The Efficacy of Social Stories in the Classroom to Reduce Disruptive Behaviours in Children with ADHD

The purpose of this study was to examine the efficacy of Social Stories on the disruptive behaviours of three primary school boys with ADHD. Children’s disruptive behaviours were monitored, and observations carried out by Teaching Assistants, before baseline measurements. Social Stories were created to provide children with alternative social responses, which in turn reduce the target behaviours of calling out of turn, rising out of seat and aggressiveness. Following baseline data, each child read their individual stories, and their behaviour was monitored for ten days. After this intervention period, the story was withdrawn and behaviour monitored for a further five days; this allowed the researcher to obtain maintenance data, post-intervention. Results revealed that disruptive behaviours decreased compared to baseline measurements and continued to do so once the story was withdrawn in two out of the three children. Since additional strategies, such as prompts and reinforcement were controlled in this study, the findings have implications for classroom practice. In particular, Social Stories may provide teachers with an alternative strategy to the usual behaviour modification techniques used to control disruptive behaviour in children with ADHD.