This book combines stick-figures with conversation symbols to illustrate what people say and think during conversations. Comic strip conversations can help people with autism to understand concepts that they find difficult.

For complex situations, or for people who have difficulty reporting events in sequence, comic strip boxes may be used, or drawings can be numbered in the sequence in which they occur.By seeing the different elements of a conversation presented visually, some of the more abstract aspects of social communication (such as recognising the feelings of others) are made more 'concrete' and are therefore easier to understand. Guidelines on introducing and using social stories effectively, so that they produce the benefits you intend. The 103 third parties who use cookies on this service do so for their purposes of displaying and measuring personalized ads, generating audience insights, and developing and improving products. Comic strip conversations are visual representations of the different levels of communication that happen in a conversation.

Present the social story to the person at a time when everyone is feeling calm and relaxed, using a straightforward approach, eg I have written this story for you.

For example, they need to understand why covering their mouth when coughing is important, ie it stops germs from being spread which may make other people sick. Comic strip conversations use symbols to represent social interactions and abstract aspects of conversation, and colour to represent the emotional content of a statement or message (Gray, 1994). Comic strip conversations provide visual representations of the different levels of communication that take place in a conversation, using symbols, stick figure drawings and colour. If it is for a situation where a particular outcome is not guaranteed, use words like ‘sometimes’ and ‘usually’ in the story. Showing what people are thinking reinforces that others have independent thoughts a concept spectrum children don t intuitively understand.

Think about ways to aid comprehension – would adding questions help, or replacing some text with blanks for the person to fill in? More information about social stories, including how they can be used and who can benefit from them. These deceptively simple comic strips can reveal as well as convey quite a lot of substantive information. Use age-appropriate photographs, picture symbols or drawings with text to help people who have difficulty reading or for younger children.Comic strip conversations use stick figures and symbols to represent social interactions and abstract aspects of conversation, and colour to represent the emotional content of a statement or message. Carol initiated the use of Social Stories in 1991 and has written numerous articles, chapters, and books on the subject. Comic strip conversations can also offer an insight into how a person with autism perceives a situation. Figure 4 (below) shows some 'conversation colours' that could be used to represent a range of feelings and ideas.