What are Visual Supports?

What are visual supports?

Visual supports are anything that you can look at that helps you understand or remember or plan better. We all use visual supports to understand what we hear and to remember important things. We use visual supports to help us think about complex ideas. I have my TO DO list. I have a calendar. I have an electronic organizer (but I can't remember to use it). I have Post-it notes all over the place. If I go to a lecture and the presenter does not have any visuals, it better be a pretty riveting presentation or I won't remember a thing. If I really like the presentation, I will make my own visual support--notes. So the idea of using visual supports is not foreign--it just sounds like a complicated idea when it is suggested as a strategy for children with ASD.

Are there correct ways to use Visual Supports?

There are some good ideas out there for using visuals with children who have ASD and it is worth investigating these ideas. But the rule is to use things that work. The video clip demonstrated in the previous post is offered as a demonstration to show one way that visual supports are used with young children in classrooms or therapy sessions. In this clip, I used pictures from Mayor Johnson's Boardmaker software but I could just as well have used pictures that I made with a digital camera or copied off the Internet.

There are many good ways to use visuals and many good visuals to use. Don't get too rigid in your system--use whatever is easiest (that works). What are the most common visual supports used with children who have ASD? Some of the visual support strategies commonly suggested for children with ASD include visual schedules, visual choice boards, Picture Exchange Communication System (PECS), Carol Gray Social Stories, video modeling. The most common and easiest visual support that is commonly used is simply writing down or drawing information. For children who read, writing is a fine system. Writing lists and short summaries is a strategy often used by classroom assistants. Writing lists is also often used by parents because it is so helpful. On my website, Autism Games, I describe the use of Family Dolls and this is a visual support strategy. Using homemade paper dolls of family members (or classmates), parents can demonstrate new kinds of social interaction or new games and the child can see and understand what is expected and imagine doing this new thing.

Are visual supports just for non-verbal children?

No. We can all use visual supports even though we comprehend language--visual supports are ways to increase understanding for any child. If you both see and hear something, it will be easier to learn. So it is still helpful to use visual supports with children after they have acquired good verbal skills--particularly for children who need to know what is going to happen next or have a hard time understanding verbal directions. The challenge of staying emotionally regulated is a challenging issue for children with ASD and visual supports often help. Many children like to see what is going to happen next, even if they already know what will happen next, just because it is reassuring.

Can the use of Visual Supports harm a child?

No. No study has ever indicated that the use of visual supports will slow down a child's development of verbal skills and several studies have indicated that visual supports help children develop verbal skills. Imagine your own life without visual supports (no watch, calendar, lists, notes, schedules, demonstrations...) and you see that combining visual and verbal information is more the norm than the exception--you are just using a well established learning strategy to help your child learn when you use visual supports. Because is is hard for your child to learn somethings--you add visual information to make it easier.

Sometimes people fear that their child will become "dependent" on visual supports. There is even some professional discussion about “fading” the visuals—meaning using a visual support and then gradually and intentionally not using the visual support in various situations—thus avoiding the possibility of a child becoming “visual dependent”. This is a little more technical information than most folks need on the topic of using visual supports. In the real world, as opposed to the theoretical world, we rarely have the time.

There is a danger in making visual supports sound more complicated than it needs to be—thus discouraging parents from making and using visual supports “lest they do it wrong”. Secondly, discontinueing the use of visuals is not usually a problem anyway. It is true that we are not trying to promote a non-essential ritual of looking at visual supports over and over. I have seen this happen. My husband likes to write an item on his To Do list and then cross it out even if he did not put it on the To Do list before he did it. That seems a little unnecessary to me. But, I never try to take away his To Do list—even when he does this. I just grin and tease a little. Mostly he uses his To Do list correctly--in my opinion but really, who am I to judge?

I don’t think we should take away anyone’s organizational system if it seems important to that individual. We will naturally stop making and using visuals for a child who ignores the visual support and that is what happens most of the time. Kids outgrow the system and we know it. Well, actually most of the time, people get tired of making visual supports long before a child outgrows the system. Most kids never even get the chance to become “visual dependent”. If only children becoming “visual dependent” were the problem. That would be a good problem.

How should you use visual supports with your child?

Depending upon your child’s understanding of pictures and language—you may start as simply as the Almost done/Stop cards described in a previous post. You may want to use a First/Then sequence of pictures (also described in a previous post) simply to show your child what is about to happen. First Hamburger Then Ice Cream Cone. You may want to try Video Modeling and make a video clip showing your child how to play a new game or do a new household activity ( such as putting laundry in the wash machine) with brother or cousin or classmate serving as video actor. For your reading youngster, you may want to write a short list of chores that need to be done before playing on the computer and show your child how to cross them out, as each one is completed. You may want to buy your child a disposable digital camera and teach him or her to use it on family outings—then talk about the pictures with Grandma. You may want to put up a big block calendar for your child and put on important family events in pictures or words—then talk about the things you did last week and will do tomorrow. You might want to make a set of family dolls and teach your child to imagine riding on a dinosaur or giving a classmate a compliment. In other words, there are no rules for using visuals to help your child understand and enjoy life more—just lots and lots of possibilities.