Download - Using Schedules All Ages
Using Visual Cues Across All Ages Ranges and Skill Levels
Scot GreatheadSpeech and Language Therapist
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Consider the inclusive environment and the difficulties our students face accessing this.
Visual cues within the context of a larger ‘Prosthetic Environment’
Using visual cues to support transitions
Increasing the complexity of schedules
Text based cue systems and wider issues of developing independence in older students
Learning Objectives
The effect the environment has on developing independence and understanding
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‘The Inclusive Environment’
“Inclusion is about much more than the type of school the children attend…(it’s)… about the quality of their experience, how they are helped to learn, achieve
and fully participate in the life of the school”
“The Government wants to see more children moving between sectors – dual placement and transitions”
“…promote the achievement of…pupil’s with social difficulties and interaction difficulties”
Removing the Barriers for Learning DoE 2004
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Difficulties with gaining independence
• Deficits with use and understanding spoken language
• Social deficits
• Adapting within an unstructured environment: rigid behaviours and problem solving difficulties
• Filtering internal/external distracters
• Seeing the whole picture: moving from one activity to do another
• Narrow focus: may not pick up on environmental cues as a reference to what they are meant to be doing
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Difficulties with gaining independence
Deficits with executive functions: Self Inhibition
Working Memory
Foresight (prediction and planning)
Sense of time
Shifting tasks
Starting / Completing tasks
Beginning a task
The Frontal Lobe -The Brain’s
‘Boardroom’
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How Do these Difficulties Manifest?
Raised Voices:
“Do this!”
Physical Prompting
Confusion
‘Opting Out’
Learned helplessness: “Everything gets done
for me”
Loss of control: “What’s happening
next?”
Self Harm?
Heightened state of anxiety
Failure
Confrontation, tantrums,
’behavioural difficulties’
Low self-esteem
Loss of independence – reliance on others
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The effect of the environment on developing independence
• Understanding your environment is fundamental to the way you interact and access it: – determines they way you behave– make sense of, put order to and create reasonable
expectations – how you adapt your social skills from setting to setting– increases security and reduces anxiety– the way you interpret your environment determines how
you interact with it and manipulate it for your own benefit– environmental cues exist within all levels of society
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A compatible environment?
Very often we put students in an environment which, by its very nature they can’t access
We can make environmental adaptations to ensure understanding across a range of settings
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• An adapted environment aimed at increasing understanding, communication and independence.
• Recognises the differences in the way individuals think and learn - the environment, social demands and attitudes of others may be contributing to difficulties developing communication skills and independence.
• Applies to an environment that favours normalisation.
• Prevent disabilities from becoming handicaps - ‘help to do’ rather than ‘do for’.
• Includes accessible communication systems.
Rita Jordan 2002 - Autistic Spectrum Disorders
The Prosthetic Environment:
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Our ability to function independently
Relationship with your physical
environment
Relationship with your symbolic
environment
Relationship with your
social environment
The meaning we give to
objects within our
environment and how we respond to
them.
Ability to attach meaning to symbols and
markings
Awareness of how time is
represented
Ability to adapt your
role within a given setting
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Using visual cues to support the transition
process
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Using a transition schedule independently
What to do when you’re given a
visual cue
Assess students level of symbolic
understanding
Taught through backward chaining
How to use a series of visual cues i.e. a
schedule
Teach to respond to a visual command – backward chaining
2 key skills
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Hierarchy of Symbolic
Understanding
Real Objects
Miniature Objects
Photographs
Coloured Drawings
Line Drawings
Symbols: i.e. Bliss
Text/written word
Choosing an appropriate visual cue
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Following Visual Directions
• Student needs to be taught when they are given an object, photograph or symbol that this is a command meaning ‘Go Here’ or ‘Get this’
• ‘Go Here’ – Object, photograph or symbols to indicate where the student needs to go to. Requires appropriate labeling of the environment with base boards
• ‘Get this’ – Photograph or symbol indicating a required object/toy.
• Use backward chaining to teach this.
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Following Visual DirectionsBackward Chaining
• An action is a sequence or ‘chain’ of independent components• Accompany each component with comments NOT commands
Go to sink
Go to schedule
Dry hands
Turn on tap
Put soap on hands
Wash hands
Turn off tap
Take off top symbol
Look at symbol
Move to the indicated area
Teach the final component first by physically prompting the student to the end of the sequence then gradually allowing more independence
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Verbal PromptingA spoken command - tells a student to do something “pick it it”, “get the ball”, “put your shoes on”, “check your schedule”
Danger is that the student becomes reliant on the command rather than ‘thinking for themselves’
Impossible to ‘fade’ verbal prompts – easier to fade physical prompts.
Turn the command into a comment
“Turn the tap on” becomes ‘Hot Water!’
“Go to your schedule” becomes ‘Here’s your schedule’
“Get your shoes” becomes ‘They were under the chair!’
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Following Visual Directions
What’s in the box?
Here comes the hoop!
“Get this!” “Go here”Photograph which student takes from
his schedule as a cue to collect his PE kit
A photograph of an activity : Students collect the required Items for each song.
Take Register
Sensory Room
Photographs should clearly represent the area students are moving to.
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Following Visual DirectionsProviding a compatible environment
Consistent base boards for students to post pictures:
1. Naturally ‘ends’ the transition process
2. Clearly labels areas3. Keeps symbols together and tidy
Consistent labelling of boxes:
1. Acknowledges students visual strengths (menu system)
2. Allows students to visually organise their environment
3. Aids tidying up if shelves are labelled with corresponding symbols
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Visual SchedulesWhen students follow a visual command consistently without
verbal or full physical prompting they can then be mounted onto a vertical schedule.
• Acknowledges what you’re doing, when, where and for how long.
• Establishes routines, anticipates changes, reduces anxiety
• Contributes to an accessible prosthetic learning environment.
• Flexible to be tailored to students strengths and level of difficulty
• Systems are designed to be used independently to increase independence
• Can be evaluated with the transition profile to show level of progress
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Visual SchedulesConsiderations
• Build in ‘natural cues’ to indicate when the student is to return to their schedule.
• Ultimate aim is for student to use schedules as a tool for developing their independence. Use physical prompting to teach student when independence ‘breaks down’
• Monitor students understanding of new symbols
• Schedules can be made more sophisticated by mounting on clipboards, in activity books, text based lists etc.
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Visual Schedules6 steps to independence
1. Student responds to a natural cue to check their schedule
2. Student takes the top photograph/symbol
3. Student looks at the photograph/symbol
4. Student acts upon the photograph/symbol
5. Student posts photograph/symbol in base board
6. Student begins task
Student needs to carry out each stage independently for successful transition
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Student
1. Independent transitions
2. Ability to collect activity materials
I.E.P Targets
Consistent and regular
opportunities to develop skills
Assessment of student’s symbolic
understanding
Clearly Marked Areas
Consistent Meaningful
Symbols
Consistent Base Boards
Backward Chaining
Accessible Schedules
Prosthetic EnvironmentTeaching Strategies
Transition Profiling
Outcome Measures
Clear ‘ends’ and ‘beginnings’ to
activities
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Making schedules more complex
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Build In Surprises
Important skill for students are going to learn to tolerate and accept changes.
Teaching ‘Surprise!’ is a lesson in which the adult needs to have control over.
Regular surprises normalise ‘change’
Teaching Hierarchy:
1. A preferred change: ‘we’re having a party!’
2. An indifferent change: ‘We’re not doing maths, we’re doing reading!’
3. A non-preferred change: ‘We’re going to the dentist!’
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Build in time for choice
Support transitions with
reinforcers Develop sight vocabulary
Incorporate commands
Social Functional
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Collecting materialsItems for collection need
to be smaller than the ‘location’ symbol
Make your
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Incorporate Checklists/Gathering materials
• A separate box of checklists:
Different checklists within the same activity – assign different responsibilities to each group member.
The Art Checklist symbol is mounted on the schedule which signals the student to fetch the checklist from the box and collect the required materials
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Activity Schedules
• Can be portable
• Used to support understanding over a shorter period of time: sequencing a task, learning a skill, reinforcing a transition
• May need to be taught: backward chaining, timer for unstructured activities or commenting NOT PROMPTING: “You know what you’ve got to do.” “Well you’ve finished that task.”
• More complicated tasks may require a higher level of symbolic understanding
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Activity Schedules
To reinforce rewards and aid transitions: the following
activity is more motivating thanthe current activity
To help students organisetheir own unstructured time.Students choose activities, then follow their schedule.
choose
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Activity Schedules
To develop independence
To support the understanding of a sequence of events
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The success of supporting more complex instructions for non-reading students will be limited unless they are taught and can read a series of symbols
Can a series of symbols be replaced by 1 meaningful symbol
If you take the text away can you understand what the instruction is?
Using symbols to support complex instructions
V’sOctober 2005 Scot Greathead - Hatton School
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Schedule Books
Represents an event – going to a mainstream school, going shopping, using the library etcthrough, photographs/symbols/text
Used to familiarise student with a new event so they can visualise and prepare themselves
May want to incorporate roles, expectations,
social stories
Used before (familiarisation), during (reassurance),
after (consolidation/reflection) as necessary
Can’t see what happens next easily
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A weekly / monthly schedule
Requires ability to follow horizontal and vertical schedules
Less specific - indicates key event throughout the week
Could split into before and after school zones
Eliminates repetitive questioning
Teaches concepts of day names, today, tomorrow, yesterday, weekends
Able to recap on a weekly basis
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The development of the transition process
Understanding that a symbol represents a command or event
Following a vertical timetable
Following a horizontal schedule
Introduce the concept of a weekly schedule
Introduce the concept of a monthly schedule
Introduce the concept of a simple calendar, diary, to do lists, reminders etc
Acknowledging the past is equally as important as thinking about the future: diary/lifeline etc
Introduced as day planner and task planner
Concepts: months, seasons
Concepts: today, tomorrow, yesterday and days of week
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The next step to independence:
• Can students construct their own checklists/timetables? Within tray work? At the end of the day?
• Can students match to a template?
• Semantic Sorting activity: students are given 2 checklists and symbols (PE and art). Can they sort their own materials out
• Functional sequencing tasks: washing hands, snack time Concepts: days of the week, months
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Text based systems to develop independence
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Adult Visual Cueing Strategies• Independence defined by how students are able to
generate, construct and execute their own visual support strategies.
• Greater onus on these skills within secondary and ‘life’ settings
• Strategies should reflect those used by the adult population and be incorporated into functional tasks.
Activity schedules
Daily Schedules
Weekly Diary
Monthly Diary
Calendar
To do lists
Recipes
Instruction manuals
Directions
Science experiments
Activities over longer
time periods:
Planning holidays
Planning trips
School projectsOctober 2005 Scot Greathead - Hatton School
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Difficulties achieving thisDeficits with executive functions:
Organisation of materials
Time management – predicting how long an activity will take
Multi tasking/switching between tasks
Beginning a task
Inhibition – staying focussed on a task
Breaking down a task into individual components
Sequencing a series of events / jobs
Poof self awareness - evaluating performance and making changes to increase success in the future.
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Wider issues with independence
Complementary work on language skills:
Taught about their own difficulties with compensatory strategies
Narrative Therapy: organising and sequencing spoken and written language
Visual Sequencing Activities
Note taking
Giving instructions / Giving directions
Decision making skills – personality, values, assertiveness, self awareness, life goals
Social Skills – using phone, asking directions, non verbal language, compromiseintonation training,
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Time
• Understanding clocks: analogue / digital / 24 hour
• Concept seconds, minutes, days, hours, weeks etc
• Predicting how long something will take – and then timing to see how long it actually took.
• Teach to allow more time than is needed for an activity
• Use of alarm clocks as cue
• Functional activities involving cinema listings, TV listings, bus/train timetables
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School Diary
• Concepts: days, periods, months, holidays etc
• Symbol supported text?
• Can students access diary: ‘What have you got week 1 period 2?’
• Do students make independent transitions ‘what have I got next?’ ‘respond to bell’ ‘collect materials etc’
• Are homework planners used functionally
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Calendar
• Concepts of months, seasons taught:
• Time markers generated with students: Birthdays, holidays, public holidays, when key events happen – Spiderman II released, non uniform day,
• ‘On this day’ news stories added to give past time markers
• Important that calendar `is integrated into students lives and becomes a functional instrument for planning work schedules, used for talking about future events etc
• Time lines: Puts the past in context, prompt thinking about the future
• Consider Palm Pilots, Microsoft outlook
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Coordinating many tasks
25 minutes: Sausages
20 minutes: 10 slices of toast
10 minutes: Fried Eggs
10 minutes: Lay the table
10 minutes: Beans
10 minutes: cups of tea
Completion
This strategy could also be used for projects which may takes weeks rather than minutes
Breakfast
Timer indicates when to start each task
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Specific programs integrated within curricular activities
Academic Skills
Preparing a presentation
Revision Skills
Breaking down tasks, writing instructions
Time management
.
Life Skills
Planning a dinner party
Taking a friend into London
Buying presents for Christmas
Ordering takeaway
At all levels students need to be involved with planning, execution and evaluation of their work.
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Planning for independence
• Behaviour Rating Inventory Executive Function Checklist (BRIEF) highlights deficits
• All activities / lessons to have some component of EF / language work related to students difficulties. Evaluation – planning – what I did well? – How long did it take me?
• Where does student need most adult support / prompting? Can this be replaced with a self maintained visual cue.
• Liaison with parents to coordinate life skills targets
• Student led IEP targets: ‘What do I want to change?’
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I am autistic. I've always been autistic, and I always will be autistic. Autism is part of who I
am, just as my sense of humor and my emotions are part of me. I like who I am, even
my autistic part.
http://www.geocities.com/growingjoel/
October 2005 Scot Greathead - Hatton School