Welcome to the Visual Supports Series, where we are taking a closer look at the concept of visual supports and its applications across a variety of settings and purposes. In Part 1, we went over some visual support basics and how we might use them. 

In Part 2, we are taking a closer look at some helpful principles for creating visual supports that will achieve their intended outcome.

There are so many opportunities to use visual supports. It can nonetheless be difficult to know when it is worth creating a visual support, and which visual support will have the effect you want. Making good visual supports inherently requires some trial and error. 

You may need to gauge the reactions of the people using the support. But there are also some principles you can start with that will help with getting closer to the target more often!

Visual supports are meant to enhance understanding and, in that sense, must themselves be easy to understand and directly focused on their purpose. While design flourishes can be a helpful way to make visual supports more fun, too much flourish without intentionality can lead to confusing visual supports that don’t clearly communicate their intended meaning. 

If you find yourself having a hard time keeping track of all the elements in your support and what theta re for, then that might be a sign it’s time to cut down!

Different visual supports work better for different people. While some visual supports are made for a larger group, there will also be times when we use visual supports as an accommodation for one or a few people. In those cases, we should do our best to tailor the support to the individual, rather than ask the individual to adhere to a more form-fitting support. 

This may also be the case in some situations where you create a visual support that is used by most people in the group but does not work for everyone. If you are taking the time to make it for one person, it’s worth going specific!

Visual supports can be helpful and a lot of fun, and it’s true that they can sometimes replace verbal instructions. But there are also times when they are intended to be supplemental! When you are creating your visual supports, make sure they are not pulling attention from other important components of your instruction/communication. 

If your visual support and verbal communication are clashing, you may accidentally create more work for yourself rather than less!

Many visual supports are simple and straightforward. Some are more complicated. Some may even require learning a system to truly be effective. So should we never make more complex visual supports? 

One helpful barometer can be thinking about whether the benefit of the support is worth the effort of learning how to interpret it. If the support is only meant to achieve a small benefit, it probably shouldn’t take that much effort for people to understand it! 

On the other hand, some more complicated visuals like organizers and schedules might be worth the effort as long as it feels helpful to the person using them. If it feels like the system is adding more effort than it’s saving, then it’s probably not the right system!

With that, we are wrapping up for the week, but we hope you’ll stay tuned for Part 3, where we will talk about some ways we can use visual supports as a teaching tool. 

In the meantime, if you want to share your thoughts on visual supports or any other topic with us, then we would love to hear from you! Just drop us a line at hello@autismgrownup.com.