Struggling with Communication? Discover how help cards can help your students with their Emotional Intelligence!
For kids in special education, expressing their needs and seeking help can be a daunting task. However, there is a simple yet effective tool that can greatly improve their communication skills – visual cues. Lets explore the importance of effective communication for children with special needs and how the use of a visual aid, such as the help card, can greatly benefit them.
Discover how we can support and empower these children to express themselves and seek the help they need.
In this post, we will explore the importance of effective communication and how you can use visual aids, such as help cards, that can greatly benefit our kids in the classroom.
Using Help cards with symbols My 5 tips
1. Help your young learner to realise when they need to use the Help Card, usually before they get too frustrated or loose concentration. Set up a situation in which they will need help, show them the help card and place it where they can easily reach it.
2. Point to the help card and tell them, “This is your help card. You can use it if you need help.” When your student starts to show behaviors, You say “If you are getting upset, use your help card to tell me you need help.”
3. Immediately allow the student to take the help symbol and make up his sentence, or allow the student to use the help card and follow the visual instructions.” I found that self regulating visuals on the bottom of the card is a fantastic way of reminding your student what they need to do when they need help.
4. Requesting is an important part of teaching the student to trust and use the visual support, once they are consistently asking for help, or making up a sentence strip, you may begin to generalise situations, locations and with different staff, while practicing this critical skill.
5. The added visuals at the bottom of each card has been a big help with reminding students to what they can do and how to express it.
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