Teachers spend enough time planning lessons. They should not have to spend another hour searching the internet for the right picture, checklist, or visual. Visual supports for special education can help make social, safety, hygiene, relationship, and daily living concepts more concrete. The bigger challenge is often finding visuals that match what you are teaching and respect the age of the learner.
Think about some of the skills educators teach every day.
What does enough personal space look like?
Where is it appropriate to change clothes?
What comes next when taking a shower?
How much toothpaste should someone use?
What information is okay to share with a friend?
What makes a place public or private?
We can explain each of these concepts with words. However, some learners may benefit from another way to access the information.
A visual gives them something they can see, revisit, and connect with the skill being taught.
If you are looking for visual supports you can use with students right now, you don’t have to purchase anything to get started. Healthy Relationships offers free sample resources so you can see examples of the materials and how they connect with social, safety, hygiene, relationship, and daily living skills.
You can also start a free trial of Healthy Relationships to explore more of the visuals, videos, lessons, and other teaching resources with your students. That gives you an opportunity to see how the materials fit the learners you support before deciding whether Healthy Relationships is right for your classroom or organization.
Why Visual Supports for Special Education Can Help
A visual does not replace good instruction.
Instead, it can make part of that instruction easier to see.
Imagine telling a student to “use an appropriate voice volume.” Those words may not clearly explain what you mean. A visual scale showing different voice levels gives the student something more concrete to reference.
The same idea applies to personal space. We can tell someone to “move back a little,” but a visual can help show what a comfortable distance may look like.
Visual supports can also help with routines. Rather than asking a learner to remember every step involved in brushing their teeth, washing their hands, or taking a shower, an educator can provide a visual sequence that breaks the routine into smaller pieces.
Research supports the intentional use of visual supports with learners with autism. The START Project at Grand Valley State University describes visual supports as an evidence-based practice that can help clarify expectations, support communication, and give students tools to participate more independently in classroom routines and activities.
That does not mean every picture found online automatically becomes an evidence-based intervention. Educators still need to consider the learner, the skill, the purpose of the visual, and how they will use it during instruction.
The visual should support the teaching, not simply decorate it.
Make an Abstract Skill More Concrete
Some of the most important social and life skills are difficult to explain because we cannot always point to one simple answer.
Consider friendship.
What does being a friend actually look like?
Or privacy.
What makes information private?
Even personal space changes depending on the relationship, setting, and situation.
These concepts can become clearer when learners have something visible to connect with the words they hear.
That does not mean we should remove conversation, direct instruction, demonstrations, or practice. Instead, the visual becomes another way into the concept.
Healthy Relationships uses this approach across social, relationship, safety, hygiene, and life skills. The program includes visual supports alongside lessons, videos, role plays, demonstrations, and activities so educators can present the same concept in different ways.
You can see what’s included in Healthy Relationships to explore how these different instructional resources work together.
The goal is not to make the concept different each time.
The goal is to make the same concept easier to understand.
Visual Supports Are Not Only for Social Skills
When we hear “visual supports,” we may immediately think about classroom schedules, communication boards, or social skills.
Those are certainly important uses. However, visual instruction can also support many daily living and personal care skills.
Consider everything involved in getting ready for the day.
A learner may need support with bathing and showering, dental care, handwashing, toileting, bathroom safety, choosing where it is appropriate to undress, or organizing a bedroom and sleeping area.
Each broad skill contains smaller pieces.
For example, “take a shower” sounds like one instruction. In reality, showering requires a person to remember a sequence of actions. A visual checklist can help break that larger task into steps the learner can see and follow.
Healthy Relationships includes visual supports across these areas. The program’s visual resources include cue cards and checklists, including a 30-page visual checklist booklet with step-by-step hygiene and self-care supports.
That is important because independence does not always begin with doing an entire routine alone.
Sometimes it begins with remembering the next step.
Age Appropriate Visual Supports Matter
Finding a picture online is easy.
Finding the right picture can be much harder.
An educator may discover a visual that teaches exactly the right skill, only to realize that it was clearly designed for a young child.
That matters when teaching middle school, high school, transition-age, or adult learners.
A 17-year-old who needs support with showering is still 17.
A 20-year-old learning about public and private places is still 20.
Someone who needs concrete instruction about relationships, hygiene, safety, or privacy does not need to be treated as younger because they benefit from visual support.
Clear does not have to mean childish.
Simple does not have to mean immature.
Visual supports for special education should help make information understandable while still respecting the learner’s age and dignity.
Healthy Relationships intentionally brings together real-life images, visual cue cards, checklists, scenarios, and other visual teaching materials that educators can use with learners across different ages and developmental stages.
Stop Searching for a Different Visual Every Time
There is another practical problem educators know well.
You need a visual for tomorrow’s lesson.
You search online.
You find one for personal space from one website. Then you find something about privacy somewhere else. Your hygiene visual comes from another source. The next teacher uses a completely different picture and different language.
Individually, those resources may all be useful.
Together, however, they may not provide much consistency.
That is one reason visual supports for special education can be even more useful when they connect with the rest of the instruction.
We have discussed before why consistent repetition can matter when teaching social skills. Learners may hear the same idea from teachers, counselors, therapists, paraprofessionals, families, and other support people. When everyone uses completely different language and materials, recognizing the common concept may become harder for some students.
Consistency does not mean every learner receives identical instruction.
It means educators have a common starting point.
Connect the Visual to What Students See and Practice
A visual becomes more meaningful when it connects with the rest of the lesson.
Suppose an educator teaches personal space.
Students first see a visual showing an appropriate distance. Next, they watch a video with real people demonstrating personal space. Then they discuss what they noticed. Finally, they practice the skill through a role play or real-life interaction.
The instructional format changes.
The concept does not.
Healthy Relationships was designed to bring those pieces together. Visuals connect with lessons. Videos reinforce concepts. Role plays and demonstrations give learners opportunities to practice.
Our recent article about using videos to teach social and life skills explored why seeing a skill modeled can add another layer to instruction.
Visuals and videos do not have to compete for the learner’s attention.
They can reinforce one another.
See it.
Watch it.
Talk about it.
Practice it.
Then look for opportunities to use the skill in real life.
Visual Supports for Special Education Should Fit the Learner
Having a large collection of visuals does not mean every student needs every visual.
Educators still need to individualize.
One student may need a detailed visual sequence for an entire hygiene routine. Another may need only a reminder for one step.
Someone learning about relationships may benefit from pictures and examples. Another learner may understand the concept with a few written prompts.
The visual should meet a need.
That is also why educators should pay attention to how the learner responds. Is the visual helping the student understand the skill? Are they becoming more independent? Do they still need the same amount of support? Would another format make the concept clearer?
Good instruction remains responsive to the person in front of us.
The resource supports the educator.
The educator teaches the learner.
Try Visual Supports With Your Students for Free
Sometimes the easiest way to decide whether a resource will work is to see it.
Better yet, use it.
Healthy Relationships provides free sample materials that educators can explore right now. The sample materials include lesson information and a Visual Cue Card Sample, along with other resources that show how the program approaches social, relationship, hygiene, safety, and life skills.
You do not have to purchase Healthy Relationships to take the next step.
You can also start a free trial of Healthy Relationships and explore the materials yourself. More importantly, the trial gives you an opportunity to begin using resources with the students you actually teach.
Look at the visuals.
Explore the lessons.
Watch the videos.
Think about the concepts your students need right now.
If you prefer something you can review away from the screen, you can also request a Healthy Relationships sample packet.
And if you are searching for help with a particular skill or population, you do not have to figure it out alone. Meet with the Healthy Relationships team and tell us what you are trying to teach. Our team includes special education teachers, supervisors, and counselors who can help you explore whether the available resources fit your needs.
Spend More Time Teaching and Less Time Searching
Educators will always need to individualize instruction.
That does not mean they should have to create every resource from the beginning.
If you need to teach personal space, privacy, relationships, bathing, dental care, handwashing, bathroom safety, boundaries, communication, or another important life skill, the first question should not have to be:
“Where am I going to find something to teach this?”
Visual supports for special education can give learners another way to see and understand the concept. When those visuals connect with videos, lessons, demonstrations, and opportunities for practice, educators can build a more consistent learning experience.
Most importantly, the materials should help you get to the part that matters.
Teaching.
Because sometimes the resource you need should not be another hour of searching away.
It should be ready when your student needs it.
Author: Annie Smith, M. Ed. — Behavioral Health Specialist