Welcome back to the Visual Supports Series, where we have been taking a closer look at the concept of visual supports and their applications across a variety of settings. If you want to learn about visual supports more in-depth, we recommend checking out this AFIRM module. 

In Part 1, we talked about the basics of visual supports and how we might use them. In Part 2, we talked about some helpful design principles for creating your own supports. In Part 3, we looked at some ways to use visual supports as a teaching tool. 

In Part 4, we are taking a closer look at visual supports as an accessibility tool. 

Accessibility is a crucial consideration for making sure there aren’t unnecessary barriers facing any of the people navigating a given space. Sometimes that might involve accommodating an individual’s specific needs. Other times, it might involve considering how a given visual support might be received by everyone who sees it. 

If you want to learn about visual supports more in-depth, we recommend checking out this AFIRM module. While we may not always be able to anticipate every potential barrier ahead of time, it is important to address them to the best of our ability when we can!

One difficult reality for some people who have limited ability to verbally communicate is that they lack any tools to communicate whatsoever, even though they have the ability to do so! 

They might be forced to create their own shorthand and hope the people around them can interpret it correctly. But it can be so much easier when everyone works together to create a shared mode of communication! 

Whether it is a small number of visual cues with specific meanings or a tablet for written text, or a wider variety of symbols, visual supports can go a long way toward enabling crucial dialogue and more self-advocacy. 

It’s important to remember that the mode of visual communication should match the needs of the individual, and there is not a one size fits all option!

People can be incompatible with verbal instruction for a wide variety of reasons. Rather than forcing them to try to play to a disadvantage, we can make instruction more accessible with a visual supplement or even replacement. 

If you think some students might benefit from having visual instructions right in front of them, or maybe even a video they can repeat when needed, that is a great reason to include it for those it would help. 

In some cases, you might even find that the visual support does much of the job of the verbal instruction, and that you might not need as much verbal communication as you thought!

Is a particular work of literature a little too complex or opaque for some students? Do you want to learn Shakespeare but struggle to interpret the dated language? 

Visual supports can supplement more complex materials. It can become more accessible to people who are struggling with the original text and help with building up to the more complex text in the future! 

At AGU, for example, we have created a series of adapted novels that focus both on simplified text and a variety of visual supplements to help better enforce the basics of each story and get across central themes. 

It’s not a replacement for the full complexity and nuance of the original text, but it is still a helpful way to begin to access the meaning of the story and work toward a deeper discussion. 

There is a long tradition of using supplemental materials to enhance learning about complicated texts, and we should use them to make texts more accessible as well!

With that, we are wrapping up our Visual Supports Series (for now!), but we are not done hearing from you! If you want to see us pick up this series another time, go more in depth, or just share your thoughts on the topic, we would love to hear from you! Just drop us a line at hello@autismgrownup.com and stay tuned for more series to come.