Viewing Visual Supports

Through An Autistic Lens

Kourtney Moore

East Carolina University

Dr. Guiseppe Getto

What I’ll Cover

Previous Research

Research Questions

Theory

Methods

Scaling

Participants

Findings

Conclusions/Implications

Limitations

Further Research

Previous Research

Who else has studied this topic? Meadan, H., Ostrosky, M. M., Triplett, B., Michna, A., & Fettig, A. (2011).

Using Visual Supports With Young Children With Autism Spectrum Disorder. Teaching Exceptional Children, 43(6), 28-35.

Dettmer, S., Simpson, R. L., Myles, B. S., & Ganz, J. B. (2000). The use of visual supports to facilitate transitions of students with autism. Focus on Autism and Other Developmental Disabilities, 15, 163–169.

Koyama, T. & Wang, H. (2011). Use of activity schedule to promote independent performance of individuals with autism and other intellectual disabilities: A review, Research in Developmental Disabilities, 32(6), 2235-2242.

Sprinkle, E., & Miguel. (2013). Establishing Derived Textual Activity Schedules In Children With Autism. Behavioral Interventions, 28, 185-202.

Research Question

What is the main question?

Which types of visual supports are seen as most effective for an autistic child’s learning capabilities as seen by the child?

Theory

What is the overall framework used?

1. Selecting relevant words for processing in verbal working memory.

2. Selecting relevant images for processing in visual working memory.

3. Organizing selected words into a verbal model.

4. Organizing selected images into a pictorial model.

5. Integrating the verbal and pictorial representations with each other and with prior knowledge.

Methods

What specific methods were used?

Participant observation.

Creation of my own visual supports (visual schedule, script, and short story).

Scaling

What type of scale of used to measure the effectiveness?

The scale was self-created.

The scale measured if the visual supports was seen as effective/non-effective.

Participants

What types of participants were included in the study?

There was one girl and one both.

Both children were between the ages of 6 and 10.

One child had been exposed to visual supports previously, however; one child has never used visual supports in the past.

Findings

What types of patterns were presented?

Visual schedules seemed to be most effective.

Both of the children would react to various pictures differently.

Both of the children scored high, when working with visual schedules.

Findings cont.

Conclusions and Implications

What does this all mean?

Visual schedules are seen as the most effective according to the children.

Communication was only constant when the children had the visual schedules in front of them.

Limitations

Things that you may be wondering?

How accurate is my scaling approach?

Are the children too young to decide for themselves if a visual support is effective or not?

Should there have been more participants? Would the outcome be different if the study had more children to observe?

Further Research

What do my findings indicate for other researchers?

There is confirmed correlation between visual schedules and autistic children on a communication basis.

My study should be researched on a larger scale.

What is the history behind visual schedules?