Social Stories Can Benefit Your Community

Do you want to make it easier for people with disabilities (especially autism), individuals with limited English proficiency, and first-time visitors to your jurisdiction to use government services, such as public transportation, schools, libraries, and more? If so, consider developing and using social stories.

Social stories are narratives that help autistic children and others understand specific situations and places, improve social skills, and decrease anxiety. Stories could be made for specific scenarios, such as riding a bus, going on a tour of the state capitol or city hall, and attending a reading time event for young children at a local library.

People who are traveling to your area for the first time may benefit from social stories about your jurisdiction’s public transportation. Because transportation systems can vary substantially, social stories about this topic could be helpful.

Tips for writing social stories include:

• Be accurate.
• Include positive language in sentences that are adjacent to corresponding graphics, such as photographs or realistic-looking illustrations.
• Include more descriptive than directive language.
• Provide answers to who, what, where, when, why, and how questions.
• Write from the perspective of your target audience.
• Write in first or third person, not second person.
• Write in past, present, or future tense.

The sections of a social story are:

• Title — Identifies the subject.
• Introduction — Overviews the story’s focus.
• Body — Provides more details.
• Conclusion — Summarizes information.

Public-sector organizations could have related social stories, in which one story overviews a situation and other stories document more specific concepts. For example, a school could have a general social story about the school’s rooms, classes, activities, employees, and events and also have more specific stories that focus on specific elements, such as school assemblies, music class, and field day.

Government agencies could collaborate with disability-related organizations and groups to develop social stories. Collaboration is important because drafts of social stories are often reviewed by relevant people and revised if needed. Possible partners could be:

• University Centers for Excellence in Developmental Disabilities (UCEDD) — Each U.S. state and territory and the District of Columbia has at least one UCEDD. The 68 UCEDDS collaborate with people with disabilities, their relatives, state and local governments, and service providers.
• State Council on Developmental Disabilities (Council) — States and territories have federally funded Councils, which help people with developmental disabilities in their areas. The Councils conduct outreach and trainings, provide technical help, remove barriers, create coalitions, and more. Collaboration on social stories could be viewed as technical assistance.
• Government disability offices.
• Self-advocacy organizations.
• Other disability-related organizations.
• Disability studies students — Some educational programs involve students doing a project for a local or state government. A school project could include students and local autistic people co-creating social stories for their local jurisdiction.

Collaboration can take the form of co-writing and testing, and other entities can participate in focus groups. People with disabilities should be compensated for their work.

Agencies could distribute social stories in multiple ways:

• An electronic version could be on agency’s website.
• A hard-copy version could be at the location(s) featured in the social stories. Visitors could borrow or take these paper copies.

By creating social stories, you can help autistic people and others use government services.

Miriam Edelman, MPA, MSSW, is a Washington, D.C.-based policy professional. Her experience includes policy work for Congress. Miriam’s undergraduate degree is from Barnard College, Columbia University, with majors in political science and urban studies. She has a master’s in public administration from Cornell University, where she was inducted into the national honorary society for public administration. She has a master’s of science in social work (focusing on policy) from Columbia University. She is a commissioner of the DC Commission on Persons with Disabilities. Miriam aims to continue her career in public service. She is especially interested in democracy, civic education, District of Columbia autonomy, diversity, health policy, women’s issues, and disabilities.

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