Neurodiversity Affirming Social Stories

I get asked a lot if I use social stories in my sessions and if social stories are neurodiversity affirming.

And the answer to that is...

It depends.

Social stories were created by Carol Gray in the 90s and the purpose is to help kids through different situations by helping them know what to expect when they are going into a new situation. 

And overall, I believe Carol Gray's plan for social stories was for them to be positive and not ill intentioned. 

But like anything, it is up to us to use them in a neuroaffirming way. 

So what makes a "good", neurodiversity affirming social story, and which ones should we throw in the trash?

A good social story is used as a visual to help a child know what to expect. 

A lot of neurodivergent kids are visual learners so having a visual way to tell a story about what is about to happen can be great. 

And they can also be really great for validating the feelings or hesitations that a child might have about an upcoming event. 

And it’s important to note here that this is NOT about telling kids how they should feel. It’s about telling them how they might feel and if they happen to feel that way, what they can do to get the support they need. 

We don’t want to tell kids how they are going to feel or how they should feel. That’s one of the big mistakes I see with social stories. 

We don’t want to be putting words in our kids’ mouths and we don’t want to describe to them a feeling that we feel they should feel in a certain situation. 

The other thing we don’t want to do is to tell them exactly how something needs to be done. We don’t want to take away their agency or their sense of autonomy. 

We want ultimately for them to know that however you act in a situation is up to you. It’s not “do this”. It’s “here’s what might be expected but if that doesn’t feel comfortable, you can ask this person to do this instead”. 

And this one won’t surprise you, but we definitely don’t want to be using social stories to teach neurotypical social skills and communication skills. 

Unfortunately, I would say that’s one of the biggest misuses other than telling kids how they should feel in a certain situation. 

Oftentimes we assume the social story is the best way to teach kids a safely skill or to get them to comply. We think “this kid isn’t sitting still in the classroom. They must need a social story on how to come into the classroom and behave."

But this completely neglects the underlying need. Instead of asking ourselves “how can we get this kid to sit still?” we should be asking “why are they struggling to sit still in the classroom?” and “do they have a sensory need that is not being met?”. 

We always need to make sure that we are taking into account that there are a lot of ways for kids to learn skills and sometimes letting them learn in a lot of different ways is exactly what they need. 

If you want to practice writing social stories in a neuroaffirming way, check out this episode of my live show, Making the Shift. 

>> Making the Shift Ep. 80: Neurodiversity Affirming Social Stories 

I give more information about what the Autistic community says about social stories and I go through a social story in real time and explain how and why it needs to be changed to make it more ND Affirming.