Social stories
A tool for teaching social skills, to children with ASD who often have challenges understanding feelings and perspectives of others. Stories are developed about a particular situation or event, such as having a haircut, going on holiday, sharing a toy etc. They provide a large amount of information to assist the individual in understanding the demands and appropriate responses of a situation. What will happen in a particular situation to ease anxiety, teach routines, listening to a story and looking at pictures enable them to understand their experience.
Comic strip conversations
Comic Strip Conversations provide visual representations of the different levels of communication that take place in a conversation, using symbols, stick figure drawings and colour. By seeing the different elements of a conversation visually presented, some of the abstract aspects of social communication are made more concrete and are therefore easier to understand. Comic Strip Conversations can also provide insight into the individual with ASDs perception of a particular situation.
Video modelling
As children with autism are often strong visual learners this can be a very effective technique. In video modelling, an individual is shown a video in which a model performs a target behaviour or task in order to facilitate learning of that behaviour or task.