| Homework That Doesn't Feel Like Work!
Homework can present problems for any student, but for students who experience educational difficulties it can be very challenging experience. Moving the educational focus away from academic practice and aiming toward enhancing social and communication opportunities opens new ways to look at the concept of homework. This article discusses using visual to develop communication skills and support social interaction. These visual strategies can be an excellent way to give homework a functional and useful purpose.
http://www.usevisualstrategies.com/article1.html
I See What You Mean: Using Visual Tools to Support Student Learning
With the complexity and diverse range of technology available, it is easy to overlook low-tech ways of solving problems for individuals with disabilities. The authors of this article capture the essence of using visual strategies for many students and individuals with a disability.
In this article, visual strategies are defined and a list of visual supports and ideas are given to make this simple strategy successful. The authors also include actual case studies of students who had a variety of inclusion and classroom difficulties.
http://www.disabilitysolutions.org/pdf/5-4.pdf
Do to Learn
Do to Learn aims to provide tools and solutions based on scientific research and clinical experience to help those with special learning and treatment needs. The website offers free visual support materials for parents and teachers including picture cards, print activities, homework helpers, flash cards, and computer based instruction.
http://www.dotolearn.com
Visual/spatial learning
This brief guide on offered on the Study Guides and Strategies website, gives an overview of Visual/spatial learning strategies. The Author begins by discussion how visual learners process information. The guide then discusses strategies for learning, study habits, using technology, reading and takings tests.
http://www.studygs.net/visual.htm
Visual Supports – Lets Get Visual
This article written by Brian S. Friedlander, Ph.D, discusses the use of various assistive technology software programs to create visual supports for learning.
http://www.polyxo.com/visualsupport/letsgetvisual.html
Do You See What I Mean?
Creating Visual Literacy Supports for Special Needs Students
Three visual supports that are helpful for teaching and supporting literacy development are described in this article: picture books, graphic notes, and story kits. Some of these ideas may be effective for working with students with disabilities and each may be used as catalyst for designing literacy lessons that are appropriate and challenging for learners in the inclusive classroom.
http://www.paulakluth.com/articles/visual_literacy.html
Visual Supports for. Children With Autism
This article discusses the importance of using visual supports to aid children with autism as well as children with a variety of other disabilities. The authors discuss how to develop and implement these tools and supports. Illustrated examples are provided.
http://www.cec.sped.org/AM/Template.cfm?Section=Home&CONTENTID=7764&TEMPLATE=/CM/ContentDisplay.cfm
Speaking of Speech.com
Speaking of Speech.com is an interactive forum for speech/language pathologists and teachers to improve communication skills in our schools by: exchanging ideas, techniques, materials, and lessons that work; finding out about materials before you buy; seeking and giving advice on therapy and caseload management issues; and exploring a myriad of helpful resource links.
http://www.speakingofspeech.com/
Therasimplicity
Therasimplicity is an online collection of tools, illustrations, worksheets, exercise sheets, explanations and reference materials for therapists in a wide range of professions.
http://www.therasimplicity.com/
The Center for Literacy and Disability Studies
The Center for Literacy and Disability Studies works to promote literacy and communication for individuals of all ages with disabilities.
http://www.med.unc.edu/ahs/clds/index.html
Mayer Johnson
Mayer Johnson’s website has various resources for the Boardmaker program, including web classes. They offer them on a variety of topics, including the basics.
http://www.yellowschoolbustour.com/index_web_classes.htm
Atomic Learning
Atomic Learning is a subscription service that offers Quicktime video trainings on a variety of software. They are in the process of developing tutorials for specialized software such as Boardmaker.
http://www.atomiclearning.com
Augmentative Communication Community Partnerships Canada (ACCPC): Early Literacy Project
Augmentative Communication Community Partnerships CANADA (ACCPC) has a project focused on Early Literacy. Here, you will find a number of resources utilizing visual supports for early literacy development.
http://www.accpc.ca/earlyliteracy.htm
Simplified Technology
Simplified Technology, Linda Burkhart’s website, has many examples of visual strategies and other useful resources.
http://www.lburkhart.com
AAC Intervention.com
This website has a lot of great tips and tricks to support visual strategies. They have tips of the month and idea sheets.
http://www.aacintervention.com
Special Education Technology British Columbia: PictureSet
This link is part of the SET BC website and provides a searchable database of ready-made picture supports in PDF format as well as BoardMaker format. These downloadable files were created for a wide array of special needs students.
https://www.setbc.org/pictureset/
Portacom System
The Portacom System was developed by a mom with twin daughters who are both deaf and on the autism spectrum to address issues of the portability of picture-based systems for scheduling, communication, and behavior support. This System is worn around the waist and visuals are attached with Velcro.
http://www.portacom.bc.ca
Communipack
Communipack is a 6-ring binder that is worn around the waist and used to hold pages to which symbols can be attached.
http://www.communipack.com
Ellie Cards
Ellie Cards are a complete set of picture cards that are already laminated, have Velcro and are organized in a binder. It also comes with a Velcro sentence strip.
http://www.elliecards.com
Augmentative Resources
This website offers product support for using visual aids and discusses portability.
http://www.augresources.com
Rainman
Rainman is a free download for PC. This tool, which was developed by some researchers out of Japan, is used for creating visual calendars and schedules on the computer. It times up to and counts down events.
http://www.ict4everyone.jp/rainman/en/index.html
Imagine Symbols
This is a free resource that has several symbols you can download and use for visual aids.
http://www.imaginesymbols.com
A Meta-Analysis of School-Based Social Skills Interventions for Children with Autism Spectrum Disorders
This research paper has some interesting information. They identified 55 studies of social skills interventions for students with ASD. They found that school-based social interventions were minimally effective for teaching social skills. One of the reasons they identified was that only one study in the group systematically matched the type of intervention strategy with the type of skill deficits of individual students. There was a tendency to fit the student into the selected teaching strategy rather than program for specific individual student needs.
http://www.education.uiowa.edu/REACH/documents/AutismandSocialSkills_000.pdf
Storymovies
This was developed by Mark Shelley and written by Carol Gray. It is an approach to combine the effectiveness of Social Stories with video.
http://www.specialminds.org/storymoviestm/
Attainment Company
This website has several materials to teach social skills with video.
http://www.Attainmentcompany.com
Social Skill Builders
This website has interactive video computer programs to teach social skills.
http://www.socialskillbuilder.com
Watch Me Learn
This website features a set of videos that model a variety of important skills for young children to learn.
http://www.watchmelearn.com
Boardmaker Wiki
This Wiki has a lot of downloadable resources concerning Boardmaker.
http://boardmaker.wikispaces.com/ Visual Strategies
This document is all about visual strategies. It can be used to introduce families, caregivers, school staff, etc. to visual strategies.
http://www.pattan.net/files/instruction/visualstrat.pdf Williamson County Schools Autism Support Services: Spotlight on Visual Supports
This newsletter from Williamson County Schools focuses on visual supports. They have numerous examples and photos.
http://www.wcs.edu/tes/autism/newsletters/11-08newsletter.pdf Autism Stuff: Comic Strip Conversations
This link provides background information on Carol Gray’s book, “Comic Strip Conversations.” And how you can incorporate talk and thought bubbles as visual cues.
http://www.autismstuff.com/books/communication.htm Design to Learn
Design to Learn focuses on tangible symbol systems for individuals with dual sensory impairments (deafblindness), visual impairments and intellectual impairments, and/or significant intellectual impairments. They have a lot of information, research, and resources related to this area. They have also produced DVDs that show how tangible symbols can be used for a variety of functions, both receptive and expressive.
http://www.designtolearn.com/ ICAN Environmental Interventions Module
From this site, you can go to a variety of learning modules on topics such as visual schedules, reminder cues, rules and routines, and many more.
http://www.autismnetwork.org/modules/environ/index.html
Assistive Technology Tutorials
These online tutorials from the Assistive Technology Training Online Project are for adaptive software that is often used to make visual supports and/or adapted curricular materials.
http://www.atto.buffalo.edu/registered/Tutorials.php
Portable and Visual Cuing System: QCharm
The QCharm is a bracelet that can be used as a visual support as you can attach symbols to it.
http://www.qcharm.com
Fairfax County Public Schools, Assistive Technology Services: Downloads
This link provides access to downloadable visuals that you can use. The Boardmaker link has resources to download, with a focus on school-based supports.
http://fcps.edu/ss/its/howtos/
Printable Boardmaker Templates and Writing with Symbols Activities from My Classroom
This link has downloadable activities made with Boardmaker, with a specific focus on literacy.
http://www.angelfire.com/pa5/as/boardmakerfiles.html Autism 4 Teachers
This resource has some pictures and Boardmaker downloadable resources as well as additional information about autism.
http://autism4teachers.com/
Examples of Visual Supports
This link shows multiple photos of visual examples.
http://picasaweb.google.com/kdopey432/ExamplesOfVisualSupports
EdHelper: Graphic Organizers
This site has graphic organizers to download; you can then adapt them by color coding/adding visuals.
http://www.edhelper.com/teachers/graphic_organizers.htm |
