My biggest takeaway from my internship in a public school was the use and value of visual supports. My supervisor was the visual QUEEN and while I didn’t fully understand why at the time… I certainly do now.
The way I see it, there are two major reasons you should consider using visuals in therapy:
- If our kids are language delayed, language may not be their best learning method. For receptively delayed kids, more words mean more confusion, higher frustration, and less success. Providing them with a visual reminder, cue, or explanation may be their key to success in learning skills and handling emotions. For our behavior kiddos, it can mean pointing to a desired action rather than them hearing the word “NO” one more time in their day.
. - You are building a cueing system. Your option for cueing your kids with minimal visual cues (or better yet- them self-regulating and checking back to their cue independently) is stronger if you START using that cue early on.
Tips on Smart Visual Creation and Storage
Once upon a caseload, I was a young CF with lots of extra time. I took advantage by building my own visual library. I used (and still use) the visuals I collected for picture exchanges, cueing, behavior supports… the works! My biggest recommendations to you as you create your own library are the following:
- Invest in binders and tons of velcro (check amazon for better velcro prices!). Velcro strips are excellent for storage purposes on binder pages but velcro dots may be your best friend when it comes time to place velcro on the back of a visual. I have ruined many-a-scissor and wasted many-a-hour from cutting sticky velcro strips.
. - Pick a system. I chose to have the “scratchy” side of my velcro as the anchor and the “soft” side on the back of visual supports. REGRET! Put the “scratchy” side on your visuals to allow using them on felt boards later on. Learn from my misfortune…. it’s too late for me but save yourselves.
. - Laminate EVERYTHING and keep it forever. If you are going to spend the time putting all of these visuals together- do it right the first time. If you want to save yourself HOURS AND HOURS of googling you can check out my SLP visual kit (pictured below). You still have to laminate… but you don’t have to google for (did I mention?) HOURS AND HOURS to find cute, high quality, comprehensive images. I did it for you. It took me forever. <3
Soapbox over. Use your sweet kiddo’s eyeballs like the sponges they are! Our little learners all have different needs and modalities- we don’t talk about that enough in grad school.
One more thing- be sure to come say hi on Instagram sometime! Or, better yet, get access to my freebie library as a VIP!
Best of Luck!
