Supporting autistic communities through parent-led and child/young person-led digital social story interventions: an exploratory study.
Parents and autistic kids can create and use digital Social Stories on their own and still see social gains.
01Research in Context
What this study did
Lde Leeuw et al. (2024) asked parents and autistic kids to make Social Stories on a phone app. The kids chose the topic and pictures. Parents helped write the text. No BCBA sat with them. The team looked at pre-post scores on social questions and language tests.
Twenty-one families joined. Kids were 6-14 years old. Most had mild to moderate support needs.
What they found
Both parent-led and child-led stories helped. Social skills scores went up. The gains stayed two weeks later. Kids with stronger language made bigger gains when parents led. Kids who love systems (trains, maps) did fine either way.
How this fits with other research
Camilleri et al. (2024) looked at 856 app users and saw the same good result. Their big dataset shows the app works best for younger, chatty kids and even better for autistic girls. LJ’s small study adds real-life proof that families can run it alone.
Kassardjian et al. (2014) found Teaching Interaction beat Social Stories head-to-head. Looks like a clash, but Alyne used live coaching and role-play. LJ used a self-made phone story. Quick digital tales may not top live teaching, yet they still give a low-cost boost parents can do tonight.
Gerow et al. (2021) showed parents can master telehealth coaching for daily skills. LJ skips the coach and still wins. Together they say: send the tool, trust the parent, check back later.
Why it matters
You can hand families the app link, spend five minutes showing the icons, and step out. Autistic youth pick what matters to them, so motivation stays high. Start with kids who speak in sentences and like rules. Track for two weeks, then fade. You save hours while they keep the gain.
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02At a glance
03Original abstract
<h4>Introduction</h4>Social Stories (SS) is a socially-valid intervention for autistic children and young people (CYP) which is used widely by professionals and parents. Research suggests that whilst parents are in an ideal position to deliver interventions for their autistic CYP, a lack of procedural integrity can result in a great deal of variability in parent-mediated intervention outcomes.<h4>Methods</h4>This exploratory study investigated the extent to which SS can be effectively developed and delivered, through digital mediation, by parents with little to no researcher input (<i>n</i> = 17, sample 1) and the factors that impact effectiveness. Furthermore, the study also investigated the extent to which digitally-mediated SS can support autistic CYP to develop and deliver their own stories, thereby utilising the intervention as a means for self-support and self-management (<i>n</i> = 5, sample 2).<h4>Results</h4>The outcomes of the study indicate that digital mediation can effectively support parent-led SS intervention. Findings also indicate that receptive/expressive language skills of autistic CYP, their level of systemizing, as well as the practice of consulting with the autistic CYP whilst identifying goals and developing stories, are individual and procedural characteristics which positively influence the effectiveness of the parent-led intervention. The study also found that digitally-mediated SS can be utilised as a self-support tool by autistic CYP themselves.<h4>Discussion</h4>The results inform the developing literature on digital interventions and support tools that aim to engage with, and involve further, the autistic community in the setting and authoring of interventions and research.
, 2024 · doi:10.3389/fdgth.2024.1355795