This best-selling program teaches social behaviors and social language with a predictable lesson format that reduces student anxiety and promotes learning.  Fun, interactive lessons target skills in sequencing, predicting, question-answering, and processing verbal information.  

The program includes eight stories with these ready-to-use components:

• Four full-color, 8 1/2" x 11" pictures to tell each story (32 story sequence pictures total).
• Four large-print sentence strips per story that students match to the correct illustrations (32 sentence strips in all).
• Question flash cards and wrong/right cards for students to learn ways to act in social situations.
• A teacher manual with complete lesson plans and teaching techniques designed to engage students in learning.  The manual includes:
  - ready-to-use lists of yes/no, wh-, and how questions for each story
  - teaching suggestions
  - a pocket-size version of each story
  - a list of easy-to-find props for role-playing each story sequence
  - a progress chart

Each lesson follows the same two-day routine and can be used with one student, a small group, or an entire class.  Matt and Molly are the main characters of every story, so students begin to consider them good friends as they progress through each lesson. 

Day one routine is:

• sing the Matt and Molly theme song
• introduce the story
• describe the picture cards and introduce the vocabulary/concepts
• predicting activity
• story review activity
• differentiate right and wrong behavior
• what's missing activity
• match printed sentences to the corresponding picture
• yes/no questions activity
• wh- and how questions activity
• preparing to act out the story activity

Day two routine is:

• sing the Matt and Molly theme song
• story review activity
• act out the story
• anticipate the next story activity
• homework sheet with pocket-size version of the story

Social Skills in the Community may be purchased individually or as part of the 5-program Autism & PDD Picture Stories & Language Activities Social Skills set.  The 5-program set consists of:

Autism & PDD Picture Stories & Language Activities Social Skills in the Community

Autism & PDD Picture Stories & Language Activities Social Skills with Family

Autism & PDD Picture Stories & Language Activities Social Skills with Friends

Autism & PDD Picture Stories & Language Activities Social Skills at Home

Autism & PDD Picture Stories & Language Activities Social Skills at School

Download a free unit, Molly Goes to the Bathroom, here.

Copyright ©  2008

I like that this product teaches children specific strategies to try when they feel upset or frustrated.  There are a variety of ways to use the program.  The child can identify appropriate and inappropriate behaviors.  The child can answer wh- questions about the story.  The child can sequence the story and retell the story. 

Danielle Bailey, SLP
Westminster, MD

• Stories about specific social situations help students with autism spectrum disorders (ASD) understand and respond to similar social situations appropriately (Kuoch & Mirenda, 2003).
• Repeated reading of stories about specific social situations improves social understanding for students with ASD (Gray, 2000).
• Students with ASD should receive instruction in functional, spontaneous communication; new skill acquisitions; generalization and maintenance in natural contexts; and functional academic skills when appropriate (NRC, 2001).
• Visual supports have been used successfully to increase social communication and generalization to new activities in students with ASD (ASHA, 2006).

Autism & PDD Picture Stories & Language Activities Social Skills in the Community incorporates these principles and is also based on expert professional practice.

References

American Speech-Language-Hearing Association (ASHA). (2006). Guidelines for speech-language pathologists in diagnosis, assessment, and treatment of autism spectrum disorders across the life span [Guidelines]. Retrieved August 17, 2009, from www.asha.org/policy

Gray, C. (2000). The new social story book. Arlington, TX: Future Horizons, Inc.

Kuoch, H., & Mirenda, P. (2003). Social story interventions for young children with autism spectrum disorders. Focus on Autism and Other Developmental Disabilities, 18, 219-227.

National Research Council (NRC), Committee on Educational Interventions for Children with Autism. (2001). In C. Lord & J. McGee (Eds.), Educating children with autism. Washington, DC: National Academy Press.

Author(s)

Patricia Snair Koski

Biography

Patti Koski, M.S., CCC-SLP, is a speech-language pathologist in Baltimore, Maryland.  Through private therapy, Patti primarily works with children on the autism spectrum.  Her Matt and Molly stories have played an important part in her therapy sessions for the last 20 years.  When she is not working with her clients or writing new stories, Patti is busy raising four "socially appropriate" children.

Introduction

FINALLY Matt and Molly return with 40 NEW stories!

Their goal is to show your students the right and wrong ways to act in a variety of social settings.  With these new stories, your students will practice how to act at school, at home, with relatives, with other children, and in public places.  Leave it to Matt and Molly to make social learning fun and concrete!

Children diagnosed with autism spectrum disorder do not understand or like the "gray" areas of social interaction.  When these students role-play the wrong ways to act, in addition to the right ways, they can divide the pictures in their minds into "black" and "white" ("If I act this way, it's wrong. If I act this way, it's right.").

This book includes a homework sheet for home practice as well as a progress monitoring chart for your convenience.  In addition to social skills, your students will practice the following receptive and expressive language skills:

• identify new vocabulary
• use new vocabulary
• process verbal information through matching sentences and pictures
• answer yes/no questions
• answer who, what, where, when, how, and why questions
• categorize social behaviors into two groups: RIGHT vs. WRONG
• take turns role-playing the actions in the stories
• recall and retell the story through take-home activities

The routine and structure of this program, as well as its familiar characters, reduce students' anxiety.  Decreasing anxiety facilitates more compliant behavior, which increases the amount of learning time.  There are enough stories to improve your students' social and language skills each week of the school year!

This could be the school year that you just have too much fun!  What will the other teachers and therapists say?

Oh, well—Let them talk!  (Tee-hee!)

Patti Koski