For Special Education Teachers ·
What you'll accomplish
By the end of this guide, you'll have a library of custom social stories for your most common student challenges — fire drills, cafeteria transitions, peer conflicts, assembly behavior — each written to your specific students' comprehension levels. You'll generate 10 social stories in an hour that would have taken 10 hours to write by hand.
What you'll need
Social stories were developed by Carol Gray for students with autism. They follow a specific structure:
ChatGPT can follow these rules reliably when you include them in your prompt.
Go to chatgpt.com and start a new conversation. Begin with a setup message that establishes the format for the whole session:
I'm a special education teacher. Please help me write social stories for students with autism. Use Carol Gray's social story format: first person, present tense, short sentences (under 10 words each), positive framing. Include descriptive, perspective, and directive sentences. Each story should be 6-8 sentences. I'll give you situations one at a time.
Press Enter. ChatGPT will confirm it understands the format.
After ChatGPT confirms, give it your first situation:
Write a social story for a 2nd-grade student with autism who struggles with the transition from recess to classroom. They often run in the hallway and have difficulty calming down when they come inside.
What you should see: A 6-8 sentence story that starts with "When recess is over..." and walks through the transition step-by-step with a positive strategy at the end.
If the story is too advanced for your student, follow up in the same conversation:
If it's good, copy it into your Google Doc and continue to the next story.
Work through your list in the same conversation — ChatGPT will maintain the format throughout. Common social stories for SPED classrooms:
For each, type: Write a social story for [situation] for a [grade]-grade student with [brief behavioral description].
For students at very different comprehension levels, generate two versions in the same conversation:
Now write a simpler version of that story for a kindergarten student with autism who uses 2-3 word phrases. Maximum 4 sentences. Include an action they can do at the end.
Copy all stories into a Google Doc. Organize by situation name. For each story you plan to use:
General social story structure:
Write a social story (Carol Gray format) for a [grade] student with autism who struggles with [situation]. First person, present tense, 6-8 sentences, positive framing. Include a coping strategy.
Transition-focused:
Write a social story for the transition from [activity 1] to [activity 2]. Student: [grade], autism, [brief behavioral description]. Include 3 specific steps to follow.
Conflict/social interaction:
Write a social story for when a student [behavior, e.g., "loses a game" or "wants something a classmate has"]. [Grade], autism. Include what their classmate might be feeling and a directive about what to do instead.
New situation:
Write a social story for [new situation, e.g., "school picture day" or "a visitor in the classroom"]. Student: [grade], autism, anxiety about unexpected changes. Keep it simple and reassuring.