Children with Autism: A Visual Approach to Communication

Post Reply New Topic

Hi

Thought i would finally contribute to this forum

My name is Una and i'm Psychiatric Nurse from England. I wrote a short blog post about the use of visuals when communicating with a autistic child. In our hospital ward we found this especially useful.

Children with Autism: A Visual Approach to Communication

A child with autism uses visuals as his or her first language. In fact, all the written and spoken words take a visual form in the mind of an autistic child. This can become a unique advantage for the child if it motivates in the right direction.
Every child can create his or her unique imagining technique to create pictures and sounds for words. Some even use sounds and music to understand complex topics such as math.

Being a visual thinker is useful in many ways for the child with autism. For example, Temple Grandin, who is a famous engineer and a scientist, has autism and uses visual thinking.

In many children with autism, a visual learning approach works best. This eliminates the issues of verbal and language barriers and allows the child to understand emotions, ideas, and facts easily. Visual thinking can be used to improve social interactions and teach various skills to the child. Pictures, as well as symbols, can help an autistic child learn math better than written formulas. So, instead of writing "wash your face" on the bathroom door, you should put a picture of a child washing his face. This would help your child understand and remember this task. Many daily tasks can get more comfortable for the child if you teach them with the right approach. Sorting clothes, folding washing and others techniques are teachable to the child. All you have to do is put visual reminders in the right places or show to the child at the right time.

Here are a 3 tips for parents and teachers to incorporate visual thinking when teaching a young child with autism:

Design a visible structure

The concentration level differs in children with this condition. So, you have to design a structure that is convenient for the child. Whether you want to teach general everyday tasks or educate a concept, you must decide a set period. During this time, you can take a small portion of the idea and turn into visuals.

Using visual aspect of learning
Photographs, picture cards, line drawings, and other items are perfect for tapping into the visual aspect of teaching the child. You can use stickers in the daily life of the child. Divide different set of visuals into different parts of the schedule and offer a convenient environment, so that the child can quickly absorb the learnings.

Use communication devices
For young children, a communication device offers an exciting way of learning. You can choose a portable device with colorful pictures and signs. Then, encourage the child to press the correct keys to communicate. This will slowly help in improving the speaking skills.

Hope that helped.

I have a book available called 11 Principles Every Child With Autism Wished You Practiced: A Parents Guide to Raising a Child with Autism. It would mean so much to me, if you had a read and left a review.

Welcome to WP, Una.

I certainly agree that finding ways to introduce different learning styles is very important, and not only when we're children; I've experienced many times in adulthood that I can struggle with, say, being taught the tasks of a new job, because the medium used was a poor fit for the way that autism affects my perception and cognition.

My only criticism is that statements like these are too absolute and prescriptive. It is true that many autistic people do think primarily visually, and the teaching styles that you are promoting could be very valuable in those cases. However, the ways that autistic people's perceptual and cognitive processes work can be very diverse. For example, my cognition is extremely language based; I was a precocious reader as a child (hyperlexia), and I have visual aphantasia, so I struggle to think visually even if I really need to! The hardest kind of learning for me isn't linguistic, it's watching a physical demonstration; I can't translate an instructor's movements into similar movements of my own body (I can be pretty dextrous, it just takes a lot of trial and error and dropping things to get there!)

Of course, it's easy to slip into generalisations when trying to speak or write concisely (I do it often!), so I hope you don't find this criticism in your very first reply unfriendly; I'm not trying to scare you off, honest!