The effectiveness of social stories on decreasing disruptive behaviors of children with autism: three case studies.

Ozdemir (2008) worked with three boys with autism in a regular Turkish elementary school. Each boy had one disruptive habit: yelling, tipping his chair, or cutting the lunch line.

The author wrote each boy a short Social Story with photos. The kids read it once a day right before the problem time. The study used a multiple-baseline design across the three boys.

All three behaviors dropped right after the story was introduced. Yelling fell from 8 times a morning to 1. Chair tipping went from 6 to 0. Line cutting dropped from 5 to 1.

The improvements stayed low for the rest of the school term. No extra rewards or prompts were needed.

Kim et al. (2014) later showed the same idea works for older students. They swapped paper stories for tablet stories in a high-school class for teens with intellectual disability. Disruptive behavior still fell.

Alsop et al. (1995) cut aggression in typical boys with a very different tool: behavioral-skills training plus parent notes. Social Stories gave Selda’s kids similar drops with less adult time.

Leaf et al. (2012) used peer-delivered visual scripts to grow communication, not stop behavior. Both studies used the same multiple-baseline classroom design, showing the method is flexible.

You can write one short story tonight and see fewer disruptions tomorrow. Pick one clear behavior, one setting, and one student. Read the story right before that moment. No tokens, no data sheets, no extra staff. If it works, keep it; if not, you have lost only five minutes.