We use hand drawn, hand written, or pictures as visual cues in our classroom. This allows the student to see what is coming up, where they need to go, what they will need, what behaviors they need to use, how close they are to earning their reinforcer, or how to self-calm.

Anything that you typically would have to verbally remind a student about, we use a visual for. Pointing and using a visual is far more empowering than just telling our students because it is teaching them to take cues from their environment, not from a specific adult.

Social stories can be used to:

• develop self-care skills and academic abilities

• help someone to understand how others might behave or respond in a particular situation

• help a person to cope with changes to routine and unexpected or distressing events

• as a behavioral strategy

How do social stories help?

Social stories present information in a literal, 'concrete' way, which may improve a person's understanding of a difficult situation or activity. They can help with sequencing (what comes next in a series of activities) and 'executive functioning' (planning and organizing).

Structured teaching focuses on:

• External organizational supports to address challenges with attention and executive function

• Visual and/or written information to supplement verbal communication

• Structured support for social communication

This method supports meaningful engagement in activities. It also works to increase students’ independence and self-efficacy. 

Structured teaching uses organization and supports in the classroom to help the students learn:

1. Physical organization

2. Individualized schedules

3. Work systems

4. Visual structure of materials in tasks and activities

I tell many parents, structured teaching is a lot like a “To Do List”. As adults, we will make a to do list- 1) Bank, 2) Post Office, 3) Grocery Store, 4) Starbucks.

When students in Room 132 use work boxes/systems, they have 3 tasks visual in front of them along with a reward.

In Room 132, we hand the keys of our student’s program over to them and teach them to drive it! We target specific behaviors we'd like to see from students and then teach them how to self-reinforce with tokens or tallies. It takes some practice and periodically we will need to cross reference how accurate they are being, but it can be a big jump in getting students to do more on their own.