Visuals for Communication in the Classroom

June 16, 2018December 9, 2025 AutismadeLeave a comment

Setting up Visuals

I started jotting down what visuals my students needed to help with frustration and classwork until I realised what a big task! So I decided to cut down my list to a manageable workload and think about what things they wanted and needed the most. Here are the categories I thought would be good to start off with –

Things in the class, 2.Tasks in class, 3. I’m feeling, 4. fidget toys, what I need

1. Classroom Things

I wanted some visuals to include basic everyday class things so they could point out what they needed or having trouble finding.

2. Tasks

I wanted visuals of the tasks available so my students could indicate a choice and find things they liked doing.

3. Feelings

These are important visuals to understand, practice and use to communicate how they are feeling.

4. Fidgets

A selection of fidget toys could also be used as motivators to regulate themselves, calm down emotions, which I’ve found very handy.

5. Me

Things for themselves, such as their bag, the toilet, a tissue, time to relax and reduce some of their frustration using these visuals to support stress and anxiety.

Powerful Reinforcement System

June 16, 2018September 17, 2023 AutismadeLeave a comment

Reducing Problem Behaviour using a function based intervention.

Here I combined the first and then with the three star reward token boards and came up with this Behaviour Management Tool. Everything you need on one board, no more fidgeting with 2 boards, its made my life so much easier!

My students can choose the reinforcer they want to work for, The “First and then” will remind them what activities they need to complete beforehand and the tokens keep them motivated to gain the chosen reward!

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I made these boards in 4 colours and in 3 sizes to suit individual needs along with reward visuals that I know will motivate them!

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Social Skill Supports

April 12, 2017March 6, 2023 AutismadeLeave a comment

Why I use Social Narratives!

Story supports help students in Special Ed understand how to behave or respond in particular situations. They provide a visual guide describing various social interactions, situations or behaviours, The goal of a Social Narrative is to share social information on how to behave in them instances.

Since I’ve introduced these stories into my classroom I have found them helpful for a couple of my students that’s finding certain situations difficult.

I read them both in group work and in one to one sessions, more often when situations become tricky. In some situations I have seen behaviors become more manageable and with supporting activities allows the positive social skills to be practiced.

Using such a visual guide to describe various social interactions have helped my students to interact with their peers in a more positive way and have helped them to identify social skills that they might miss themselves.

Stories that cover “Class Rules,” and “Being kind to your friends,” Help in Classroom Management. I read these often to remind students how their behaviour affect others.

Some of my students also find social strips useful, these are so handy! printed off and laminated and attach to desks for quick reminders.

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Visual supports for Functional Communication!

April 12, 2017August 22, 2023 AutismadeLeave a comment

Learning new skills is so important for my students! Requesting “Help” “Break” “stop” or “wait” are huge skills to learn.
This week I want to share a couple of quick tips on how I teach these skills and how we made it a little easier and more fun to teach by adding a couple of visual supports.

How I Teach my students to use these Functional Communication Strategies to Regulate their behavior

#1. First I help my student to realise when they need to use the “break” or “help” card, which is usually just before they get frustrated or loose concentration. At the start of any activity, I will show them the break or help card, which ever one I’m working on, and place it where my student can easily reach it.

#2. I Point to the break/help card and tell them, “This is your break/help card. You can use it to ask for a break.” When my student starts to get frustrated or loose interest, I will say “If you are getting upset, use your break card to tell me you need a break/help.”

#3. I use physical and gestural Prompts for some of my students to take the break/help card and allow them to move away to the “break area.” or Help them. I found that self regulating visuals on the bottom of the card is a fantastic way of calming and redirecting my student while on a break.

#4. Being able to use functional communication is an important part of behavior management and teaching the student to trust and use the visual supports will help them self regulate.

#5. I will begin to withdraw prompts once students are consistently asking for breaks or help, its important that being able to initiating these requests independently to become an consistent communicator. Then you can begin to regulate the time between the request and the actual break.