Monday Madness: Special Needs and Visual Flow Schedules

Welcome to Monday Madness where I will talk about pretty much anything that comes to mind. From homeschooling to special needs to strange blog posts about 

silly objects to interviewing a family member...

you never know what you might read on 

Monday Madness!

 Enjoy!

This post is about having special needs kiddos and how a visual flow schedule can be a benefit. I will talk about how we made these for both our son and our foster son:

Recently we received a diagnosis about our son that was not completely unexpected. However, there were some aspects that surprised us and also gave us some ideas about the kinds of help we will possible need for his future.

One thing that was mentioned is that he probably needed more visual aids as he seems to learn the best visually. Well, I have tried different kinds of visual aids for years, but it seemed to be a hit and miss help for him. After studying what we have tried doing in the past and what I was doing currently, I figured out where I needed to improve:

1. I realized that I had made the visual schedules too confusing for him to follow. I didn't mean to, but it happened.
2. I was including things in his schedule that he really didn't need help with. He has reached an age where he doesn't need each part of his day broke down. He simply needs visual reminders to help him remember when to do hygiene and what his chores are.
3. He needed pictures of himself doing these activities. 

After doing some research, I came up with a simple visual schedule that hopefully will help in the areas he needs help. And TA-DA! The past few weeks have been so much better. I'm still working on little tweaks. And I will talk about those in a minute, but first what I am doing:

I have this nifty little camera put out by Fujifilm called a Instax Mini7:

It's a great little camera that takes those pics you used to get with Polaroids but perhaps a little nicer quality!

Anyway, I took this camera and followed Tony around one day taking pictures of the things he needs reminders of. Starting with getting dressed in the morning to chores to hygiene etc...

Then I put the pictures on this wall pocket chart like this:

The neat thing I am finding about this system is that first of all, I don't have to make a new chart every time our schedule changes. (Which happened a lot in the past!) Secondly, if I need to add/take away a chore or reminder, I don't have to make a new chart. I simply take a new picture and pop it in the flow chart. Or I take away a picture. For instance, when there isn't school for the day, I simply remove that picture for the day.

Here is a pic of what his flow chart looks like currently:

So how does this work? Quite simple: every day, T-Boss goes to his chart, looks at what he needs to do. After he finishes the task, he flips the card over. This tells me that I can go check that activity to make sure it was done.

All in all, it's been a perfect fit for him!

Enter our foster son....at four years old, he has some special needs that require a lot of reminders. He also needs help in predicting how his day will go so he knows what to expect.

I can't show you his chart for obvious reasons but when I got started I thought hard about how I was going to do it because his days vary so differently from one day to the next. And unlike T-Boss, he NEEDS to know how every part of the day is going. Some days there are visits, therapy appointments, skills trainers, school etc....then there is the down time at home. He can't do it. He doesn't stop for a minute and has the attention span of a gnat. So how was I going to do this??

Well, using the same concept of the pictures and wall pocket that I am doing with T-Boss, I started building a pile of pictures that represent his life. I took pictures of his day, his activities, and the different people in his life that meet his needs such as teachers, therapists, family members, DHS workers etc... It took about a week and at the time of writing this I am still needing to take a couple pictures to add in. 

Using the wall pocket chart, I put in the pictures that never change such as get dressed, eat breakfast, brush teeth, take a nap...etc... in another pocket I keep the pictures that are ever changing such as whether there is school that day, a visit with mommy or a therapist appointment. Then in the morning, I set up his day with the pictures so that they are ready to go when he gets up.

What an amazing difference this has made for this little guy! 

It has helped keep him on task, it has helped with anxiety regarding his day and even helped with his OCD as he sees he has a time to do the different things he is slightly obsessed with! 

Hopefully this wasn't too confusing and I hope that it helps you if you are needing to create a visual schedule for one of your kiddos! If you would like help creating one, I would love to help out as I realized this is something I really enjoy doing!

Till next time...

Have a blessed day and embrace the craziness in your life!

Heidi

Numbers 6:24-26