Most of us use visual supports in our daily lives--for example, a shopping list, calendar, or a roadmap. Visual supports are particularly beneficial to people with autism because they help make abstract concepts concrete and capitalize on the user's inherent visual learning strengths.

Visual Supports for People with Autism shows parents and educators how incorporating these aids while teaching can improve academic performance, behavior, interaction with others, and self-help skills. In a friendly, conversational-style, the authors, both certified behavior analysts, describe the deficits typical of autism--language, memory, temporal sequential skills, attention, motivation, and social skills--and present strategies to use visual supports to address those issues at school and home. This guide presents an abundance of examples, illustrated by dozens of black & white and color photos, including:

• activity schedules
• calendars
• charts
• checklists
• color coding
• flip books
• graphic organizers
• mnemonics
• nametags
• photo boards
• Power Cards
• scripts
• Social Stories
• to-do lists
• video modeling

Visual Supports also explains considerations such as portability, durability, preferences, age appropriateness, and effectiveness. While visual supports can enhance learning, they should, however, eventually be eliminated to avoid over-dependence on them. An entire chapter describes different ways to fade visual supports.

With this book, there's no limit to what can be taught, from fostering social interaction by using a graphic organizer of conversational talking points to learning to put away toys from video modeling. Most of the visual supports presented in this book are low-tech and easy-to-use, making it simple for parents and professionals to create their own, suited to the needs of their students. Inspiring success stories will further motivate parents and professionals to get started.

Reviews

"Visual supports is a formal term for referring to those tricks and methods that help us in our daily routines, e.g., to-do lists, maps, calendars, and highlighting text. For those with autism spectrum disorders, visual supports can aid in compensating for weaknesses with processing auditory input, particularly speech. Cohen and Sloan, both certified behavior analysts with the Douglass Developmental Disabilities Center at Rutgers University, write clearly and base their work on such strong sources as David Sousa's How the Brain Learns and the works of Mel Levine. The more than 140 illustrations and photographs provide inspiration for how to 'draw on your child's strengths to support areas of weakness,' which should be a goal for all educators and parents.

Adding to the book's many practical suggestions are an informative chapter on how to fade visual supports when appropriate and an extensive list of references and recommended reading. Although this guide is written for parents and teachers and none of the supports is difficult or expensive to create, it will probably be used mainly as a reference by teachers. Recommended for academic libraries and public libraries with autism collections."
-Library Journal, April 15, 2007

Contents

Acknowledgments

Foreword
By Jan S. Handleman

Introduction
Unlocking the Door: How Visual Supports Can Help

Chapter 1
The Features of a Good Visual Support

Chapter 2
Some Commonly Used Visual Supports: A Primer

Chapter 3
How Visual Supports Can Help with the Development of Language

Chapter 4
Using Visual Supports to Increase Memory: The Who, What, Where, Why and How

Chapter 5
Temporal Sequential Skills

Chapter 6
Using Visual Supports to Increase Attending

Chapter 7
Using Visual Supports to Increase Motivation

Chapter 8
Using Visual Supports to Increase Social Skills

Chapter 9
Strategies for Fading Visual Supports

Chapter 10
An Example of the Use of Visual Supports to Increase Opportunities

References

Resource Guide

Index