Apologizing, Turn-taking, Greeting and Asking for Permission" by using the 4-6 years social skills scale of Hasan Avcıoğlu through social stories turned into musical forms. In the study, a multiple-probe model with inter-behavior inspection phase,which is among single subject research models, was used. The study included 2 males and 1 female participants diagnosed with autism spectrum disorder and Down syndrome from developmentally disabled children group who were aged between 7 and 15, and who were receiving education in Turgut Özal Private Education Vocational School in Malatya province. The efficacy data were collected from the start-up sessions, daily attendance sessions, teaching sessions, collective attendance sessions and monitoring sessions. At the same time, social validity and reliability data were collected in the study. The efficacy data obtained as a result of the research were analyzed using graphical analysis, and different graphs were drawn for each student and social skill. Social validity data were analyzed by descriptive analysis method according to the data obtained from participants' families. The study found that social story applications in the form of musical activities were effective on the two participants with developmental disability diagnosed with Down syndrome and autism spectrum disorder in terms of teaching all determined social skills, and that the participants learned each determined three social skills ,and that most of these learned skills were acquired permanently by the participants, which was observed during the monitoring session eight weeks after the teaching. It was found that the social story applications turned into musical activities were not effective on social skills teaching atexpected level for the other participant diagnosed with autism spectrum disorder, and that social story applications turned into musical activities did not bring about a positive change in the participant's existing social skills level. Social validity data of the study revealed that this study had very effective and permanent outcomes according to the opinions obtained from the mothers and fathers of the participants. KEYWORDS: Developmental disabilities, autism spectrum disorder, Down Syndrome, social skills, social story, music education, teaching with musical activities.