Comic Strip Conversations: Illustrated Interactions that Teach Conversation Skills to Students by Carol Gray

Illustrated Interactions that Teach Conversation Skills to Students

Carol Gray combines stick-figures with “conversation symbols" to illustrate what people say and think during conversations. Showing what people are thinking reinforces that others have independent thoughts—a concept spectrum children don’t intuitively understand. Children can also recognize that, although people say one thing, they may think something quite different—another concept foreign to “concrete-thinking" children. Children can draw their own “comic strips" to show what they are thinking and feeling about events or people. Different colors can represent different states of mind. These deceptively simple “comic strips" can reveal as well as convey quite a lot of substantive information.

Carol Gray has over twenty years of experience educating students with Autism Spectrum Disorders (ASD). Carol initiated the use of Social Stories in 1991 and has written numerous articles, chapters, and books on the subject. She is a sought-after speaker in the United States and abroad. Carol is the director of The Gray Center for Social Learning and Understanding, a non-profit organization that serves people with ASD, and currently works privately with students, parents, and professionals in a variety of educational and vocational settings.