Here’s the “Part 2” to my “Part 1” article a few weeks ago about introducing visual schedules to your learner and helping them understand the passage of time in general. You can read that article but I’ll try to give a quick summary just to juice your memory.
The goal of teaching the passage of time is not to teach a learner how to be “on time” for something. Although that is a socially valid, fringe benefit—depending on the learner—but it’s not the primary reason. The primary reason for helping learner’s conceptualize time is that it gives them a comforting, secure feeling in regard to events in the future. The ability to predict future events will decrease levels of anxiety in a variety of ways. That’s why teaching time is important.
More specifically we want our learner to look toward a symbol or tool to gain access to information about the future. Half the battle is helping them understand that this “tool”—this visual schedule, or watch, or calendar—yields helpful information about their immediate environment. Token economies, first-then boards, and visual schedules can be those first tools for helping your learner get this information.
Regarding visual schedules, we concluded that there were three important components in engineering your learner’s first visual schedule. First, it needed to include events that always happen each day without question. Second, the events on the visual schedule needed to be events that marked a pronounced and salient change in the learner’s environment so that changes didn’t go unnoticed by the learner. For example, drop off, lunch, and pick up. Finally, the number of events needed to be minimal in the beginning stages—we don’t want too many icons on the token board.
TL, DR: In the beginning stages, the events/icons for a learner’s visual schedule need to be consistent, salient, and few (CSF).
Now what?
Part 2.
Start adding more events.
It's time to add more events to the schedule! Once your learner seems to understand the simple visual schedule (above), you can make it a little more complex. Before, the events were consistent, salient, and few. To make the schedule more complex, you can add more events while still keeping it consistent and noticeable.
These should be events that the therapist has control over (to keep them consistent) and ones that need more reinforcement, a change of pace, or a change in environment (to keep them salient).
In our original example, our visual schedule might have had icons for drop off, therapy, lunch, therapy again, and pick up. Since we’re fading in more events, you might consider adding icons for snack time, nap time, TV or tablet time (given that TV or tablet happens only 1-2 times per day) and/ or playground time.
Most importantly, make sure to add reinforcing events that are also very pronounced. These should be items or activities that they might not always have access to so there’s an aspect of novelty. For example, at the end of the day, right before they leave to go home, they get a Popsicle (or something high in value to them). Your learner is going to tune in to their schedule even more if the schedule gives them information about something awesome that will happen later on that day.
Decrease Salience.
Now that we're adding more events, we can start to add ones that aren't as noticeable. There are two ways to do this. First, you can add events that are pretty noticeable AND happen a lot. For example, you could begin to add icons for going to the bathroom, going to the playroom, or going to a classroom/group room if these events happen more than 3-4 times per day. You’ll note that these are all events that are still salient as they might mark a change in environment or change in reinforcement level.
Then, you can start adding more events that aren't as noticeable and are more focused on tasks. For example, you could add an icon for brushing teeth and washing hands. Or, you could divide your programs into categories like matching, hygiene, food, play, and social programs. Then, you could make an icon for each of these categories and have your therapist only focus certain programs at the same time every day.
Add a little inconsistency.
Next, we decrease consistency…kind of. We don’t want our learners losing faith in our visual schedule. Like we discussed in Part 1, an accurate visual schedule will be worth its weight in gold to a learner. It’s useful to them if it’s accurate. At the same time, we don’t want put our learners in a spot where they expect every day to be in identical order. This might cater to existing (or birth new) rigid behavior. As a result it could set them up for a different kind of failure.
Instead, have your therapist switch around 1-2 icons at the beginning of each day before your learner arrives so that the order of the visual schedule is just a little bit different. Make sure that these icons represent events that are moderate in value to the learner. For example, you might switch outdoor time with tooth-brushing time. Or maybe you switch playtime with social time. Next, gradually move around more prominent or high value activities.
A few extras.
Don’t forget that working with visual schedules can help you teach time from a variety of different angles. The concurrent/composite skills can be incredibly helpful. Note that your learner might not have all of the component skills to work on these suggestions at first. However, as they develop their manding, receptive ID, and intraverbal skills, you can go after the concept of time and predictability even more.
Manding to access/look at the visual schedule. As learners become more fluent, teaching your learner to mand for or to look at the visual schedule can be helpful. Consider turning the schedule around, over, or keeping it out of sight. Ask the learner when an event happens or what happens next. Prompt them to mand for the schedule to answer the questions.
Receptive Identification. If your learner has a repertoire for receptive identification, have your learner find certain events on the visual schedule. Ask them to point to certain events/icons on the schedule.
-Where is “potty”?
-What will we do next?
-What are we doing now?
-Where is snack?
Intraverbals. Should your learner have the component skills for it you can begin to talk to them about time. With the visual schedule present, begin asking them questions like…
-What happens next?
-What are we doing right now?
-What did we do before this?
-What comes after snack (or other event)?
-When do we go outside?
-What did do earlier?
-What are we doing later?
Whew! Hit me back with questions! Part 3 coming up next week! Also, a promised skill sequence will come eventually. Check out my others as well!
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