Digital Stories Targeting Social Skills for Children With Disabilities

"It is important to help children with disabilities begin to take ownership of learning as early as possible to avoid learned helplessness. Successful social skills instruction relies on an environment that fosters social interactions.."

Posted on the redOrbit Knowledge Network, this article explores how the use of interpersonal interactions and digital technology can be part of a strategy for helping children with disabilities interact with their peers. According to the author, Cori More, children often learn easily by watching others, imitating actions, and cuing into subtle social cues; however, some students with disabilities have trouble acquiring these social skills. More cites sources whose research has demonstrated that the acquisition of social skills is a key to long-term student success, both inside and outside of the classroom. Amongst the strategies examined in this article for improving social behaviour are peer tutoring, "social stories", and digital media.

As More details, the use of peer models is a strategy designed to help students practice and improve a variety of skills; one recommendation is to give students with disabilities opportunities to participate as tutors as well as tutees. In addition, More indicates that "[f]or students who have difficulties initiating and maintaining interactions, teachers can implement more structure in the environment to gain a student's interest and encourage peer interactions."

Another teaching method explored here is "social stories", which have been used to work with children with autism, amongst others. In short, this type of short story "should be written at the student's reading level and use age-appropriate vocabulary. Social stories can meet the diverse needs of learners by combining visual cues with verbal cues...Because the stories are individualized, they can be tailored to meet the needs of each learner. Social stories allow time for extra practice of skills and increased communication between parents, teachers, and children....They engage children, using information that is directly related to each child's unique experience." Some researchers quoted here suggest that computer-based social stories could be an effective intervention.

This article also highlights computer-aided instruction and digital media as means of creating dynamic opportunities for teaching and learning by offering children more control of the learning experience. For example, "[d]igital cameras allow students and teachers to use digital pictures to re-create portions of the school and present this information visually on the computer. Pictures can also be taken of community settings...Communicating with families and knowing preferences regarding the use of photos is essential to maintaining cultural sensitivity." Evidence is presented here indicating that multimedia instruction is most effective when embedded in the classroom routine. The authors of that study recommended a balance between whole-class and individual use of the computer-aided instruction techniques."

Organisers elaborate on this point, stressing that "[d]igital media allow teachers to take into consideration a range of skills and learning styles. Teachers add sound to each digital story. Along with gaining the student's attention, the addition of sound allows children with visual impairments or reading difficulties to access the digital social stories independently. The addition of digital pictures supports the needs of visual learners. The text, built on developmentally appropriate vocabulary, promotes literacy and provides structure to the lesson. To develop the lesson, learning style needs are considered up front. By considering the needs of students and the variety of their learning styles before the lesson is created, accessibility is improved for all learners."

Details, including links to online help sites, are provided here to assist teachers interested in the nuts and bolts of creating digital social stories. Instructions for composing digital story scripts are also provided (e.g., "each story should include descriptive, perspective, directive, affirmative, cooperative, and control sentences"). Soliciting the help of volunteers (e.g., teacher's assistants, parent volunteers, community members, high school students, etc.) is characterised as an effective time management tool for collecting pictures.

The final section of the piece focuses on strategies for implementing digital stories in the classroom. More claims that digital stories can be implemented in whole-group settings to teach classroom routines and procedures, in small groups to target specific skill sets, or individually. She writes that "[t]eachers should establish routines to allow children access to the stories. One method of organization is to create a folder for each child on the computer desktop to allow easy access to the social stories." Also, she highlights the power of a participatory approach: "Involving students will increase their ownership of the story. Students select the setting for the story and the peers from the class they want to include in the story....Teachers should consider including peers to increase the effectiveness of digital stories in the classroom..."