Trial reportChild and adolescent mental health2025
Autism Spectrum Social Stories in Schools Trial 2 (ASSSIST-2): a pragmatic randomised controlled trial of the Social Stories™ intervention to address the social and emotional health of autistic children in UK primary schools.
Trial report in Child and adolescent mental health, 2025. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 4 papers.
What it found
Each row is one number read from the abstract, on the scale the paper reported it, with its interval. Left of the dashed line favours the treatment, right favours the comparator. Under each row is the sentence it came from. New to these charts? A ten-minute tutorial.
The abstract states no effect estimate the extractor could read, or names no intervention and outcome on the map, so this paper lights no cell and moves no belief. It is still indexed, cited and linked below.
The trial behind it
Trials whose registry record cites this paper, or whose number appears in the abstract. A trial that started after this paper was published is citing it as background, not reporting it.
Neither the registry nor the abstract names a trial number. If this is a trial report, that itself is worth knowing.
Who cites it
4 citing papers in PubMed.
- Article
- Article
- Improving Peer Interactions and Social Skills in Preschool Children With Autism Using Pivotal Response Treatment.Journal of autism and developmental disorders · 2025Article
- Specialists' Perspectives on Social Stories in Managing Individuals With Autism in the Dental Care Setting.Special care in dentistry : official publication of the American Association of Hospital Dentists, the Academy of Dentistry for the Handicapped, and the American Society for Geriatric DentistryArticle
Corrections and comments
PubMed lists nothing against this paper. Absence here is not a guarantee, only a check that was made.
Authors and funding
24 authors.
Funding
Abstract
backgroundAutistic children can experience mental health, social and emotional difficulties. Carol Gray's Social Stories™ are a highly personalised intervention that provide social information in a short individually tailored story.
methodsA multi-site pragmatic cluster randomised controlled trial to evaluate the clinical and cost-effectiveness of Social Stories™ alongside care as usual in autistic children aged 4-11 years. The primary outcome was the Social Responsiveness Scale-2 completed by teachers 6 months post-randomisation, analysed on an intention-to-treat basis.
trial registrationISRCTN11634810.
resultsEighty-seven schools, including 249 children, were randomised (intervention 44 schools with 129 children, and usual care 43 schools with 120 children). After 6 months, a reduction of 1.61 points was found on the Social Responsiveness Scale-2 in the intervention group (95% CI -4.18 to 0.96, p = .220) and for those who attended at least six sessions a reduction of 3.37 points (CACE 95% CI -6.65 to -0.10, p = .043). Children in the intervention group met their individual socio-emotional goal more frequently than children receiving usual care alone and this was statistically significant. No statistically significant differences were found in other secondary outcomes including anxiety, depression, general health or parental stress.
conclusionsSocial Stories™ represent a low-cost, low-burden intervention. Benefits are seen in individual socio-emotional goals but without clinically evident impact on social responsiveness, anxiety, depression, parental stress or general health.
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Registered trials
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