Abstract

In this study we compared the cool versus not cool procedure to Social Stories™ for teaching various social behaviors to one individual diagnosed with autism spectrum disorder. The researchers randomly assigned three social skills to the cool versus not cool procedure and three social skills to the Social Stories™ procedure. Naturalistic probes were utilized to determine the participant’s successful demonstration of the various social skills taught with each procedure. The researchers utilized an adapted alternating treatment design to compare the effectiveness of each of the two procedures. Results indicated that the participant acquired all of the skills taught with the cool versus not cool procedure and demonstrated minimal improvements for the skills taught with Social Stories™. Practical implications as well as future research are discussed.

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