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Students who find social situations challenging can benefit significantly from observing typical social behavior. Social stories serve as a valuable tool in illustrating these behaviors and setting expectations, particularly when students are introduced to unfamiliar environments with new people.
Learn how social stories can enhance the learning experience for all students, including those in special education and those in mainstream classes who need assistance with emotional regulation and behavior. You’ll also gain insights from TPT Teacher-Authors on effectively using and creating social stories in your classroom.
What is a social story?
A social story is a narrative illustrating characters engaging in social routines and meeting expectations. Developed by educator Carol Gray specifically for autistic students, these stories use images to model social interactions, preparing students for new situations.
For instance, a social story about a fire drill might depict a character experiencing the associated sounds, sights, and rules. Teachers can use this story to prepare students for an upcoming drill and review it afterward to reinforce social expectations.
Common types of social stories
Social stories can cover a wide range of behaviors or social scenarios you wish to teach your students. Common topics include:
- Daily routines (bathing, brushing teeth, going to bed)
- Conversations (meeting new people, eye contact, common greetings)
- Classroom behaviors (interrupting, staying in seat, keeping hands to oneself)
- Emotional regulation (calming down, expressing feelings, managing stress)
- Life changes (transitions, changing schools, puberty)
- Peer relationships (making friends, respecting boundaries, empathy)
The most effective social stories are specific, detailed, and focused on solutions. Reviewing these stories throughout the year may be necessary for students to fully understand the concepts, complemented by discussions about their experiences.
Benefits of Social Stories
Research indicates that social stories offer numerous benefits for autistic students. They can decrease disruptive behaviors and encourage positive ones. By breaking down social interactions into steps, these stories help students anticipate reactions and understand the consequences of their actions, while also highlighting nonverbal and subtle social cues that might otherwise be overlooked.
Regardless of your classroom’s composition, social stories can be advantageous. They foster inclusion by depicting characters who face social challenges, clarify classroom rules, and enhance peer relationships by promoting empathy and respect for boundaries—benefiting all students.
Social Story Resources for the Classroom
Effective social stories are slow-paced and clearly illustrated, allowing students to relate to the characters’ feelings.
Use social stories to work through school situations
School environments, with their various settings, transitions, and sensory inputs, can be challenging for many students. Incorporate these social story resources into your curriculum at the start of the school year to guide students on how to behave and what to expect during the busiest times of the school day.
Teacher Tip
I recommend following up the social story with a dice game or discussion cards to help students verbally process the story. They can reflect by answering questions like “What would you do in this situation?” and “What advice would you give to the character?”
-Rachel from Bright Futures Counseling
Lunch Room Expectations Social Story Adapted Book for Autism Cafeteria Rules
By Adapted by Kimmie D
Grades: PreK-2nd
Subjects: Classroom Community, Social Emotional Learning, Speaking & Listening
What can kids expect to see and hear in the cafeteria? Use a social story adapted book to help autistic students, mainstream students, and anyone who could use some guidance on the rules and sensory input of the school cafeteria.
Social Story Riding the Bus
By Brooke Reagan
Subject: School Counseling
Riding the bus can be overwhelming for anyone, especially students with special needs. Help students of any age navigate appropriate behavior and expectations when riding the bus with illustrated social stories. Printable and digital versions of the resource provide colorful visuals for each rule, including getting on and off the bus, keeping hands to yourself, and using kind and soft voices.
Personal Space invader boundaries Social Story Activity Autism
By Badger State Speechy
Grades: 1st-6th
Subjects: School Counseling, Speaking & Listening
Standard: CCSS CCRA.SL.2
Aligned to CCSS for speaking and listening, this personal space social story helps autistic students and students with social difficulties navigate keeping space with their peers. Students identify what their hands and feet are for, social rules, and nonverbal communication with engaging graphics that match teaching stories for different grade levels.
Handle classroom behavior with social stories
Ideally, your classroom should be a safe space for your students — and that includes their peers, too. Use these social stories to teach and remind students to respect others in tangible, easy-to-understand modeled language.
Teacher Tip
Use puppets to role-play the concepts after reading a social story. This moves it from passive to active learning. Puppets lower defensiveness.
-Rachel from Bright Futures Counseling
Hands to Myself – A Social Story Unit with 25 Activities, Visuals and Vocabulary
By NoodleNook
Subject: Character Education
Get ahead of classroom conflicts with a resource on keeping your hands to yourself. Students complete comprehension activities, clip cards, and worksheets using support visuals in both black-and-white and color versions.
Swearing Social Story | Social Stories | Positive Language Social Story
By Allie Szczecinski with Miss Behavior
Grades: PreK-3rd
Subject: School Counseling
Do your students struggle with swearing and inappropriate language in class? Use a social script focused on positive language to guide elementary students away from swearing. It includes mini-book social scripts with visual supports that use both the words “swearing” and “cussing” to meet students where they are.
Add emotional regulation social stories to your SEL lessons
Many autistic students struggle with emotional regulation, especially in new social situations or moments with extra sensory stimulation. These teaching tools guide students of all ages to work through their feelings with social stories on emotional moments throughout their day.
Teacher Tip
For many learners — especially those with autism or social communication challenges — acting out the social story bridges the gap between “knowing what to do” and actually doing it in the moment.
-Mickelle from I LUV Special Ed
Calm Down Strategies: Social Stories & Visuals for Self-Regulation & Behavior
By Autism Classroom Resource-Christine Reeve
Grades: K-10th
Subject: Social Emotional Learning
This kit includes four social stories on others’ perspectives and problematic situations, all in the format of an idea and a picture on each page for students to match the narratives with the images.
Social Skills Scripts and Narratives – Editable Stories for Middle & High School
By Pathway 2 Success
Grades: 6th-9th
Subjects: School Counseling, Social Emotional Learning
Guide students through various social situations with scripts and narratives. Beneficial for middle and high schoolers working on building their social skills, the editable resource includes 20 social stories on transitioning, waiting, managing emotions, homework, and more.
How to Create Your Own Social Stories
If you need a social story that’s more specific to your classroom, you can create it yourself! All you need is a social situation, steps for moving through that situation, and a little artistic talent (or a good digital illustration program).
- Identify the audience of your story. Is this for autistic students, kids with other developmental considerations, or mainstream students?
- Find the goal of the story, which matches the social lesson you’re trying to teach your students.
- Establish a setting for your social story, preferably one that students know they are about to encounter.
- Break down the social navigation steps for the situation. Put one sentence on each page (or quarter of the page).
- Create the images, either by drawing them yourself or using a digital art program. You can also use clipart as long as it clearly shows each character’s behavior.
If you’re teaching older students or kids with lower support needs, consider having them create their own social stories based on a time they had to use social skills. Then they can share their stories to help their peers!
Teacher Tip
Don’t rely on the story alone. Pair it with modeling, visuals, and repeated practice so the skill becomes usable in the moment.
-Shelly from Shelly Swift BCBA
Social stories guide and support students
Social stories work best when students (and teachers) know how to use them. Once you’ve worked through a few social stories with your class, expand your repertoire with more social story resources for different needs and grade levels, and see how well your students’ SEL and social skills develop. You can also augment your curriculum with more special education resources that address these important steps, empowering your students to feel comfortable and competent in new situations.
