What i learned about Social Stories!

This week I was very impressed by the reading and some what surprised that i hadn't heard of these before. The idea presented in the More article,

"many children learn easily by watching others, imitating actions, and cuing into subtle social cues. However, some students with disabilities have trouble acquiring these social skills. These children require a more intensive intervention to make gains in the social area"

is what we know to be true about students with autism. That is why this idea of creating a social story is so brilliant. As it's said in the article on Polyxo.com,

"Social Stories attempt to address the "theory of mind" impairment by giving individuals some perspective on the thoughts, emotions, and behaviors of others."

This different perspective is made tangible with these stories. So instead of a student having to learn a behavior from observing it, which as we know is very difficult for our students with autism, they can hold it in their hands and read it off a page. Some things to keep in mind as you're creating these stories for the children are what the problem is they are having and not making it overly complicated.This is a very successful practice that i will surely be using in my future career as a teacher.

Debriefing Newsletter and Sign up

This was a really easy couple of tools. It's all extremely spelled out and self explanatory. Another very nice part about this is the fact that I can really see myself using this in the future. These are two very easy ways to communicate with parents. So plain and simple i loved these two tools.