Supporting Communication, Behavior,
and Learning with Visual Strategies
Pat Satterfield
Center for AT Excellence [email protected]
Some of this information is taken from Visual Strategies for Improving Communication, Volume 1&2, by Linda A. Hodgdon, 1995, 2011
http://praacticalaac.wpengine.netdna-cdn.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/05/Comm-Bd-collage.jpg
Agenda
•8:30 -10:00 Morning Session
•10:00 – 10:15 Break
•10:15 – 11:30 Morning Session (Continued)
•11:30 – 1:00 Lunch on your Own
• 1:00 – 4:00 Make It, Take It
Please see Deanna for your credits.
Learning Objectives
1. Participants will explain the difference between a transient and a non-transient message.
2. Participants will give three examples of activities that might be supported by visual strategies.
3. Participants will identify software and online tools that can be used to create visual supports.
4. Afternoon only: Given materials needed to make visual supports, participants will create a minimum of two examples to use with individuals they serve.
Getting Acquainted
Please introduce yourself and tell us what individuals you serve and where.
What is one thing you are hoping to learn today?
What are Visual Strategies?
Visual supports help these individuals to maintain attention, understand spoken language, sequence and organize their environment.
We can use a combination of:
• concrete items
• pictures
• symbols or printed words
Who Needs Visual Supports?
EVERYONE!
Do you use a calendar?
Keep a to-do list?
Make a shopping list before you go to the store?
Follow a recipe?
Write a note to a family member or co-worker?
Scan a menu before you order?
Use “easy to follow” instructions?
5gbfree.com
PowerPoints with just words? No charts, graphs, maps? No pictures in menus? No Graphic Organizers? No videos on YouTube on how to install a faucet?
Just Text or Text with Graphics?
Elements of Visual Communication
sites.ieee.org
Natural Visual Supports for Everyone
1. Body Language
2. Natural Environmental Cues
3. Traditional Tools for Organization and Giving Information
4. Specially Designed Tools
Visual Strategies for Improving Communication, p. 8
Who Needs Customized Visual Supports?
Young Children to Older Adults
Individuals with English as a Second Language
Autism and other Communication Disorders
Intellectual Disabilities
Attention Disorders
Central Processing Disorder
Learning Disabilities
Behavior Disorders
“But the individuals I serve…….”
• “are verbal”
• “understand what I say”
• “are just misbehaving”
• “is just not paying attention”
• “would not want to use these”
• “is too high for these”
• “already knows this”
“The use of visual strategies acknowledges the visual strength of many students and develops systems and aids to assist them in using their strengths to overcome or circumvent some of their areas of difficulty.”
Hodgdon, 2015
Just because someone understands what you say to them some of the time, does not mean that they understand all of the time…
They need less support with familiar routines.
They are good at waiting us out. If I do not understand and wait, you will help me or clarify what you want me to do.
We need to use multiple ways to increase understanding.
We need to enhance the environment for maximum learning.
“But they understand me…”
Please take a moment and think of an individual with whom you work. What kinds of supports does that individual need? As we go through the rest of the morning, be on the lookout for what might be most helpful to this individual.
Activity One
• Makes the teaching of a task more routine and consistent
• Standardizes directions and procedures among various staff
• Individuals learn to perform sequences faster
• Increases individual consistency with the task
• Builds independence
• Helps individuals to stay on task
• Supports behavior
• Enables the teaching of more complicated tasks with less supervision
http://slideplayer.com/slide/6167712/ Chase, Williams, June, 2008
Why Use Visual Supports?
Using Pictures and Symbols
Making language visible!! “A picture is worth a thousand words.”
(1,024)
Did you know that visual aids have been found to improve learning by up to 400 percent?
Did you realize that we can process visuals 60,000 times faster than text? (This is an easily found “fact” online but original research cannot be located.)
Would you guess that the average person only remembers about a fifth of what they hear? http://www.3rd-force.org/meetingnetwork/readingroom/meetingguide_pres.html
http://www.billiondollargraphics.com/infographics.html
• Transient Messages – come and gone quickly, may be missed or only partially received • Example: Spoken Instructions
• Non-Transient Messages – remain long enough to process and revisit • Example: Would you rather have a map or written directions, or have someone tell
you directions? Which one will get you to where you want to go?
“Using visual tools to mediate communication interactions and support understanding provides a non-transient foundation essential for more effective communication. It builds on individual’s strengths rather than placing more demands on their area of greatest difficulty. When visual tools are used to give these individuals information and directions, individual comprehension increases significantly. For many individuals with moderate to severe communication difficulties, the use of visually supported communication is more effective and efficient than just talking to them.”
Visual Strategies for Improving Communication , p18
Transient vs Non-Transient Messages
Whenever Needed! Everywhere!
At home
At school
At work
At the park
At the library
At the doctor
At the ball game
When and Where?
Communication
• To choose
• To request
• To comment
• To share a message
• To clarify a message
• To support positive behavior
• To model communication
• To introduce new vocabulary and concepts
Engineering the Environment – Visuals that Stay in Place
Engineering the environment is embedding augmentative communication into the classroom, home, day program in a way that ensures that individuals have access to opportunities for communication where they need it.
Engineering the environment(s) is the base foundation for modeling, training, teaching, using aided language stimulation.
Giving opportunities to communicate, teach in natural settings, and use pictures as your second language.
www.gpat.org
Visuals on the Go
You are planning an outing with a group of individuals. Where will you be going? Who will you interacts with? What kinds of messages might you want to say?
Activity Two
Aided Language Stimulation
Pointing to pictures (and words) while you are talking or singing.
www.setbc.org
www.pinterest.com
Person-Centered or Group Supports
Visuals for Literacy
Alphabet, Phonics, and Word Family Activities
Adapting Books with Pictures and Symbols for Greater Understanding
Picture-Supported Text
Adapted Comprehension Activities – WH questions, Fill in with Pictures
Vocabulary Building Activities
Graphic Organizers – Sequence, Organize information
Picture-Supported Text for Reading and Writing
• Symbolate in Boardmaker • To create materials
• Writing with Symbols • Word processing with symbols
• Pixwriter • Word Processing with symbols
• Clicker Apps • Building sentences with words
and pictures
• Clicker 7 • Word processing from symbols
Building Vocabulary with Pictures
Researchers at Georgetown University Medical Center’s Department of Neuroscience published their findings Tuesday in The Journal of Neuroscience. The paper, “Adding Words to the Brain’s Visual Dictionary: Novel Word Selectively Sharpens Orthographic Representations in the VWFA,” demonstrates the brain’s ability to adapt and learn to recognize new words. The brain can add new words to its “visual dictionary” even if they are made up and have no meaning attached to them, the researchers found.
http://www.newsweek.com/your-brain-learns-new-words-pictures-so-you-can-read-faster-316778
Visuals for Writing
• Adding a Word and Picture to a Sentence
• Sequencing Pictures to Make Sentences
• Sequence of Events to Support Drafting
Visuals for Math
Counting – practice within current topic
Basic Operations
Time
Money
Visuals for Science and Social Studies
Graphics Organizers – Cycles, Timelines
Vocabulary Support
Maps
Visuals for Behavior
• Maintaining Attention
• Completing Tasks
• Increasing Awareness of Emotions
• Managing What to Do Feelings
• Social Stories
Visuals for Work and Daily Living
Learning a New Task, Managing Breaks
Performing Routine Activities –
Shopping, Cooking, Laundry
Making Your Visual Displays
• Photos
• Digital Pictures from the Internet
• Magazine pictures
• Symbol libraries • Boardmaker 6
• Picture It!
• Internet symbol libraries • Boardmaker Online
• Symbolstix
• Widget Online
• LessonPix
Progression to Symbols
First we present the real object.
Then we present a realistic graphic.
Finally we present a symbol.
We are moving from concrete to abstract in the understanding of what is being talked about.
• Text? • Top
• Bottom
• Not at all
• Color for visual enhancement or parts of speech • Background
• Border
• Title Bar
What Difference does Color and Location Make?
• Modified Fitzgerald Key
• Blue: Adjectives
• Green: Verbs
• Yellow: Pronouns
• Orange: Nouns
• White: Conjunctions
• Pink: Prepositions, social words
• Purple: Questions
• Brown: Adverbs
• Red: Important function words, negation, emergency words
• Grey: Determiners
• Goossens,’ Crain, and Elder
• Pink: Verbs
• Blue: Descriptors
• Green: Prepositions
• Yellow: Nouns
• Orange: Questions, negation, pronouns, interjections
Approaches to Color Coding
Tools for Making Visuals
Symbol Libraries
• Boardmaker 6 or Online
• Symbolstix – online
• Lesson Pix -Library plus templates to make activities, sort by speech sounds
Digital images
• personal pictures
• Internet
Accessible Learning Activities Using Symbols
PowerPoint – activities with pictures or symbols, voice, animation or print
Pictello app – take a real picture or video, add text and voice and make a story or social story
Boardmaker Online – Boardmaker Plus activities to share
Vizzle – Online Premade activities or make your own
Ablenet – Online Classroom Activity Center- free 30-day trial
Clicker 7 or Clicker apps – Clicker Sentences, Clicker Connect
HelpKidzLearn – ChooseIt! Maker 3 activities
Classroom Suite, Overlay Maker, and IntelliKeys – now free for all
Integrating Visual Supports Takes Time!
• It takes time to establish a Means of Communication and Social Interaction
• It takes time to promote Language and Speech Development
• It takes time to support Cognitive Development, Enhance Work and Educational Opportunities
• It takes time to enhance Social Participation
• How? • Aided Language Stimulation • Engineering the Environment
www.gpat.org
Resources
• Special Education Teachers on Facebook
• Visual Supports for Visual Thinkers by Lisa Rogers
• Visual Strategies for Improving Communication by Linda Hodgdon
• Teachers Pay Teachers https://www.teacherspayteachers.com/
• Dept of Education Resource Board http://admin.doe.k12.ga.us/gadoe/sla/agps.nsf
• Pinterest by Topic
Pat Satterfield
Center 4 AT Excellence
Dunamis Educational Foundation
Make It, Take It Instructions
• Please choose 3 visual supports or communication displays to make initially. If the folder is down to just the Master copy, check with Pat or Deanna about getting more copies. You can choose other materials after everyone has chosen their first set.
• Scissors, glue sticks, Velcro dots, and construction paper are available.
• Pat will be available to create custom displays for your classroom. Deanna will help to facilitate the lamination of your materials.
• If you would like to have any of the PPs that go along with safety or other topics, I can email them to you but will not be able to print them on-site.