Success Stories

(Scroll down to see cute illustrated images of Success Story examples!)

The Success Story Strategy for anxious kids with autism is a way to help someone overcome emotional or behavioral challenges by focusing on the positive over the negative. They may have Autism, anxiety, ADHD, or other challenges. Success Stories are based on combined research and practice supporting the validity of video modeling, social stories, cognitive-behavioral therapy, solution-focused brief counseling, and narrative therapy.

Do you have to be a counselor or psychologist to use Success Stories? No, I think this strategy can be used by parents, teachers, grandparents, and any kind of therapist, any caregiver who wants to help someone who struggles. You can even use this technique for yourself. You could choose to capitalize immediately after a personal success in a situation that is often a struggle, as a reminder of past successes when someone is struggling, or a way to create a map for success in the future. Successes are first created as an imagined idea, before this vision is experienced. Just because we never had light bulbs before one was imagined and created didn’t mean we never would use electric light. Somebody had to imagine the possibility and act as though it were true before it became so.

Success Stories can be done at home, in school, or in a therapist’s office. We do them to empower, to energize success, improve quality of life, build skills, increase confidence. We do Success Stories to instill grace and faith over fear and criticism. Change can’t’s and won’t’s into can’s and do’s.

How does the Success Story strategy for anxious kids with autism work?

First, let’s start with the basics, then we can review several options for putting this great idea into action.

Here’s how I got started on the Success Stories idea. I had worked in Texas public schools as a Licensed Specialist in School Psychology for twelve years, then also became a Licensed Professional Counselor, so I could open a private practice serving families with children who have autism, ADHD, in addition to anxiety, OCD, and other types of mood and behavioral challenges. After about 30 years of practice you run into just about everything, and hopefully you stay on the lookout for new and better ways to help.

I was working with a little girl whose first priority in life was clearly not necessarily what other people wanted her to do. If you have been there you know what I mean. Changes, work, facing fears instead of avoiding, accepting no for an answer gracefully, being part of a group, meeting new people, sharing control in play, all of these activities might be treated with fear, fits, and refusal. Mind you, she often performed these tasks flawlessly, however, when children don’t do what is expected, we adults tend to inflate, negate, and overgeneralize to false statements and beliefs which can sound like “non-compliant, defiant, doesn’t follow rules, always has tantrums,” and the like. We should be careful, as such statements are like loading software onto their hard drives, programming them to do more of what we don’t want, making us seem like a mean and critical enemy to them, and robbing them of confidence instead of supporting, loving, encouraging, energizing.

This little girl is making some good progress, I often see people as capable of doing much better and I love love love when they prove me right. Let’s call this girl Suzy. Suzy is loved by her parents and extended family. They work hard to help her develop, to be comfortable, loved, and happy. One of them knows she would enjoy colored lights in her room, so they synch up a voice-activated device that will change the light colors on command. A bit of time and effort is put into the project.

One problem. Suzy is afraid of the device. She makes this known and when nobody is looking she cleverly hides the device in another room of the house. We talk about this in my office. We talk about how much fun Suzy could have dancing in the different colors of light. We discuss how much the family member who set it up would be pleased if she enjoyed it. I let Suzy know that I put the device outside my office on the front porch, and invite her to be brave and take a look at it. Suzy and I go out to the front porch, she decides to retrieve the device and bring it inside, and we play and chat a bit right next to Alexa.

Time for the session to end. Would she like to take it home and try it out in her room? “Yes I will.” Suzy declares. Fast forward to how did it go? She did it! I’m thinking, beautiful, it’s just a small thing, but a great template for dealing with fears and creating successes with all the future things Suzy is likely to encounter and have fears about. Like a job interview. Going to the prom. A big test. Dating. What would be a way to document her process, creating an anchor or reference point she can apply to overcome developing challenges?

Make a Success Story! Why not make a Success Stories book, and start a log of many successes to use a reference when troubles arise? I got a three-ring binder, with the clear pocket on the front so Suzy could color a custom cover. Suzy likes to color, and she is for her tender age a pretty great artist. We made a cover in my office, slipped it into the front jacket. I asked Suzy to make the story of how she was afraid (the problem), what it looked like when she was dancing in her lights (desired outcome), how her family felt when she did (perspective-taking), and how she got herself to the desired outcome (solution).

Here are some images of her work:

The next time I saw Suzy, she had not one but two stories for me! Her

grandmother so liked the idea that she made another one about how Suzy

was brave, went into a new place, interacted with a stranger, and used

good and polite social skills. Each story had several pages,

illustrated, with text, dialogue, and captions. This was another

wonderful surprise to learn that Suzy can read and write. Now that’s

what I call success! Best of all, it was all Suzy. She did it all

herself, her way. I think her mother wrote the captions in the first

Success Story, then Suzy felt empowered to do it herself the second

time.

You could create a storyboard, like a comic book strip, with boxes for scenes or steps, and talk bubbles and thinking bubbles to tell what is said and what the thoughts are, teaching the talking and thinking dialogue symbols.

Thought dialogue boxes have bubbles going up from the thinkers head to the dialogue shape, talking boxes come down to a point near the speakers mouth.

Now if you are trying to teach someone to use their self-talk to coach themselves and stay positive, or teaching Cognitive-Behavioral Therapy, you could emphasize the helpful thoughts made by your participant and show how they can make the thoughts that help themselves overcome, succeed, and keep emotional responses in check.

Brad Mason

Licensed Professional Counselor, Licensed Psych Assoc, Licensed Specialist in School Psychology

Author of Your Dream Book, My Power Book, Diagnosis Autism or Aspergers: Now What? Counseling Tools for Kids in Schools, Intensivecareforyou.com video courses about childhood mental and behavioral health help, as well as numerous documentaries on Amazon Prime, more books, and published research about gender roles, aggression, and children’s television.

PS If you try it out and have a success story or images to share, i would love to find out! bradmasonlpc@aol.com

https://intensivecareforyou.com/get-anxious-child-use-coping-strategies

/Resources

Video modeling

https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/abs/10.1177/10983007020040030501

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5118254/

Brief narrative therapy

https://www.researchgate.net/publication/238335902_Review_of_Narrative_Therapy_Research_and_Utility

https://psycnet.apa.org/record/2001-00141-013

Solution-focused Brief Counseling

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/books/NBK68124/

https://academic.oup.com/cs/article-abstract/30/1/15/391075

Social stories

http://www.researchautism.net/interventions/168/social-stories-and-autism?print=1

https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/abs/10.1177/1088357609351573