Treatment for children with high functioning autism: A comparison of social stories to musically adapted social stories

The incorporation of music and social stories has been seldom tested, thus a study which uses a single-subject, alternating treatment design assesses the effects of standard social stories versus musically adapted social stories on the pragmatic abilities of an individual with high-functioning autism is presented. The goal of this project was to determine whether read social stories versus musically adapted social stories would be more beneficial in reducing problem behaviors in a child with high-functioning autism. Both types of social stories were implemented with the participant and the data supported the effectiveness of both treatments. Though the musically adapted social story appeared to yield a more timely reduction in the target behaviors, the Mean Baseline Reduction (MBR) calculations determined an actual percentage of each social story being effective, however there is only about a 3% increase in the effectiveness of the musically adapted social story. Although a significant difference was not seen in the data, the participant and parent of the child participant favored the musically adapted social story over the standard social story. SLPs and other individuals who treat children with autism may find the implementation of musically adapted social stories beneficial to treat individuals with high functioning autism, to either decrease problematic social behaviors or increase positive social behaviors, allowing the individual to acquire and sustain general acceptable pragmatic behaviors. Further research is required to determine which treatment results in greater gains for children with high functioning autism, however in this particular case it must be noted that the musically adapted social story held greater acceptance by participant, caregivers, and parents