Part 3 concludes my series on teaching time. We’re going to finally talk about how to transition visual schedules into something more functional for our learners. You can take a look at Part 1 and Part 2 from the past weeks on the first stages (and the thought process) for teaching learner’s how to measure time. And why it’s an imperative feature of a happier life for them. Part 1 discusses why the teaching of time measurement is important. You may be surprised that it doesn’t have much to do with “social appropriateness” although someone could make that argument. More so, we touch on “why” schedules are important on a more inherent level. In that article we also discussed the basic features of a learner’s first visual schedule and how to start this process off successfully. Part 2 expands on Part 1 by lengthening the daily schedule and making it a little more complex.
Today, we begin Part 3. Please know that I’m in the process of putting together a target list that sequences possible steps that get a learner from start to finish regarding visual schedules. Stay tuned.
Visual schedules are simple. They are designed to be. They are designed to help our learning get a better grasp on the immediate future—their day. The overwhelming majority of us are visual learners. Putting pictures in a semi-definitive order and removing them from a schedule board is a great place to start.
However, at the same time, visual schedule boards aren’t very versatile or flexible (What happens when we don’t have a picture for that activity?). And—unfortunately—visual schedules are rarely used outside the classroom environment. Finally, it’s a concept that doesn’t measure time on a more sensitive level either. Visual schedules don’t give us an idea of minutes, seconds, hours, or how many days are left until Christmas or summer vacation.
So how do we bridge the gap?
Here are some ideas for getting started.
We’ve established that salience is a huge factor in regard to putting together a visual schedule. At this point, you have a series of icons depicting certain events throughout your learner’s day. In a column, you have a picture of mom’s face (for drop off), a picture of a TV (for movie time), a picture of a house (for pick up or going home) and a variety of other events from the day. All of these are things you plan to do and you have the corresponding icons arranged in the order you and your learner plan to do them. At this point they are only pictures—or icons—of the event. The stage is set.
Icon + Text for Most Salient Event(s). Now, pick 1-2 of the most salient and/or reinforcing events from that daily arrangement. These should be events that your learner has shown a history of paying more attention to on your visual schedules up until this point. In most cases these would be events that mark a large change in environment (like going home at the end of the day) OR are incredibly reinforcing to the learner (like watching a favorite movie for a bit each afternoon).
After you’ve made your decision on which of these events are the most salient, with your dry erase marker, write in the name of the event. For example, if they get 15 minutes of TV time in the afternoons (and love it), you might write “TV” next to the TV icon. If going home at the end of the day is also a significant event. You can write “Home” next to the “Home” icon.
For the remaining events that are of lesser value or less noticeable, do not write the corresponding words next to the icons. Instead, continue to remove the icons as you have been throughout the day as each event comes to a close. When you come to the event which includes the icon and the word (icon of “home” next to the word “home”, for example), have your learner remove the icon as you normally would. Also, have them erase or cross out the word next to it. You may need to do this for learners who don’t have the fine motor capabilities just yet. For example, they remove the “home” icon and erase the word “home”…then they leave for the day.
Text for Salient Events, icons for the rest. Next, the process is simple. Once the learner gets the hang of discarding the icon and erasing/crossing out the word, you’ll begin to to move to the next step. That means, when you’re making the schedule every morning and come to the predetermined salient events, you simply will write the word in, but won’t add the icon. We’ve used TV and going home as our salient events up until now. Continuing with that example, your schedule would include icons of all daily events like it normally has. However, for parts of the day where your learner would engage with television or leaving for the day, the words “TV” and “Home” would be listed. NOTE: Some BCBAs might elect to print off the word “Home” or “TV”, cut out the word, laminate the cut out of the word, and then velcro to the schedule. Either way, the picture icon for these events will have been faded out and the text will be faded in.
Rinse and Repeat. Follow this process for the next, most salient event. For example, let’s pretend that we decide to fade out the icon for drop off or “mom”. We’d follow all of the same steps. See images for process for fading the “mom” icon.
We’ll also want to make sure that your learner understands and has the ability to differentiate between the words that are already on the schedule. For our example, you’ll want to make sure that they actually can discriminate between the word “TV” and “Home”. If they can’t, they’ll have a lot of trouble with your fading out the icons. A great concurrent program to work on during this time is a receptive ID program for both words.
Write “TV” and “Home” on different index cards. Ask your learner to receptively identify each word in an array of two or more (they should select the correct index card). As they demonstrate mastery identifying both of the words from the array, you’re likely safe to fade out your next icon. In our example, we’re fading out the picture of mom and plan to write in “mom” for our text. It wouldn’t hurt, to throw the word “mom:” in that same array with the other index cards (“home” and “TV"), and continue to concurrently target getting your learner to receptively identify each word.
Follow this process for all remaining events on your learner’s visual schedule. Gradually fade the icons away so that your learner’s visual schedule is no longer a visual one and—now—is completely made up of written text. Adults call this a to-do list. In ABA, it's simply another way to help our learners understand the path that lays before them each day.
I’ll admit, I thought that this was going to be a two part series. It turned into a 3 part series. And, to be honest, it could be a 8-10 part series. I’m not going to go after the remaining parts of this series but will eventually. Those parts include expanding on to-do lists, teaching digital time, using a weekly schedule, and using a calendar. All of these start with the seed of a visual schedule and the fundamental trick with all of them is to transition your learners to a time measurement tool that is more versatile and more sensitive. If those tools do not reliably predict reinforcement and aversive events for the learner, teaching time is of little use.
I hope you’ve enjoyed this series! As always, hit me back.
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