For many children with autism, understanding and telling stories can be a real challenge. These skills are not only important for handling everyday conversations and social situations but also for doing well in school. A new study by researchers Professor Trina Spencer at the University of Kansas and Dr. Megan Kirby of Language Dynamics Group has shown that a special kind of storytelling practice—combined with simple visual aids—can significantly help children with autism improve how well they understand and talk about stories they hear or read. Their findings were published in the science journal Behavioral Sciences.
The study involved a small group of young children with autism who were already receiving therapy in a clinic. Professor Spencer and Dr. Kirby tested the effects of a program called “Story Champs,” which teaches storytelling using both spoken language and visual tools. These tools included small icons, each representing parts of a story, like who the characters are, where the story takes place, what the problem is, and how it ends. “Results showed that all participants improved their listening and reading retells,” Professor Spencer explained.
At first, the children had a hard time retelling stories in an organized way. But after they began the storytelling sessions using the visual icons, all of them got better at remembering and retelling what they had heard or read. The icons helped them remember the patterned structure of a story by giving them a simple, visual guide.
The Story Champs program includes a large collection of easy-to-follow stories designed with clear plots and language meant to help children practice. One important part of the program is that it avoids using the same story more than once, so children learn to apply the pattern of stories to new situations. “Transfer from trained stories to untrained and unfamiliar stories occurred somewhat rapidly,” noted Dr. Kirby.
Later in the study, the researchers removed the icons to see if the children could still retell stories without them. Most of the children continued to do better than they had at the beginning, showing that they were able to hold onto the skills they had learned. “The icons did not provide children with information about specific stories, yet improved their retells of novel stories,” Professor Spencer emphasized.
What’s especially interesting is that the children improved their ability to retell stories not just after hearing them read aloud, but also after reading them on their own. They were never directly taught reading in the sessions, yet their reading comprehension—how well they understood and remembered what they read—improved too. “An oral language intervention that can improve reading comprehension of children with autism has immediate and important implications for practice,” said Dr. Kirby.
Each child in the study had different ways of speaking and understanding, but most of them showed similar improvements whether they listened to a story or read it themselves. In some cases, the children did even better when reading, possibly because they could take their time looking at the words, which made the story easier to follow.
The study also showed how helpful visual tools can be. The Story Champs icons—simple pictures representing the pattern of stories, like character or problem—served as a guide that helped the children organize their thoughts. “Children with autism might be able to take a quick peek during literacy tasks and rely on them momentarily to help them organize narrative content,” Professor Spencer said. She added that these simple icons could be used in classrooms or therapy sessions to support children without needing complicated tools.
Although the study included only a few participants and results varied from child to child, the researchers recommend that educators and therapists consider using story-based strategies and simple visual tools when helping children with autism build language and literacy skills. More research could help refine these tools and explore the best ways to encourage children to use them on their own.
Journal Reference
Spencer T.D., Kirby M.S., “Effect of Narrative Intervention with Strategy Instruction on the Listening and Reading Comprehension of Children with Autism.” Behavioral Sciences, 2025. DOI: https://doi.org/10.3390/bs15081020
About the Author
Dr. Spencer is a senior scientist and director of the Juniper Gardens Children’s Project at University of Kansas and holds faculty appointments in the Departments of Applied Behavioral Sciences, Speech-Language-Hearing Sciences, and Special Education. Drawing from speech-language pathology, applied linguistics, education, and behavior analysis, she concentrates her efforts on the oral academic language that serves as a foundation to the reading and writing of preK to 3rd grade students, with and without disabilities. She maintains a spirited research agenda that has yielded 76 peer review publications, 182 invited presentations, $15M in external funding, and several commercialized curricula, interventions, professional development systems, and assessment tools. Her multi-tiered interventions and assessment tools are used broadly in the United States, but also internationally. Dr. Spencer values researcher-practitioner partnerships, community engagement, and cross disciplinary collaborations to accomplish high impact and innovative applied research.
Megan S. Kirby is an Instructor in the Applied Behavior Analysis and Autism Studies program at Mary Baldwin University’s School of Education. She is also the Director of Dissemination and Implementation Programs at Language Dynamic Group. Dr. Kirby’s research and work involves empowering current and future educational and clinical professionals with knowledge and skills in using evidence-based tools in their practice. She is particularly interested in helping parents, speech-language pathologists, teachers, and behavior analysts with implementation of language comprehension assessments and interventions, to include the tools used in this study. Dr. Kirby earned her MEd in special education from the University of Virginia and PhD in behavioral and community sciences from the University of South Florida and lives in the Washington, D.C. area.
