Visual stories

Visual stories are short descriptions of a particular situation, event or activity for use by people with autism

Visual stories include information about what to expect in certain situations and why. They are sometimes called social stories.

More recreation and leisure activity providers are writing visual stories to help people understand how things work at their setting. The stories are added to websites and can be sent out to people in advance. They are a great way to highlight inclusion at your setting.

Benefits of using visual stories
  • To help a person with autism to understand how others might behave or respond in a particular situation, and how they should behave
  • To help others understand the perspective of a person with autism and why they may respond or behave in a particular way
  • To help a person to cope with changes to routine and unexpected or distressing events, such as absence of a tutor, moving house, thunderstorms
Examples of visual stories
Further information