Comic Strip Conversations: Illustrated interactions that teach conversation skills to students with autism and related disorders: Improving social ... and other developmental disabilities

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Children can also recognize that, although people say one thing, they may think something quite different―another concept foreign to "concrete-thinking" 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.

Social storiesTM and comic strip conversations can help autistic people develop greater social understanding and help them stay safe. Carol initiated the use of Social Stories in 1991 and has written numerous articles, chapters, and books on the subject. 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. If it is for a situation where a particular outcome is not guaranteed, use words like ‘sometimes’ and ‘usually’ in the story. This book combines stick-figures with conversation symbols to illustrate what people say and think during conversations.Guidelines on introducing and using social stories effectively, so that they produce the benefits you intend. 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. Think about ways to aid comprehension – would adding questions help, or replacing some text with blanks for the person to fill in?

Comic strip conversations are visual representations of the different levels of communication that happen in a conversation. Comic strip conversations can be used to plan for a situation in the future that may be causing anxiety or concern, for example an exam or a social event. 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). The idea is that the child can draw something that has happened or will happen, colours can express different feelings, green = happy.

Comic strip conversations can also offer an insight into how a person with autism perceives a situation. Gather information about the person including their age, interests, attention span, level of ability and understanding. By seeing the different elements of a conversation presented visually, some of the more abstract aspects of social communication (such as recognising the feelings and intentions of others) are made more 'concrete' and are therefore easier to understand. To calculate the overall star rating and percentage breakdown by star, we don’t use a simple average.

Showing what people are thinking reinforces that others have independent thoughts―a concept that spectrum children don't intuitively understand.

They can help with sequencing (what comes next in a series of activities) and 'executive functioning' (planning and organising). These deceptively simple comic strips can reveal as well as convey quite a lot of substantive information. Children can also recognise that, although people say one thing, they may think something quite different another concept foreign to concrete-thinking children. It's important to present the information in a way which allows for unexpected changes to a situation. Comic strip conversations can help people with autism to understand concepts that they find difficult.