The homework you wish you
could actually send home.
Most home-practice activities die on the kitchen counter. Worksheets get lost. Printouts get drawn on. SparkStories is what families do between sessions instead: a three-minute comic strip from a curated library, focused on the social skill you picked.
Why clinicians keep us on the recommend list
The 12 skills are the ones on the IEP
Emotion recognition, false belief, hidden feelings, perspective-taking, sensory overload, emotional regulation, literal language, routine changes. These are the skills the app tracks one by one. They map cleanly to the goals you're already writing.
A PDF the parent brings to your office
Per-skill accuracy, current level, day streak, and the actual list of items they missed last week with the right answer beside each. Families can export it from their phone and email it ahead of the session. Not a CSV dump; something readable.
The home practice that doesn't die on day three
Worksheets get refused. Therapy apps get ignored. A short comic strip the kid actually wants to read? They open it. That's the whole pitch. Daily completion is the only metric that matters between sessions, and that's the one this nails.
You don't have to configure anything
The IRT engine moves the level on each skill on its own. Every answer is one data point. If a family wants to focus on a specific skill ("we're working on false belief this month"), they tap one button. You don't need to set up anything in advance.
Built on the same papers on your reading list
Gray's Social Stories. Winter-Messiers on special interest integration. Stokes & Baer on generalisation through varied exposure. Tager-Flusberg on literal-language scaffolding. If you've cited any of these, the app is the implementation.
Concept progress: Theo, age 8
The 12 skills the engine tracks, one by one
Each one has its own ability score, its own difficulty ladder, and its own pool of stories in the library. Mastery on one doesn't unlock another. They move independently.
Emotion recognition
Naming the feeling from the face, the body and what just happened.
Cause of emotion
Working backward: why is this person feeling that.
Visual perspective
What does the other person actually see from where they're standing.
Desire vs belief
Wanting something isn't the same as believing it'll happen.
False belief
The classic: someone else doesn't know what you know.
Hidden emotion
What people feel inside vs the face they show outside.
Empathy
What to do when someone you care about is having a hard moment.
Literal language
"Her face fell." Idioms, sarcasm and figures of speech, introduced only at the higher levels.
Sensory overload
Spotting when a situation has tipped past tolerable and naming why.
Routine changes
What to feel and do when the schedule shifts unexpectedly.
Special interests
Talking about the thing you love with someone who hasn't asked.
Emotional regulation
Noticing your own feeling early enough to do something about it.
The five things clinicians ask first
In the order they tend to come up on a discovery call.
No. We'd be embarrassed to claim that. This is the practice tool the parent uses between your sessions, on the kid's own time, in the kid's own world. No assessment, no diagnosis, no clinical intervention. Just one more rep of the same skill you're already teaching, on Tuesday afternoon when no one's there to model it.
Yes. Inside the app there's a "Choose" button that pins the next stories to one specific skill. Tell them "focus on false belief this month" and they tap once. The adaptive engine still moves the difficulty level. It just stays on that skill while it does.
One page, scannable in under a minute. Top: overall accuracy and concepts practised this week. Middle: each skill with its accuracy %, current level, mastery flag. Bottom: every question they missed last week, including the comic context, the option they picked, the right answer, the explanation. Parent exports it as PDF and either emails or hands it to you.
5 to 12, designed deliberately for that span. Level 1 is naming a clear emotion on a clear face. Level 7 is sarcasm and second-order theory of mind. The library spans worlds and reading levels appropriate across the whole range.
It's the whole point. Levels 1 to 4 are short, present-tense, literal. No idioms, no irony, no "his heart sank." Figurative language only shows up at level 5+, and only because that's the skill being taught at that point. Every caption, question and answer is also voiced, so they can listen rather than read. There's a text-only mode if illustrations are over-stimulating, and the kid can run a Calm Zone break whenever they need to step out.