The Autism Society Event and Education Recordings Archive

This presentation is designed to assist parents and families in engineering the home to enhance communication and structure for children with ASD. Utilizing symbol support helps foster independence and enhances generalization. Methods for creating the need for communication will be shared to expand receptive and expressive language. Samples will be easily adaptable to fit individual needs. Environmental supports to create structure in the home will also be shared including daily routines and social activities of the home. This presentation is designed to assist parents and families in engineering the home to enhance communication and structure for children with ASD. Utilizing symbol support helps foster independence and enhances generalization. Methods for creating the need for communication will be shared to expand receptive and expressive language. Samples will be easily adaptable to fit individual needs. Environmental supports to create structure in the home will also be shared including daily routines and social activities of the home.

For years Boardmaker, with Picture Communication Symbols (PCS) has been used in school and therapy settings. This session provides parents and families an opportunity to bring the benefits of Boardmaker into the home and community settings. Using Boardmaker and symbols in the home will not only foster continuity between school and home, it will also provide the many benefits that teachers and speech language pathologists have been experiencing for years in the classroom!

This session will begin with a brief overview of the software program Boardmaker, using Boardmaker at Home, a version of the program designed specifically for home use. Parents and families attending will observe both the simplicity and the power that Boardmaker can provide in creating printable symbols and activities to be used at home. In addition, parents will observe how to import photographs into Boardmaker.

A review of the representation hierarchy will be provided so that parents and families attending will better understand the differences between using symbols, photographs from a camera, and photographs from various sources (Internet, photo-collections). This portion of the talk will help participants understand not only when each representation level is appropriate, but also how to be constantly working the child through the hierarchy by pairing images together.

The remainder of the session will provide a plethora of examples and samples to share with the group. This portion will begin with a review of symbol-based materials to engineer the home to increase communication. Strategies for organization will be shared, as well. Samples shared will address communication, both receptive and expressive, in various areas of the house and surrounding various conversational topics. Topics addressed will include meal time, morning/afternoon/evening routines, bath time, play time, free time and more.

The next portion of this session will review increasing the structure and predictability of the home and community by using visual schedules. Strategies introduced will include symbol schedules that demonstrate completion, completion guidelines, waiting assists, vaguely worded schedules, scheduled unpredictability, car schedules and more. Families will find the samples shared invaluable in using visual schedules across many home routines, events and potentially difficult transition times.

This last portion of samples that will be shared will be those symbol-based examples that are used to improve the social skills of children with ASD. A variety of strategies will be reviewed, all with symbol-adaptations using Boardmaker for creation.

Paired with the release of Boardmaker at Home, a new version of Boardmaker now available to better meet the financial needs of many families, this session will explore the many ways that parents, siblings, and extended families can use symbols and photos to increase the success of their loved ones with ASD at home and in the community. With the field's knowledge of the immeasurable benefits of creating a highly visual world for children with ASD, this session is firmly rooted in those beliefs. By providing a means for parents to bring symbols into the home using organized, proven strategies, this session will help strengthen the home-school/therapy connection and will leave both families and professionals thrilled with the results.

One copy of Boardmaker at Home will be provided as a door prize in this session.

Learning Objectives: