4 Visual Supports
Definition: Intentional presentation of visual cues (e.g., pictures, printed words, drawings) to support student communication or memory of a task, idea, or expectation.
Rationale: Students can sometimes miss verbal instructions or other non-verbal cues. Visual supports can support student learning, memory, and performance by providing a visual hint to the response or expectation required in a specific context of the main idea being expressed. Often visual supports are considered to support more student independence than adult driven supports (e.g., verbal reminders or modeling from a teacher).
Ways to Support Students:
-
- Visual supports can take many forms. In most cases these supports should be taught or assessed for clarity before being used to ensure that they are supportive.
- In addition to representation, it’s important that the type of visual (e.g., printed word, picture, object symbol) is understood by the student.
- Visual supports can be used to create a schedule for a day, a class period, or even a specific task to help with student orientation and sequencing.
- It can be helpful to ensure that symbols taught and used are consistent for the student across settings (e.g., home, therapy, various classes and teachers across school.
Case Study
Student: Grade 1 student
Content: Managing the various transitions throughout the day
Problem: The student has been having difficulty moving from one activity to the next throughout the day. As the day goes on the student becomes more anxious and frustrated. The teacher has noticed that this seems to be due to the student’s confusion on the order of events in a day.
Solution: The teacher creates a visual schedule using picture symbols. The symbols are taught to the student and taped to the student’s desk. With support, the student learned to cross out each symbol after it is finished with a dry erase marker. Also, when the student has questions about the schedule, their teacher and peers can point to the visual schedule to answer the student’s questions about when activities will occur in the day.
Professional Resources:
- Slide show from UNM Center for Development and Disability on using visual supports in the classroom: https://cdd.health.unm.edu/autismportal/wp-content/uploads/2021/02/Visual-Supports-for-Children-with-ASD.pptx.pdf
- Description and examples of visual supports from the IRIS center: https://iris.peabody.vanderbilt.edu/module/dll/cresource/q3/p06/
- Evidence based practice brief on visual supports from NPDC: https://autismpdc.fpg.unc.edu/sites/autismpdc.fpg.unc.edu/files/imce/documents/VisualSupports_Complete.pdf
- Many examples and videos of visual supports from the UF Center for Autism and Related Disabilities: https://card.ufl.edu/resources/visual-supports/
