We use visual tools to accomplish a purpose. Perhaps we use something visual to help a student understand a situation. Maybe we provide a visual prompt so a student can accomplish a task more independently.


Think of the PURPOSE of a visual tool.
Defining the student's NEEDS guides the decision about what kind of tool to use. Identifying the purpose of a visual tool helps us know how to use it.

Is your school or home environment set up to provide the visual support your students can benefit from?

How many of these functions are accomplished in your environment with visual tools? As you look at the list, count how many ways your students currently receive visual support.

1. Establish attention
   Looking at something can help students establish attention better than just listening. Once they have focused their attention, the rest of the communication message can get in.
2. Give information
   How do students get information to answer the who, what, why, where, when questions?
3. Explain social situations
   The social world can be confusing. People are moving, changing & unpredictable. Giving social information by writing it down helps students understand.
4. Give choices
   How do students know what the options are? What is available? What is not available?
5. Give structure to the day
   Creating a schedule to tell what is happening or what is not happening. Giving students the big picture to reduce anxiety.
6. Teach routines
   Following multiple steps in a routine will be easier when the student can SEE what they are. They will learn a routine faster when they are guided with visual supports so they don't make a lot of mistakes.
7. Organize materials in the environment
   Where are the things we need? Is it clear where to put supplies away when it is clean up time?
8. Organize the space in the environment
   Can the student identify his own space to work or play or sit? Which parts of the environment can he use and which parts are "off limits?"
9. Teach new skills
   Learning to operate a new toy or piece of equipment. Learning a new task or academic skill.
10. Support transitions
    Stopping one activity to start another. Moving from
    one environment to another. Anything that involves a
    shift or change.
11. Stay on task
    Remembering what the current activity is and staying involved with it until it is completed.
12. Ignore distractions
    Helping students consciously focus their attention on desired activities or interactions.
13. Manage time
    How long is 5 minutes or one hour? How much time is there before a transition in the schedule? Time is invisible. Timers and clocks turn time into something students can SEE.
14. Communicate rules
    People presume students know the rules. That is often not true. Perhaps they don't remember. Or they don't understand. Or they get too impulsive. Etc., etc.
15. Assist students in handling change
    Preparing for something that is going to change. Preparing students when something will be different from what they normally expect can prevent lots of problems.
16. Guide self-management
    Students need to learn how to manage their behavior by making acceptable choices when they get anxious or encounter a problem.
17. Aid memory
    Remembering what to do or when to do it. Remembering what something is called or what someone's name is. (Think about how many ways you provide cues for yourself!)
18. Speed up slow thinking
    Some students have lots of information in their brains, but it takes them a very long time to access it. Visual cues can speed that process.
19. Support language retrieval
    Did you ever have an experience where you know someone's name but you just can't remember it? Or you know what something is but can't recall the word? Once you hear it or see it you instantly remember. (The older we are, the worse it becomes!) Students can experience the same challenges in remembering.
20. Provide structure
    Structure means organized and predictable. Strive for an environment that provides visual organization and information.
21. Learn vocabulary
    Create a personal dictionary with pictures and words of important vocabulary: names of people, favorite toys or videos or activities or places. Students will learn that information when they can access it over and over.
22. Communicate emotions
    Students demonstrate a variety of emotions with their
    actions. Translating those responses into pictures or
    written language gives an opportunity to explain, clarify or validate their experience.
23. Clarify verbal information
    What I understood might not be what you meant.
    Making it visual helps clarify our conversation. It
    eliminates the confusion.
24. Organize life information
    Think of phone numbers, calendars, cooking instructions, shopping lists, social security numbers, appointments, etc.
25. Review & remember
    One of the greatest benefits of making something visual is that you can keep it. Verbal language flies away. It disappears. Keeping visual information to review over and over helps students remember and understand.

Have YOU attended Visual Strategies on TOUR? Plans are
being finalized for fall and winter dates. Can you join me in one
of these cities?

Check these locations:

• Schaumburg (Chicago), IL
• King of Prussia (Philadelphia), PA
• Dallas, TX
• Richmond, VA
• Kansas City, MO
• Santa Ana, CA
• Murfreesboro (Nashville), TN

I am totally convinced that it is more important to master the use of visual strategies for effective communication than almost any other teaching strategy you can learn. The Visual Strategies Workshop has helped thousands of people do that.


Since summer is the perfect time for regrouping, retooling, rethinking, remaking, and remembering . . . . I convinced QuirkRoberts Publishing to have a SPECIAL SUPER SUMMER SALE!

The Visual Strategies Workshop is on SALE!

But wait . . . . There's MORE!

I have been learning to use some new technology. So, I decided to practice by creating a new DVD program titled Engineering the Classroom with Visual Strategies. It's packed with step-by-step procedures to make environments communication friendly.

This DVD ($29.95 value) has not been released for purchase yet, but I gave permission for it to be included as a FREE BONUS for anyone purchasing the Visual Strategies Workshop.

Visual Strategies Workshop on SALE

Plus a FREE BONUS

Offer will last only until September 13.

Are you a techie?

Or are you one of those people who tell me you aren't very comfortable with the digital world?

So, here's my question. . . .

Did you ever read an e-Book?

E-Books are a fabulous way to get more great information . . . FAST. When you make a selection,
the best part is that you get to download your book right away.
No waiting for the mailman to deliver anything.

E-Books can be long or short. Most important, they are convenient.

This is especially good news for international readers. You can get
e-Books without worrying about shipping costs or customs charges.

Are you planning for your staff
in-service training for next year? Do you ever get complaints about boring programs filled
with useless information?

Visual Strategies Workshops are packed with lots of practical "how-to" information that participants can take back to
use the next day.

Here is what one program planner said
"In my 25 years+ of educational experience
(14 as an admin), I have never seen a group of
educators so attentive!" - Administrator

Give your educators effective tools to make a difference
with their students.

Readers of the award-winning Autism Asperger's Digest know they'll find practical,
in-the-trenches tested strategies and information in every issue of the magazine. Since its debut in 1999, that's been its trademark: real life information and real life solutions for meeting the real life challenges of ASD.


But it doesn't stop there. In addition to informative articles and do-it-now help, there's also soul- satisfying inspiration to keep spirits and motivation high, all rolled up in an unswerving positive attitude about these kids and their abilities.

That's the Autism Asperger's Digest - a magazine focused on offering ways you can be a "can do" parent or teacher and help those on the spectrum be "can do" kids, teens and adults.

Experience for yourself why tens of thousands of people around the world read the Autism Asperger's Digest.

Gold Winner, 2006 MarCom Creative Award
Gold Winner, 2007 NAPPA Parenting Resources Awards

Linda Hodgdon, M.Ed., CCC-SLP is a Speech- Language Pathologist and a Consultant for Autism Spectrum Disorders. She is the author of the bestseller, Visual Strategies for Improving Communication, one of the most recommended books in the field of autism.

Internationally recognized as a powerful and informative speaker and consultant, Linda has presented her insightful and dynamic workshops to audiences of educators and parents worldwide.

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