Using Social Stories and Literacy-Based Behavioral Interventions to Improve Employment Skills in Employees with Mental Retardation

Preparing people with disabilities for employment is an important task. Many of
these individuals have difficulty learning and performing new tasks without support or
guidance. There are many accessible interventions that can increase the learning and
performance of individuals with disabilities, including positive instructional, literacy
based behavior interventions.
A social story (Gray, 2000) is one example of a literacy-based behavioral
intervention that has been effective for teaching social skills. This type of intervention
typically has been used with children with autism. Several studies have used social stories
to decrease disruptive behavior or teach self-help skills such as using a napkin or hand
washing. Very few of the studies have examined the effects of a social story intervention for individuals with disabilities not on the autism spectrum (Sansosti & Powell-Smith,
2004).
The present study was designed to examine the effects of social stories to improve
the job skills of employees with developmental disabilities. Two experiments were
conducted. In the first experiment a multiple baseline across subjects was employed to
examine the potential of the intervention on employees' requests for materials and
supplies, and any resulting improvements in their work engagement. The second
experiment employed a multiple baseline across time periods, with an embedded ABAB
design to assess whether the intervention would increase independence and improve "on-time"
return-to-work. The results showed that employees with developmental disabilities
made substantial improvements in employment skills as a result of the social story
intervention, and similar improvements were observed in co-workers as well.