Social Stories as an intervention for adults with ASD and LD
Research type
Research Study
Full title
Social Stories™ as an individually tailored intervention for adults with Autistic Spectrum Disorders (ASD) and Learning Disabilities (LD).
IRAS ID
144727
Contact name
Nicol Aphale
Contact email
Sponsor organisation
Leicestershire Partnership NHS Trust
Research summary
Title: Social Stories™ as an individually tailored intervention for adults with Autistic Spectrum Disorders and Learning Disabilities.
A Social Story™ is an individually created story to help an individual understand a situation and so reduce their distress and challenging behaviour. This intervention was created to be used with Autistic children and research shows that it is effective. At present there are a few studies which show that this intervention could also be effective with adults with Autistic Spectrum Disorders (ASD), Learning Disabilities (LD) and Development Disabilities.
This project aims to investigate whether Social Stories™ are an effective intervention for adults with ASD and LD. It aims to find out whether Social Stories™ reduce challenging behaviour and distress, whilst increasing positive behaviour. It also aims to find out the individual and carer’s experience of the intervention.
To achieve this four individual case studies of adults with diagnoses of LD and ASD will be used. Participants will need to have family or carers involved who can assist with presenting the Social Story™ and recording their behaviour. Participants will be identified from the Learning Disability Service by the professionals working with them and will need to be able to give their consent. Participants will have a simple and frequent challenging behaviour that occurs in a specific environment (e.g shouting during meal times). A Social Story™ will be individually created for each participant and their behaviour will be monitored by the individual’s carer in this situation before and during the Social Story™ intervention. The Social Story™ will be gradually faded out and behaviour will continue being monitored. Participants and carers will be interviewed after the intervention to find out their experiences of the Social Story™.REC name
East Midlands - Leicester South Research Ethics Committee
REC reference
14/EM/0010
Date of REC Opinion
5 Feb 2014
REC opinion
Further Information Favourable Opinion