Before Using:
Educators and parents/caregivers using this site may copy, adapt, and use these visuals for educational purposes with individual learners. To use, reproduce, or adapt this material in other ways, please contact powerofvisuals@outlook.com. Where supports by other authors have been included on this site, written permission has been granted for linking or usage and those locating these resources through this website must follow copyright stipulations by original authors.
Click the links below to see visuals, resources, and examples. To submit additional exemplars contact powerofvisuals@outlook.com.
Note: If your student already uses a particular symbol, replace the generic image in the visuals with your student’s specific image. With appropriate permissions, you may take pictures of the student or with their support persons within the student’s own routine. Modify images as needed to reflect students of similar age if photos of the student themselves are not used.
Schedules:
Task Strips (Mini Schedules):
Task strips are sometimes also called mini schedules or activity schedules. The task strip is used in addition to whole class and/or individualized daily (or part of day, depending on your learner) schedules to help students to understand steps within an activity, and to help learners to track where in a process they are. Task strips promote independence. It is not likely to be realistic for a teacher to create a task strip for every routine, but Supporting Neurodiverse Learners by Using Visual Supports as a Tier 1 Intervention, did find that learners were more independent, and that students were more likely to prompt each other by referring back to the task strip, when the visual support was taught explicitly to the group during instructions of how to complete a multi-step process. As such, a starting point for adding or expanding task strip use in the classroom would be to create task strips for processes that occur often and regularly throughout the school year. Examples could include creating a task strip for the writing process, for winter outdoor dressing or for circle time. Ideally, the task strip could be taught and included for the whole class, though some learners will benefit from individualized task strips.
Sample Colouring and Writing Whole Class Task Strips
Please Note: Mary Barrow, Supporting Neurodiverse Learners by Using Visual Supports as a Tier 1 Intervention and the Power of Visuals, is not responsible, or monitoring, advertising and links within external sites and does not necessarily subscribe to the philosophies of all linked organizations. Please contact site authors to express concerns and be sure to review this site’s policies before using.