A treatment comparison study of a photo activity schedule and Social Stories for teaching social skills to children with Autism Spectrum Disorder: brief report

ABSTRACT

Purpose: To compare the efficacy of two procedures, a photo activity schedule intervention and Social Stories, to teach social skills to four children diagnosed with Autism Spectrum Disorder (ASD).

Methods: An adapted alternating treatments design with an additional multiple baseline control was used, and two social skills were targeted for each of the four participants, one under each intervention condition.

Results: Results indicated that all four participants learned the target social behaviours with the photo activity schedule intervention, but did not learn target social behaviours with Social Stories.

Conclusions: Findings support the use of a photo activity intervention for teaching social skillsto children with ASD; we discuss the implications of inconsistent findings of effectiveness of Social Stories.

KEYWORDS:

• Autism
• photographic schedule
• social behavior
• social skills
• Social Stories

Acknowledgments

The authors would like to thank Gina Chang, Kari Berquist, and the children and families who participated in this study.

Declaration of interest

The authors report no conflicts of interest. The authors alone are responsible for the content and writing of the paper.