The impact of using digitally-mediated social stories on the perceived competence and attitudes of parents and practitioners supporting children with autism.

This study looked at whether using digital social stories (instead of traditional paper ones) could help parents and professionals feel more confident and positive about using them. 48 people tried creating digital social stories and answered surveys before and after. The results showed that people felt more confident about making and using social stories, and had better attitudes towards them after using the digital version.

This pre-post study investigated whether digitally-mediated social stories could improve implementation quality and user attitudes. Ninety-three participants completed initial surveys, with 48 completing follow-up surveys two weeks later. Participants were invited to develop digitally-mediated social stories to examine impacts on perceived competence and attitudes. Results showed improvements in both perceived competence in developing and delivering social stories and attitudes towards the intervention after engaging with the digital format.

The study suggests digital mediation may address implementation challenges in naturalistic settings by improving both delivery integrity and user confidence.

Digital social stories may improve implementation by enhancing user confidence and attitudes. This could address known challenges with inconsistent intervention delivery in real-world settings. However, longer-term follow-up and controlled studies are needed to establish sustained benefits and actual implementation improvements.

Small sample size with significant attrition (48 of 93 completed both surveys). Short follow-up period (2 weeks). Pre-post design without control group limits causal inferences. No objective measures of actual competence or implementation quality reported.

A Social Story (SS) is a highly acceptable and widely used intervention by the autism community. Yet, inconsistent implementation of the intervention is reported to be one of the causes of variability in terms of outcome research, particularly in a naturalistic context. This study aimed to (1) investigate whether digitally-mediated social stories (SSs) can improve competence in developing and delivering a SS and thus contribute towards improved implementation, and (2) investigate the impact of the digitally-mediated SS on attitudes towards the SS intervention. Ninety-three participants took an initial pre-engagement survey.

Forty-eight of these participants also complete a post-engagement survey. A pre-post design was utilised with the participants who completed both surveys. These 48 participants were invited to develop a digitally-mediated SS with the aim of exploring how digitally-mediated SSs impacted perceived competence and attitudes. Post-engagement data was collected two weeks after the pre-engagement data.

Outcomes of this study indicate that both perceived competence and attitudes improved after engaging with digitally-mediated SSs. It is concluded that digitally-mediated SS not only impacted the integrity of how the intervention was delivered but also the beliefs in the participants' capabilities to develop and deliver a SS. Digitally-mediated SS, thus, has the potential to effectively support development and delivery whilst also addressing challenges related to intervention implementation in a naturalistic context.