Brief report: Increasing verbal greeting initiations for a student with autism via a Social Story™ intervention.
A short Social Story quickly lifted greeting words for an 11-year-old with autism and the skill stayed with only a picture cue.
01Research in Context
What this study did
Reichow et al. (2009) tested a short Social Story for an 11-year-old with high-functioning autism. The story showed when and how to greet teachers and peers.
They used an ABAB reversal design. They read the story, then checked if the child said hello more often at school.
What they found
Greeting words jumped up each time the story was used. The gains stayed even after the story was cut back to a small card.
The child went from almost no greetings to clear, friendly hellos.
How this fits with other research
Kahng et al. (1999) got the same kind of boost using puppet scripts instead of a story. Both studies show scripted narratives can teach greetings.
Moon et al. (2024) push the idea further. They used VR scenes that give live prompts when the child looks away. Their tech keeps the greeting goal but adds real-time feedback.
Tiede et al. (2019) pool 27 studies and say naturalistic methods like Social Stories give small-to-medium gains for preschoolers. Brian’s single case lines up with that average even though the child was older.
Why it matters
You can write a one-page story tonight and see change tomorrow. Keep a tiny visual cue in the binder so the skill sticks. Pair this low-tech tool with newer tech later if you want, but the story alone still works.
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02At a glance
03Original abstract
Social Stories™ are a common intervention for addressing the social skills deficits individuals with autism often demonstrate. In this study, a Social Story intervention was used to increase acceptable verbal greeting initiations with an 11-year-old boy who had a diagnosis of high functioning autism. A withdrawal design with a comparison condition examined the frequency of acceptable verbal greeting initiations during 5 min observation periods. Results showed no acceptable verbal greeting initiations during both baseline conditions, increased frequency of acceptable verbal greeting initiations during both intervention conditions, and maintenance of intervention levels of behavior with visual supports during the comparison condition.
Journal of autism and developmental disorders, 2009 · doi:10.1007/s10803-009-0814-4