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May10

Tell Me What’s Happening

Gracie usually goes horse-riding at Festina Lente, after school on Wednesdays. With her favourite baby-sitter: Vanessa. Recently Daddy had a little bit of unplanned time off work, and we thought it would be nice if he went along instead.

But we didn’t want Grace to think he was picking her up from school to go for a walk, or McDonalds, or to the Supermarket. All the things she associates with her Daddy. So we did this:

See, we all know that we should be offering visual supports to our autistic kids.

Because the activities we expect them undertake are so much less stressful if they know exactly what is happening, when, how, and who with.

If something is out of context, then it can be overwhelming for kids who rely on peripheral visual strategies to keep track of expectations. It can lead to tantrums.
So you need to replace those perceived cues – like the riding boots on a Wednesday – with structured Visual cues that they can understand.

This used to mean this:

With photographs saved, printed, laminated and velcro-ed ready to respond to any change of plans.

What’s that Skip? You don’t carry around a pouch full of pre-prepared schedule cards?Maybe you should try Grace App!

Go to the Sentence Starter Tab – Grab a First, then go to Places, grab the place pictures you need, add in a Then or if you prefer Next and then finish it with some of your personal pictures from the stored pics button.

And Lovely Jubbly – Instant Visual Schedule!

Email me if you need to know more on graceappforautism@gmail.com.

Yep, there are a lot of specific apps for creating and saving planned out schedules that you use regularly. But this is for those times when there is a quick change of plans and you quickly want to put it in pictures to reduce stress. And it’s easy for anyone in your child’s life to do quickly. Vanessa herself used it last week to explain to Grace that she could go to the Supermarket and McDonalds, After Horseriding.


5 responses to “Tell Me What’s Happening”

  1. Jen says:

    Thank you:) Jen.

  2. Jean says:

    Great post xxx

  3. Hammie says:

    I hope this is clear enough xx

  4. Looking for Blue Sky says:

    For those of us still floundering this is just excellent: the instructions for explaining schedules remind me of the standard journalism questions – what, when, where, why, how and who: from now on, that's what I'll use 🙂

  5. jazzygal says:

    Fabulous!!

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