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For many children with special needs social stories are very helpful for staying on task and ensuring that the child is prepared for future events and activities. Social Stories can: Improve a child’s  behavior when there are changes in routines. Encourage a child to complete less-preferred tasks. Reinforce or teach abstract concepts, such as time (e.g., next, later), actions, and prepositions (e.g., open, put in,) Break down multi-step tasks into smaller, more manageable parts. Increase your child’s independence by improving his ability to complete parts of his routine with less help or prompting. Making Social Stories for your child with special needs can be a time consuming task. Here are 12 sites that will help you make effective social stories.

Click here to view the flyer for this webinar (PDF) What: This session will begin with an overview the importance of social competence for individuals on the spectrum. Strategies to teach social competence to individuals on the spectrum as well as means of assessing skills cquisition will also be provided. The emphasis will be on practical information that can be applied across settings When: Wednesday, March 16, 2011 12:30pm - 1:30pm Mountain Who Should Attend? This training is appropriate for: educators; families; human service professionals, including: front line supervisors, nurses, social workers, program coordinators, case managers, QMRPs, direct support professionals and other individuals involved in efforts to improve learning outcomes and quality of life or people with disabilities. Hosting: The Montana Autism Education Project will pay for a number of sites in each CSPD region. The webinar would need to be held in a meeting or classroom with adequate seating for staff from surrounding districts to attend and with the necessary audio equipment for everyone to hear the webinar. Contact: If you are interested in hosting a location, please contact Doug Doty at ddoty@mt.gov by February 15th.  Include information about the proposed location (seating, address, contact person) with your email. Participating sites need a speaker phone with a mute button and a computer with access to the Internet.

Many teachers (including parents) witness children who lack social competence, which includes critical, life-enriching friendship skills. As a result, these students often not only have difficulty establishing and maintaining friendships, but are poorly accepted by their peers, and may later engage in more serious and violent acts when their discourteous and disrespectful behaviors persist over time. Furthermore, social competence opens doors for academic success.

The social struggles of young people with autism were far more pronounced than those of other disability groups, the study found. While almost one-third of those with autism qualified as socially isolated because they never received telephone calls or went out with friends, fewer than 10 percent of individuals with intellectual disability and only 2 to 3 percent of people with emotional disturbance or learning disabilities fell into this category.

A novel autism intervention program using theatre to teach reciprocal communication skills is improving social deficits in adolescents with the disorder that now affects an estimated one in 88 children, Vanderbilt University researchers released today in the journal Autism Research. The newly released study assessed the effectiveness of a two-week theatre camp on children with autism spectrum disorder and found significant improvements were made in social perception, social cognition and home living skills by the end of the camp. There were also positive changes in the participants’ physiological stress and reductions in self-reported parental stress. Called SENSE Theatre, the Social Emotional Neuroscience & Endocrinology (SENSE) program evaluates the social functioning of children with autism and related neurodevelopmental disorders.

A 20-year retrospective study, funded by the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation and published in the July 2015 issue of the American Journal of Public Health, suggests that kindergarten students who are more inclined to exhibit “social competence” traits—such sharing, cooperating, or helping other kids—may be more likely to attain higher education and well-paying jobs. In contrast, students who exhibit weaker social competency skills may be more likely to drop out of high school, abuse drugs and alcohol, and need government assistance. This brief provides an overview and major findings from this study and implications for further action.

Click here to Register - Registration will close at 5:00 p.m. ET 6/ 21/2011 What: The SAMHSA ADS Center invites you to a free training teleconference to learn how consumers/survivors of mental health and substance use conditions are working together with private and public officials to make socially inclusive systems across many dimensions of community life—housing, employment, education, arts and culture, transportation, civic and entrepreneurial leadership, health and recreation. Speakers will provide strategies for building diverse collaborations to map community assets and discover individual capacities that benefit communities and the delivery of social services. As a participant in this teleconference, you will see that social inclusion is achievable and learn how YOU can be part of the change. When: Thursday, June 23, 2011 at 1:00 p.m. to 2:30 p.m. Mountain Time