Visual Schedule Boards
I don't know about you, but summer was pretty crazy for us. Between traveling, late nights, long days and so many fun activities we are pretty burnt out and ready to get back to a consistent schedule. We thrive on routines over here so summer tends to be pretty dysregulating for the whole family. A few years ago I designed a visual schedule board to help us get through the day and it was a game changer. We found having a visual that laid out what the day was going to entail, whether it was the entire day or just after school, really helped my daughter's anxiety and helped with transitioning to different activities. I began tweaking and perfecting this schedule board. I added lots activities so we had lots of options. When I first created the board, I would put it together for her. As she's gotten older, she participates more and gives me input in what she wants to do every day and what she wants on her boards. Eventually, with the input of my autistic brothers, I created activity boards for kids, young adults, and adults. It's also been really great for those harder activities like going to the doctor or doing other things she doesn't love doing. She knows the non-preferred activity is coming and she can mentally prepare for it.
Visual Schedule Boards | Adults
While this was originally made for my autistic daughter with input from my autistic brothers geared toward autistics, it doesn't mean you have to be autistic to use it. This is a great tool for anybody! Any child, any adult, any teenager who struggles with needing to know what their day is going to look like could use a visual representation. I spent a lot of time with my brothers going through these with a fine tooth comb until I was sure we included as many options as possible for these downloads. I have used several different mediums to showcase the schedule boards. For my daughters, I took a picture frame and used velcro for the tiles so they could be easily moved around. When I've shown the young adult version, I've done it on a bulletin board with push pins and when I've done the adult version, I've used a magnetic white boards. I love that you can really do these boards anywhere that makes the most sense for you. I've seen them done on walls, mirrors and windows as well.
The adult version is the most robust, extensive, detailed version of this activity board. Every single one of these has the days of the week along with a section for morning, afternoon, and evening. There are cards for pretty much every single activity you can think of as an adult like taking medication, getting medication refilled, and chasing refill prescriptions from a doctor. They all revolve around medication but have different steps needed to complete each. That's just a small example of the detail we went into with these activity boards. I also tried really hard to show a lot of diversity and a lot of inclusion in these, and so you're gonna see the same thing repeated multiple times. So for going on a date, you're gonna see same-sex couples, you're going to see multiracial couples, you're gonna see white couples, you're gonna see brown couples, you're gonna see black couples because that's reality. This allows more people to be included and feel like it’s personalized to them.
Visual Schedule Boards | Youth/Students
This one is a little bit different because I add things like doing homework and group projects, things that you wouldn't need to do as an adult or as a child or student. These include things like, snacks, meals, getting ready for bed, and hygiene so you are also reminded to do them by seeing them. I also included all sorts of therapies and physical activities. I added some blank cards in every single one of the downloads so if there are activities you do that I don't list on here, you can add them yourself as well.
To assemble the boards you just need to choose your preferred method of displaying them, print out the download and laminate the cards if you want it to last longer. I like to organize items by categories in little envelopes so they are easy to access when I want to change the schedule.
Like I said, I love these. We've used this with my daughter at home and I'm toying with the idea of making one that can be used for teachers at school as well with things like fire drill, music, gym, recess, etc. so teachers aren't getting the "what are we doing today" question all the time and children can feel secure knowing what their day will look like.
You can find the downloads in the shop, enjoy!
