Effects of soci̇al stori̇es on teachi̇ng protecti̇ng ski̇lls agai̇nst sexual abuse to individuals wi̇th auti̇sm spectrum di̇sorders

This study investigated the effectiveness of social stories method in the teaching of protection skills from sexual abuse to individuals with autism, and the skills were also evaluated in terms of maintenance and generalization. The research was planned according to the research model of multible probe design across subjects, and it consisted of the sessions of baseline, instruction, intermittent probes, generalization and the maintenance sessions of generalization. This study exploited generalization strategy with multible exemplars and assessed the effects of social stories on the self-protection skills of individuals with autism across different settings, different persons and against different sexual abuse types. The maintenance sessions of generalization were realized 3 and 5 weeks after the instruction was completed. The social validity of the study was assessed on the basis of the data collected from mothers of the subjects who participated in the research, with the subjctive evaluation approach. The three subjects who took part in the study were two girls and one boy who were diagnosed as having autism, were between 10-17 ages, and from the cities of Istanbul and Eskisehir. The type of sexual abuse to be instructed were determined together with the parents, and the first type instructed was inappropriate touch. After the criterion was met, the skills for protection from abuse were evaluated to see whether they were generalized to the abuse types, which have not been instucted, namely inappropriate kiss and exhibition, and to the type which has been instructed. All the instruction sessions wre conducted in the subjects' houses and schools, and different public places were choosed for generalization sessions. The research findings indicated that, with the social stories method, all of three subjects of the study were able to learn the skills for protection from abuse and to generalize them to differnt settings, persons and abuse types. In addition, the participants showed retention of the learnt skills in the maintenance of generalization sessions conducted 3 and 5 weeks after the completion of the instruction.