A comparison between multiple and single presentation of social stories for children with autism

Autism Spectrum Disorder (ASD) is a complex neurodevelopmental disorder that impairs individuals' social communication and interaction. It also includes restricted repetitive behaviors, having trouble in making friends and communicating with peers, and having difficulty in daily life skills. When the literature is examined, it can be observed that there is a variety of technics and methods for the individuals diagnosed with ASD to acquire independent life skills and overcoming the possible problems. One of these techniques is social stories. The aim of this research was to determine whether the single social story and multiple social story applications in teaching individuals with ASD behaviors of thanking and participating in an ongoing activity differed in terms of effectiveness and efficiency. The participants of the research were composed of four boys diagnosed with ASD between 9 and 17 years old. The skills tried to be taught were the skills of thanking and participating in an ongoing activity. Alternating treatments design, which is one of the single subject research models, was used in this research. Dependent variables of this study are skills of thanking and participating in the invited activity. Independent variable of this study is single social story which is writing and presenting one story for one target behavior and multiple social story which means writing and presenting more than one story for one target behavior. According to findings about effectiveness, it was found that all of four participants learnt the skills of thanking and participating in the invited activity through single and multiple social story applications at a level to meet the criteria. All participants were observed to maintain the skills, which were acquired in both applications. No difference was determined in terms of retention. When the findings of two instructional applications were compared, it was found that the findings didn't recurred consistently in all participants. For two participants, it was determined that the single social story application was more efficient while the multiple social story application was more efficient for one participant. For the other participant, two instructional applications were found to be equally efficient. In this study, data about social validity were gathered from participants, their parents and teachers. The findings about social validity showed that participants, their parents and teachers expressed positive opinions about the study. Keywords: Multiple social story, Single social story, Autism, Social skill