For children with Autism Spectrum Disorder (ASD), this reality is magnified, because the need to find strategies to establish exchanges in terms of communication is imperative. Storytelling, whether in sessions, for leisure, or at bedtime, can be excellent alternatives to work on social skills, verbal and non-verbal communication, conflict resolution, emotion management... in short, we can use them to address almost any behavioral objective that the child needs to incorporate, modify, or improve.

In the late 1980s and early 1990s, a teacher named Carol Gray began to develop what is now known as "social stories." With the aim of helping children with autism to understand specific situations, develop communication and coping strategies in different contexts, and consequently calm the anxiety that these events often generate, this author used simple texts and images to weave stories that teach, transmit, connect, and educate. Today, these stories are invaluable resources used by teachers and therapists around the world.

For a child with ASD, and really any child growing up in a rapidly changing world, facing and overcoming challenges is part of everyday life. Identifying characters in the stories who deal with the same limitations, conflicts, or everyday occurrences relevant to their age group is a very effective way for these children to connect with that individual and appropriate the behavioral repertoires that someone they look up to or identify with has already used as a response.On the other hand, the possibility of empathizing, of identifying the emotions that the character experiences, can -with the help and guidance of the parent, caregiver, or therapist- facilitate for these children the development of their self-knowledge and of essential human values for their future.

Stories for children with ASD should be very illustrative, as pictograms respond better to their highly visual condition. Therefore, the texts should be simple and, preferably, use capital letters. Some of them can be personalized and this is an excellent variant, since they facilitate the completion of the story with drawings or personal photographs so that they become adaptable to the specific needs of the readers (At the end of this blog, we will leave a list of suggested readings in Spanish and in English).

For a parent, stories can be very useful to connect with their child. Everyday spaces often carry external pressures that limit this connection. A character, fictitious or not, and the narration of their vicissitudes facilitates bonding spaces between parent and child. The joint construction of the story can be one of the variants used, from which cooperation and exchange occur spontaneously and naturally. No one doubts how much fun a child has with a story. The feeling of well-being and positivity that a child experiences when listening to a story is unquestionable, as it is for the one who is telling it. This "playing at telling and listening" can be, incredibly, the most effective (and fun) learning space we can establish with our children. Let's defend it!