One of the main goals of social stories is to help children recognize social cues, according to the National Association of Special Education Teachers (NASET). Social cues are verbal or nonverbal signals from one person to another attempting to prompt a response. As a simple example, if a typically functioning adult says, "Hello, how are you?" to another person, the usual response is often "I'm good, thanks. How are you?" Children with autism or a learning disability may not respond at all or may say "Good" to no one in particular. Social cue recognition demonstrates an appropriate response to the prompt.
One of the most challenging objectives to teach children with social or learning disabilities is expected responses to social cues. Even when cues are recognized, some kids struggle to understand appropriate response. Social stories depict appropriate response in certain scenarios. For instance, if you are playing a game and lose, a natural reaction for a child with autism may be a meltdown or make a comment like "I hate this game." The social story may show a child responding with grace, praise and good sportsmanship. The challenge is balancing training on expected responses with flexibility to apply the right response in varying scenarios, as learning disabled children may have rigid thinking.
One of the more general goals of social stories is simply to make children aware of the social settings they are in and the importance of participating in social interaction. Many younger children are not fully aware of the effects of poor social and behavioral interaction with peers until they are already developing poor relationships. Many children with autism have high self-awareness but low external awareness. By working with children on social stories, they may begin to identify the social environment around them and have more ability to engage others proactively in communication and social interaction.
Kids with social and learning challenges often are aware they struggle in these areas. They can easily become frustrated at not quickly knowing what to say or do in a given situation. Or, they are embarrassed or ashamed after a social encounter when they recognize the inappropriateness of a response. A main objective of social story training is to give kids a sense of comfort and confidence to perform well in social encounters.