A social story provides a short narrative about a specific situation. It combines text and visuals to help individuals better understand and navigate social expectations and routines. Developed by Carol Gray, an educator and advocate for autism, social stories have been around since the 1990s and have become an invaluable resource to therapists, teachers, and parents. The goal of the social story is to describe a specific situation or event and suggest appropriate reaction and response. Social stories can help improve social-emotional growth, reduce anxieties, and teach self-regulation.

Social stories can be used anytime to help an individual prepare for an event, familiar or not, explain changes in routine, guide behavior, or teach social skills. Because they offer clear, calm explanations and suggest positive ways to respond, social stories also support emotional regulation by helping children understand and manage their feelings.

Used at home, school, or in the community, social stories help individuals navigate experiences in an easier and more predictable way. Thus, social stories have become a fundamental tool for therapists, teachers, and parents across the globe. They have helped millions of neurodivergent children understand and navigate social situations. Because social stories explain situations in simple, clear ways and come with visual support, they are used to teach new skills, clarify routines, and guide appropriate behavior. Numerous studies have shown the positive effect of social stories, but research has also shown that social stories are most effective when they are personalized.

Yes. In fact, social stories are integrated into Applied Behavior Analysis (ABA) therapy, as they make therapy more effective and engaging. Social stories help children with autism or ADHD prepare for new situations, manage emotions, and interpret social cues that might otherwise be confusing. The simple visual explanations on what to expect reduce anxiety and improve behavior and communication skills.

Yes, because social stories can prepare children for upcoming events. When children know what to expect, their anxiety decreases, they don’t feel overwhelmed, and their ability to follow directions and manage emotions improves.

You can buy books with social stories that address popular scenarios or look for a digital library of social stories. You can also make your own.

To create a social story, you need to describe what will happen, why it happens, and how to respond. Strive to use simple language, positive tone, and clear visuals. It is best that sentences are short and always end with reassurance or success to build confidence.

Yes. In fact, making individual social stories is a common practice for professionals and families alike, especially when they try to cover a specific situation or feature a relatable image. Personalized social stories are typically created by drawing or printing images, and then adding the appropriate text narrative. Searching for appropriate visuals and creating the stories can take hours, so thanks to recent advancement of technology, you can also use Generative AI to create social stories with visuals.

Yes, if you work with AI that is trusted and verified. General purpose Large Language Models (LLMs) can help sometimes, and they are a pretty good option if you do need just a verbal narrative. But visuals are an integral part of social stories, and creating a social story with AI that has consistent visuals, from the first image to the last, is not optimally available with general purpose LLMs. And because the popular GenAI models are not specifically tailored to creating personalized social stories, they can hallucinate; meaning– they can produce incorrect information. This is why it is best to consider an AI social story maker that is specifically designed to create safe, trusted, and predictable social stories. Remember– it is always important to check the response of any AI model, because, just like humans, models can make mistakes.

Unfortunately, not. Getting consistent visuals, from the beginning to the end, is not easy to do. Therefore not all AI solutions that exist today can create appropriate visuals that match the narrative. General purpose Large Language Models (LLMs), on the other hand, are not necessarily built for creating matching text and images in a particular format, so users do not always get the right visual all the time.

It is not recommended to use just any AI for social stories, because general-purpose Generative AI models, the ones that are now part of our daily life, are not built for that and can hallucinate. AI hallucination is when the AI generates an output with confidence, but this output is not correct. It is best to use a purpose-built AI platform that is safe, trusted, and predictable, with ethical guidelines in mind. Such AI solutions are carefully trained, fine-tuned, and optimized, with oversight to ensure that the output is accurate, age-appropriate, and consistent. Purpose-built social story AI makers reduce the risk of misinformation or confusing language that could cause harm or misunderstanding.

Regardless of the format, research has shown that social stories are effective when they are relatable. Therefore social stories work best when they are personalized for an individual. As to the format– this depends on personal preferences, but using trusted AI platforms for AI-generated social stories does have a few significant advantages. First, personalizing stories with a child's name, routines, and goals is very quick and easy. Second, you can create stories on the fly—anytime and anywhere with an internet connection. Just make sure you use a verified and secure AI tool designed for children.

Social stories are beneficial to any age group, so long as they use age-appropriate language and situations. Social stories work best when they are relatable.

While there are several platforms that help with social story generation, they do not have ready-to-browse public libraries of social stories.

Emona.ai is a purpose-built AI platform, designed for educational or therapeutic use. Emona AI uses carefully tuned parameters, relevance scoring, and content filters to minimize hallucinations to support social-emotional learning, behavior modeling, and decision-making with accurate, age-appropriate, and respectful content. The goal of Emona AI is to ensure helpful, verified, and ethical responses and make every interaction safe, predictable, and supportive.