Social_Stories_and_Autism

Using Multimedia Tools with Social Stories to Decrease Disruptions in the Classroom from Students with Autism EDG 506- Teacher Research Cabrini College Captain Marc T. Stanley December 15, 2011 Using Multimedia Tools with Social Stories to Decrease Disruptions in the Classroom from Students with Autism We have two students with Autistic Spectrum Disorder (ASD) in a full inclusion 5th grade classroom with a total of 23 students. They are an 11 year old Asian male and an 11 year old Caucasian female. A typical day with these two students requires at least 10 prompts and redirections per hour to initiate and maintain focus in the classroom. The teacher must accomplish this while simultaneously instructing the remaining 21 students. We believe the use of interactive social stories will result in less disruptions and more on-task behavior with less teacher redirection. We do not know what causes autism, but we do know one in 110 children and one in seven boys will be diagnosed with it every year. The deficit in functional language and social interaction are a defining characteristic of children with autism (Kanner, 1943). As qualitative impairments in social interaction are a defining quality for the diagnosis of autism, social dysfunction is what makes autism more than just a language delay. Children with autism lack “theory of mind” which prevents them from understanding that other people have thoughts and feelings. This results in the inability to predict what others will say or do in social situations. On a typical day in the classroom, the male student needs to be redirected to focus on all lessons. He has been observed to scream, shriek and flail his arms about. On one particular occasion, while watching a video clip of Native Americans, a scantily clad cartoon figure elicited a shriek and a covering of the head by the student. This outburst lasted for quite a while. On a similar occasion during the weekly spelling test, the female student, when frustrated over not being prepared, displayed uncontrollable head movement and sobbing. Each of these situations and many more are the behaviors that need to be decreased. The management of social rules and skills must be taught to the autistic child. Basic protocols such as taking turns, enhancing verbal expression through regular opportunities for simple conversation with an emphasis on “how” and “why” questions, and maintaining an appropriate social distance from peers and adults must be fully explained and modeled. These students require additional supervision during both practical and physical activities and may even need to be redirected to alternative activities when they do not understand or like them. (mugsy.org/connor2). The Social Story is used to assist children with autism to understand how to behave in social situations. Carol Gray is the special education teacher that is responsible for developing social stories. Three social stories were specifically developed for each child’s disruptive behavior and were used in this study according to the guidelines proposed by Gray. The stories were written using the following types of sentences – descriptive, directive, perspective and control in order for the students to understand the conceptual nature of their specific situation. Each participant had their own pictures on each page in the story that depicted their problem behavior in order to keep them engaged in the Social Story. Literature Review This study explores the use of interactive social stories to decrease disruptive behaviors in students with Autistic Spectrum Disorder (ASD). The theory behind this study is that using the Smart Board as a means to implement social stories will have great success on students with ASP. Children with ASD are strong visual learners. According to Wert and Neisworth, educators can use a modeling strategy to teach social communications skills to children with ASD (Xin and Sutman, 2011). It was Bandura, through his Bobo the Clown experiments, who showed how children learn from what they observe. So if modeling is a means for learning, self-modeling would work as well. Self-modeling is recorded by the teacher and shown on the Smart Board. It is now an inter-active tool for teaching social skills through social stories. This visually aided approach may help children with ASD overcome feelings of awkwardness in interacting with other people (Xin and Sutman, 2011). The Smart Board, an interactive white board, is a huge touch-sensitive screen which enables students to use either their finger or a Smart Board marker to interact with the screen. Through the use of a digital camera, teachers create a power point of a social story inputting either digital photos or videos of their students modeling desired behaviors. By using actual images of the student performing the appropriate behaviors, he/she is more easily able to observe, imitate, review and practice the social skills. The study involved two children with ASD: a 9-year old boy, who has limited verbal skills. He uses a picture exchange communication system (PECS) device. Since his verbal communication is limited, he becomes frustrated and makes noises. A social story was created for him to decrease the number of times he made noises to get his teacher’s attention and to increase the number of times he raised his hand and waited quietly for his teacher. His social story was known as “Talk to my Teacher”. Student B, a 9-year old girl, performs well academically and is at grade level. The social skill targeted for her is communication with her peers on the playground. It is known as “May I Play”. The social stories were designed specifically to each student and their needs. Student A’s story (Talk to My Teacher) was written without the use of words such as “sometimes” or “usually” because these words are difficult for this student to understand. Student B’s story was written in standard social story format with more descriptive sentences, due to her academic skill development (Xin and Sutman, 2011). Both stories were written in a power point program with digital photos of each student modeling the appropriate behaviors inserted. During social story time, the stories are shown on the Smart Board. This gives the students the opportunity to interact with the Smart Board while practicing the skill. Both students were highly motivated to learn the desired skill and watch their own images on the big screen. The performance results – Student A participated in the study for two weeks. Before the intervention, Student A made noises on average of 15 to 20 times daily during the morning. During the intervention, his noises decreased from 20 times to 8, and he learned to raise his hand from zero to 4 times. Student B also participated in a two week study. Her intervention (Request Playing Tag) was broken into 4 components: “A” - look around playground; “B” - locate a familiar peer; “C” - walk toward peer; “D” - when near peer smile and ask may I play' “A” occurred every day, “B”, “C”, “D” did not occur during the three day baseline, however, did occur five subsequent days. Her verbal initiation increased from gesturing to partial verbal to whole verbal during the last two days of the study. The second study involves many individuals with autism spectrum conditions that have difficulty recognizing emotions in themselves and others. The ability to put oneself in another person’s shoes, developed at a young age, is essential to empathizing. The participant in article was an 11year old male Caucasian student with Asperger Syndrome. He is in fifth grade at an inclusive public school and receives special support from learning support teacher and the gifted support teacher. He has an above-average cognitive ability and does well in most subjects. Academics are not the problem; it is getting along with his peers that are very challenging for him. There are many times when he misinterprets a classmate’s emotions or intentions, which usually leads to negative behavior. He is very intelligent and frequently laughs when other students make mistakes. He has difficulty reading the feelings of others and has an inherent difficulty to placing himself in his classmate’s frame of mind. He has been known to laugh at their blunders. He just does not understand why his peers are not thrilled to work with him on a class project or even walk close to him in line. The students keep their distance and avoid any confrontations with him. It might be beneficial for him to view himself and how he acts toward his fellow students. In the article, short stories could be the answer to the student’s behavioral problems. Social Stories are personalized situations that bring forth a social situation and a description of the desired response (Gray & Grand, 1993). These social stories can be created by incorporating text with line drawings or even more personalized with an individual’s photographs. Hopefully, this concrete, structured format enables them to learn new appropriate behaviors. The three different types of Modeling are Video Modeling, Video Self-Modeling and In-Vivo Modeling. Researching these three made me believe that Video Self-Modeling would be the one for this student. I just do not think viewing Video Modeling, other students demonstrating target behavior or In-Vivo Modeling, where students view others in person (role- playing) to be the best choice. Out of the three, I believe that Video Self- Modeling would have the most positive outcome. This is where the student views himself demonstrating target behavior. With this type of modeling the student would be the “star”. Videos are so popular with this age group and to be the star would be totally awesome to the student. Videos are created to depict the desired behaviors and a stellar sample of the behavior (Hitchcok, Dowrick, & Prater, 2003). The length of the video is relatively short and usually the student, after watching himself, will discuss the observed behavior with a teacher. It would take several weeks to videotape the class and the student in order to gather data to show appropriate and inappropriate behaviors without them realizing they are being filmed. The best thing to do, follow the 5 steps: Identify a target behavior, videotape the behavior, edit the tape as needed, have the student view tape, and discuss video with student. In conclusion, we agree that the use of the Smart Board and Video Self Modeling has the potential to increase the engagement of children with ASD. Both students benefited from their interactive learning experiences using the Smart Board. Seeing their own pictures on the Smart Board modeling the appropriate behaviors increased the occasions of desired behavior. Video Self-Modeling is not sufficient for effective teaching. We need to carefully investigate a variety of teaching strategies and work together to determine which strategies/interventions may be successful for individual students. Methodology The setting is a suburban elementary school in Chester County, Pennsylvania. The school district has 10 elementary schools, two middle schools, and three high schools. The district’s mission: proud of our tradition of excellence, is to educate all students to meet the challenges of a global society by providing an individually responsive learning environment characterized by outstanding academic and personal achievement in partnership with family, students and community. Our focus group is part of a full inclusion fifth grade classroom with 23 students. Based on the needs of the students, we have targeted two students. They are an 11 year old Asian male and an 11 year old Caucasian female. (Participants) Focus Group background: • Participant A – Male; above average I.Q.; average academic performance; Occupational Therapy (O.T.) services for fine motor skills; strengths – math and geography; medicated for attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD); student has IEP; oldest of three children in household; Father – teacher; Mother – nurse; diagnosed age 5; parents in denial about disability. In compliance with IEP, student receives itinerant learning support services. • Participant B – Female; below average I.Q.; gifted and learning support programs; O.T., services for large muscle; adaptive Physical Education; strength – math; medicated for ADHD; student has IEP; youngest of two children in household; Father – full-time employment; Mother – stay at home; parents restrict amount of intervention student is allowed to receive. Procedure Individualized target areas for social stories: • Participant A – inappropriate noises • Participant B – crying outbursts over frustration Intervention sessions will be conducted in the special education classroom for a period of 10 minutes, 2 times daily – once at the beginning of the school day and once after lunch recess by a learning support aide for a period of six weeks. After an initial two-week period, each social story will be reviewed and evaluated for effectiveness with the ultimate goal of beginning a fading process. Data Collection The regular education teacher will keep an individualized tally chart for each participant. She will monitor and observe the number of off task behaviors. Hypothesis We believe the use of multimedia tools with Social Stories as an intervention will result in a decrease in disruptions in the regular education classroom by students with ASD. On-task behaviors will increase with less teacher redirection. This will be measured by teacher data collection and observation. References Delano, M., & Snell, M. (2006). The Effects of Social Stories on the Social Engagement of Children with Autism. Journal of Positive Behavior Interventions, 8(1), 29-42. Retrieved from Education Research Complete database. Ozdemir, S. (2008). The Effectiveness of Social Stories on Decreasing Disruptive Behaviors of Children with Autism: Three Case Studies. Journal of Autism and Developmental Disorders, 38(1), 1689-1696. Retrieved from Education Research Complete database. Schneider, N,. & Goldstein, H. (2009). Social Stories Improve the On-Task Behavior of Children With Language Impairment. Journal of Early Intervention, 31(3), 250-264. Retrieved from Education Research Complete database. Wallin, J. (2004). Social Stories - An Introduction to Social Stories. Retrieved from http://www.polyxo.com/socialstories/introduction.html