April 22, 2012
by Carole Zangari -
Transitions can be hard for everyone, whether it is turning off the TV to finish grading papers or leaving a favorite place to go run some errands or following through to finish cleaning out the garage. For people with significant communication difficulties, there can be additional challenges. Here are some of our favorite tools and strategies for making transitions easier for everyone. – Visual Schedules: Our hands-down favorite way of helping people transition smoothly is to make the expectations visual and explicit. Lots of info on making this strategy successful here and here. Timers, timers, and more timers! We love them because, once the routine and expectations are established, they work so beautifully in so many situations. Social stories:Well-written social stories shared via high quality intervention can go a long way in preventing or minimizing transition issues. Transition items: Lots of families, teachers, and SLP have had success using objects... [Read More...]
Filed under: PrAACtical Thinking
Tagged With: schedules, transitions, visual schedule, visual supports
March 24, 2012
by Robin Parker -
We were looking for some specific resources for a distant colleague. We wanted to get as much good information as possible because this colleague was not in our field but in another department that has direct impact over work. We do not necessarily see ‘eye to eye’ on many issues so we thought it might be helpful to our working relationship. In the process, a young man and his family would get some much-needed support. In our exploration, we found some great new videos about schedules- our topic of the month. We found several very prAACtical videos by the Watson Institute about mini schedules. We have found mini schedules to be very helpful for activities of daily living, community activities, leisure time activities and even in special event activities. We love that the Watson Institute put these on you -tube for everyone to learn from. They even have a you-tube video... [Read More...]
Filed under: PrAACtical Thinking
Tagged With: mini schedules, schedules, visual supports
March 12, 2012
by Robin Parker -
We have been writing a lot about schedules. Schedules can be created by using tools ranging from no-tech to high tech. Here are 5 great visual schedule apps to help with ‘teching’ up the process. We think it is important to let you know that ALL of the app developers provide information about the rationales behind schedules and visual learning which adds to our educated AAC consumers. One of our priorities in ‘blogging’ was to get the information about AAC systems and visual strategies out to more people with the hope that AAC systems will be provided to ALL cpeople who would need it It is great to see app developers prioritizing this as well. **Just 2 notes: for our own personal and business schedules we still use a combination of no-tech to high-tech options) and apps are listed in no particular order Choice Works $14.99 by BeeVisual + designed... [Read More...]
Filed under: PrAACtical Thinking
Tagged With: Apps, schedules, visual