Visual Supports

What are visuals?

Visuals are cues that provide information about an expectation, routine or activity. They typically consist of items, pictures, symbols, drawings, and/or printed words. Visual supports can help increase your child’s ability to comprehend verbal instructions. As adults, we utilize visual strategies throughout our daily lives. These visuals come in the form of calendars, checklists, reminders, etc.

Young children, as well as children with special needs, often rely on visual input to help them understand the world around them. For children who are still developing language, these supports can help facilitate the organization and processing of information. This is especially true as they begin to develop the skills needed to understand and produce language.

Why should I use visuals with my child?

Visual supports can assist with a variety of things such as: preventing challenging behavior, easing the anxiety associated with “unknown” situations, support expressive and receptive language skills, increase understanding of rules and expectations.

Which leads me to my newest product: Visual Schedule Boards and Icons

I created this product with parents in mind. Visual supports can be helpful when giving instructions, as well as managing challenging behavior. However, creating these supports can be very time consuming and difficult to assemble – let alone use. Therefore, I did the hard part for you!

This file contains 105 schedule icons that you can utilize with all 4 visual board types.

A little more about the type of boards included in this file set:

First-Then & First-Then-Next Boards: These boards can show your child a sequence of upcoming events and motivate them to participate in a less preferred activity, knowing that a more preferred activity will follow. The “first (and/or) next” picture is typically an activity that you want the individual to participate in, such as a transition, or demand. The “then” picture is an activity or item that the person enjoys.

Daily Schedule: This board presents a sequence of scheduled activities. Activities can be moved from the “schedule” column to the “thumbs-up” column as they are completed. Be sure to alternate between non-preferred and preferred activities within the schedule column. This will provide the individual some momentum when completing activities on the list.

Weekly Schedule: This board displays one main daily activity, within a single week. Schedules like this are useful because they allow an individual to plan ahead when there are upcoming events such as a school vacation, holiday, special activity or other major change in daily routine.