Visual aids are things that we use for children and adults in order to help us remember or process things. As adults, we use shopping lists or to-do lists, we use calendars. These are all visuals that help us process tasks and it’s no different with children.
Examples of Helpful Visual Aids
With our children, we like to give visual reminders that we help to use us to remain on task or to show what is coming next. Visual aids can be very simple, such as a list or more complex, like an entire picture book or a connectivity schedule, a token board, or even a chore chart. Remember that using simple and specific language to explain the meaning of each task and make sure that you always are reinforcing or rewarding compliance of those visual tasks.
Token boards
One example of things that we use are token boards. You can get this by just doing piece of paper with laminating or you can just use a piece of paper, a dry erase board, anything that you have, and you can create something such as stars or little boxes for checks. I am working for; that child, your child is going to be able to pick what they’re working for.
We always want to ask because all of our preferences changes frequently. And then, again, every time that you tell them a rule, so if you follow these rules, you’re going to get a check. If you complete this task, you’re going to get a check. You’re going to start out with 1, 2, 3 checks so that your child understands doing this equals getting this. And then you can start expanding to 10, 20.
Chore charts
Chore charts work similarly. We know that a child is going to work for a certain task and they’re going to work for a certain reward, and then we give them the ideas of what they want.
Other examples
So visual aids like pictures, lists, chore charts, and token boards are a great way to go and help your child process what they need to do without overly complicating it.
