Social stories and comic strip conversations are established therapy approaches that provide written and visual structures to help people with autism spectrum disorders (ASD) understand and learn effective behaviours for a given situation. Typically these kinds of social stories are linear, i.e. a straight-forward narrative is presented.
Recently, I have been experimenting with creating computer-based interactive therapy stories that allow students with ASD to make choices at each stage of the story and see the repercussions of their decisions. For example, in an interactive therapy story about 'listening to instructions in class' a student can choose whether to 'listen to their teacher's instructions' or 'talk with friends and play' and then see the likely outcome of each choice.
You can download an example of an interactive therapy story about listening to instructions at the bottom of this page. It is in .html format which means it will open and display in your internet browser.
Recently, I have been experimenting with creating computer-based interactive therapy stories that allow students with ASD to make choices at each stage of the story and see the repercussions of their decisions. For example, in an interactive therapy story about 'listening to instructions in class' a student can choose whether to 'listen to their teacher's instructions' or 'talk with friends and play' and then see the likely outcome of each choice.
You can download an example of an interactive therapy story about listening to instructions at the bottom of this page. It is in .html format which means it will open and display in your internet browser.
These stories can be personalised with photographs or drawings for the student to increase the likelihood that they will carry over the skills learnt in the interactive story into the desired environment. It's also possible to build random events into a story so that students do not learn from the story that a particular behaviour always leads to a particular result - something that is likely to be particularly important for students with ASD.
At the moment I make interactive therapy stories using free software called Twine (www.twinery.org). It can also be used online, without installation of any software.
I will be uploading more interactive therapy stories here in the future. Leave a comment below if you have feedback or already use a similar approach.
At the moment I make interactive therapy stories using free software called Twine (www.twinery.org). It can also be used online, without installation of any software.
I will be uploading more interactive therapy stories here in the future. Leave a comment below if you have feedback or already use a similar approach.
interactive_therapy_story_example_-_listening_to_instructions.html |