Schedule Communication BoardsThe following was submitted by Theresa
Otley
. Her students are
typically children with sensory integration needs. They often
have extra difficulties with transitions. These boards are especially
useful for this population, but still very relevant to any special
education class where structure is an important part of the children's
needs. You may e-mail Theresa directly if you have questions about
how to use her boards.
Theresa writes: "Attached is a communication board idea that I got from seeing some materials from a recent Augmentative Workshop presentation by a lady named Barbara C. Bloomfield. Barbara works with the autistic population, and her ideas inspired me to create the attached communication board. Feel free to adapt it and use it any way that may help your class. I made one board for each student, laminated them and put Velcro loop in each of the three red boxes. Then I made a set of symbols for each student and laminated them too. Next I put the soft Velcro on the backs of all of the symbols. The whole thing is put together as a communication notebook to travel from home to school. The "What's Next" box lists the symbols to show the day's schedule, we put one symbol at a time in the "Time To" box to indicate that it's time to do what ever is pictured there, and then the symbol is put in the "all done" box when the child has done the task."
Download a zip file of the four communication boards. All four attachments use Boardmaker, the PC version. WHAT1.BKR is the actual communication board. GRID.BKR is a blank grid so you can add your own symbols if you want to. 1GRID.BKR and 2GRID.BKR are some home and school activities. I used phrases on all of the pictures, rather than one word so that the whole thing makes good sense when it is all put together. The literacy part is very important with this population I think. Have fun!
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