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Many children with autism are visual learners. Showing a child a picture can be much more meaningful than telling a child what to do. Pictures can aid a child’s learning and support them to be independent.
An example of using pictures or symbols to aid learning and independence: dressing and undressing
Dressing and undressing can often be a challenge for a child with autism as it can be unclear to them which item of clothing they need to put on first. A visual picture aid sequence can show the order of clothes the child needs to put on. Once a child understands the routine of using the picture aid, the child can follow it and get dressed without having someone telling them what to put on or by physically giving them the next piece of clothing. The child is therefore able to dress them self.
Do2Learn is another great website offering free quality picture resources. These picture resources are clear black and white line drawings. As well as great picture resources, this website is very informative and details how to use picture cards for communication, schedules, behaviour and living skills. There is also a great teacher toolbox on the website with information about adapting a classroom for children with autism.
ARASAAC is the Aragonese Portal of Augmentative and Alternative Communication. This website hosts a vast range of colour and black and white pictograms, photos and the site also includes a spanish sign language video catalogue and audio files of over 17 different languages. You can search the range of pictograms and pictures easily and download single files. I also really like that you can add a spoken phrase to a photo or pictogram and insert them into a symbol creator. This is a great resource for making symbols and pictures for using at home or for preparing a child for change.
Do you know any other great free picture or symbol resources? Let me know in the comments below!
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1 Comment
Lara · October 4, 2015 at 7:58 pm
I use the three you posted above plus:
http://lessonpix.com/articles/4/Articles/Custom+Materials – They do want you to sign up for the $3 a month membership but offer quite a lot of free samples.
http://www.pictoselector.eu/ – A simpler and free Boardmaker-type program.
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