Visuals are an important aspect of helping individuals with autism. Visuals help individuals understand the language, their expectations, and provide structure and support. Visuals can be used in a variety of settings, including home, school, and in the community.
By clicking the images below, it will take you to the link in which the visual can be accessed.
Visuals for schedules greatly help individuals with autism understand their day. If the schedule of the day is too long, it can be modified to only have an activity or two displayed at the time.
The first picture is the schedule for a few children in the classroom. Each child has their own color.
This second example is a schedule at home. It has only the afternoon schedule posted. Another great idea this schedule has is the "all done" pocket at the bottom. After the child is finished with an activity or task, they can take the picture off and place it in the all done folder. This helps the child feel as they are accomplishing items and these things can be taken away.
This schedule is a good example of how they broke up AM and PM schedules. This would be a good schedule to implement at home.
This family set up their visuals on the end of the cabinet. This would be a helpful schedule to implement at home.
In this visual, the teacher used paint stirs to put the students daily schedule. They used actual pictures of the activities too instead of just icons. Also notice, they only displayed three activities at a time. This visual would be easy to "travel" and take into the community to use.
Visuals can also be helpful to show when a task is completed. This example, the child will close each flap as the task is completed. This would also be a good strategy to use at home, in the community, or at school. It helps the child realize when they are done with the task. It could be adapt for a trip to the grocery store. For example, the first flap could be produce, then meats, etc. and as the trip progresses, the child could fold over each flap to see how much of the grocery trip remained.
In this visual, students will check off once they have completed something. This is a nice schedule to make sure the student is ready for a particular activity and helps remind the student of what they need to do. This would also be beneficial to be adapted to fit the needs of the child for use out in the community as a visual reminder.
Schedules can be beneficial to help with routines in the morning or when the child returns home from school.
Visuals can also be helpful for the child to show what they want. This board should be used in school, in the community, and in the home. Learn more about these boards here.
Visual timers are also helpful for students to understand how much time they have left with an activity or task. They can be used with different tasks at home, at school, and in the community.
Visuals are also helpful in a first/then board system. Students have to complete the "first" activity, which is usually a non-preferred activity, before they can complete the "then" activity which is usually a preferred activity. These boards can be used at home, in school, and in the community.
Visuals are also helpful for students in a token economy system. Students to earn "tokens" as they are working for doing a good job or completing so much work. The students know that after they earn the required number of tokens, they can have their preferred activity.
In the "I can do it!" example, the student would pick the preferred activity from the choices at the bottom. They would place that visual in the yellow square. The teacher or parent would take off the numbers and give the child those numbers one at a time as they work. The amount of time between numbers varies depending on student, attention span, time able to be spent on task, etc.
Visuals are also helpful for students to realize or explain how they are feeling or how others are feeling.
Visuals are also helpful in labeling the different areas of a the room for individuals to help learn and understand the different areas. Visuals also help label directions, for example labeling directions on independent work stations.
Visuals are also helpful for breaking down a specific task into manageable chunks. This would be a good visual for at home and in school and in the community.
Visuals can also be helpful when giving directions. Students may not always understand the language, but may be able to follow the directions with visuals to help. Different visuals can be created to fit your specific needs for the child.
This mother has a blog that shows how her family uses the PECS (picture exchange communication system) system for their daughter.
Visuals can also help students' behaviors. We'll talk more about this in the social stories part of this webpage. These would be good for at home, in school, and in the community for when the child feels these ways.
This is an example of visuals helping a student calm down.
An example to help students explain how they are feeling.
Another example of helping students calm down.
Visuals can also help children follow recipes.
Visuals area also helpful to show children what they are supposed to do. Visuals can be used at their independent work stations to show them what they need to do to complete a task.
There are so many visual ideas out there for parents, community members, and teachers to use. Remember, you need to make sure the visual will work for what you are trying to achieve with the individual. Adapt these visual ideas or create your own!
Visuals are an important aspect of helping individuals with autism. Visuals help individuals understand the language, their expectations, and provide structure and support. Visuals can be used in a variety of settings, including home, school, and in the community.
By clicking the images below, it will take you to the link in which the visual can be accessed.
See her blog here about how she set it up.
In the "I can do it!" example, the student would pick the preferred activity from the choices at the bottom. They would place that visual in the yellow square. The teacher or parent would take off the numbers and give the child those numbers one at a time as they work. The amount of time between numbers varies depending on student, attention span, time able to be spent on task, etc.