Schedules, A Gift Part 2: Visual Schedules
If you haven’t already, read part 1 of our series on schedules. Click here for Schedules, A Gift Part 1: Why and How to Schedule
Visual schedules can be a great tool to use at home to make something abstract, like planning ahead, more concrete. It helps create a permanent product that you can reference when you complete a task or when you’re looking ahead to the next activity. It’s like writing a contract with yourself, outlining all the activities you want to complete for the day/ future. And if you’re like me, the simple act of checking tasks off or crossing them out can be so rewarding.
With children who are still learning to hold information about the future covertly (inside their brains) it may help to have a visual representation of the future. You can use words (if they can read), or pictures to represent the activity.
Again, the simple use of visual schedules is unlikely to change how your child behaves nor does it predict how much of the schedule your child completes. Following the visual schedule, like all skills, must be learned, reinforced, and paired with improving and enjoyable conditions to be maintained.
The easiest and quickest way to teach children to associate written words and pictures to corresponding activities and tasks is by pairing, follow through, and repetition.
When introducing an activity, simultaneously show them the picture or written word.
Engage in the activity following the presentation of the word/picture.
Repeat presentation of picture/word and the activity when appropriate.
After repeating these steps with a variety of pictures and activities, you can begin slowly sequencing them and systematically increasing the number of activities they can complete.
Here are some links for free visual schedules that you can print out and are ready to go!
First-Then Board from Noodlenook
First-Then-Board from BuildingBlox