Our house is very chaotic and I am trying to structure our day a little better so I'd like to introduce a schedule of sorts. Here is a sample of what I have so far. Any suggestions, changes or things I should add? Thanks! I need all the help I can get....
AFTERNOON ACTIVITY SCHEDULE
GET OFF BUS
WATCH TV AND SNACK (UNTIL 4:00)
JOINT PLAY – ARTS & CRAFTS (10 MIN)
FREE PLAY (45 MIN)
DINNER (5:00)
1:1 TIME WITH MOMMY (30 MIN) (6:00)
JOINT PLAY
OR
V-SMILE (30 MIN)
BATH TIME (7:00)
OR
JOINT PLAY
FREE PLAY
COOKIE TIME
BRUSH TEETH
STORIES/QUIET PLAY
BED TIME (8:15)
The schedule looks great...where are you getting the pictures...did you take them yourself or are you getting them from internet printing or did you purchase pics?
We had a picture schedule for quite a while until he wouldn't participate anymore. Once he started school he wouldn't have anything to do with it any more. Now I have a regular calender and just point out the days/months etc and what activities that are planned if any.
Looks great...good luck,
Karrie
You can take photos of the kids doing those things. There are TONS of great ways to create these schedules to involve kids especially those who are not reading yet. One of my favorites is this. Get a stiff board of some kind. Take photos of your kids doing the things on the schedule. Laminate these photos so they'll hold up. Set up the board vertically with two vertical rows of velcro dots paralell. At the top of the first row, write TO DO. On the top of the second row write DONE! Then put velcro dots on the back of each photo and put the photos in order, first to last going top to bottom, down the left row under TO DO. Every time your child DOES the thing in the schedule, have him go over to the schedule and move the photo from the To Do row to the DONE! row. The last picture should be a photo of a reward. Have a variety of rewards and post a different one each day. Our kids tend to be VERY visual, so this is VERY motivating
I am a very visual person, too, and I've helped myself become more organized by using my OWN visual schedule. It can work for older ASD kids and us moms. What I did was print out a list of the dozen or so daily chores I need to get done EACH DAY. You know, tidy the bathroom, make the bed, empty the dw, load the dw, figure out dinner, run a laundry, put away the laundry, etc., etc. I laminated this list (cold lamination sheets are available at office stores) and I velcroed it to the side of my fridge. I don't use it anymore because I'm on automatic pilot, but what I used to do was use a dry erase marker to cross off each job as it got finished. The very act of crossing the chore off was very motivating for me and the velcroed list never got lost like MOST to do lists did. Also, SEEING this list every day and DOING the things in the same order really helped make the whole routine, well, ROUTINE. This same format has worked BEAUTIFULLY with my PDD-NOS son. It is the one silver lining to liking sameness. Use it and you'll finally get a BENEFIT from autism
We use them all the time, she responds great. They use them at childcare and early learning. I highly recommend them to everyone as a first thing to try if your child has problems with transitioning.
Sarlet will go get the next card in the schedule when asked "whats next" and put it in the finished box at the end.
You can use one of those "brag book" types of photo albums grandmas carry. Numbering what happens first, what happens next, etc., works great with many kids who are obsessed with numbers. You can also have a visual picture schedule taped to your son's desk. These things help our kids makes sense out of what, to them, is a very random world. It's their map, their guide. It helps lower the anxiety and organize their brains. Google "visual picture schedules" and I'll be you come up with LOTS of fun suggestions.KK&Shay -- Are you doing this in the written word for them or with pictures? One way I was shown when DS was little to get them to purposefully play is to create a Go Play book. It's a 3-ring binder with photos of all the games and toys they like to play with and can do independently. Put each photo in an acetate sleeve. ALso take pictures of several rewards. Then, every day, select several toy pictures and one reward picture to put in the Go Play book. Get two large boxes. Put the toys in one box and label it PLAY (or use a PECS Play icon). Keep the other box empty and label it ALL DONE. Put Go Play on the visual picture schedule. Show them how to do the Go Play. They open the book to see what to Go Play today. If the first pic is a pic of a coloring book, they go to the box and get the coloring book and color a picture. When they're done, they put the coloring book in the ALL DONE box. They look a the next pic in the book. Say it's a puzzle. They do the same cycle with the puzzle. The continue going through the whole Go Play book until they get to the reward pic. Then they come to you and say All Done or indicate that in some predetermined way and you give them the reward. Each day you choose different toy pix for the book and put those toys in the PLAY box. This will keep them interested in what they get to do TODAY. Of course, you'll have to invest some time in teaching them how to do the Go Play book, starting with only one or two pix and a reward and building up. You can probably get as much as 45 minutes of occupied time that way eventually. Make sure you vary the toys AND the rewards to keep it interesting for them. The Go Play book is essentially a visual picture schedule with your visual picture schedule. Of course, you can always resort to a DVD if they are interested....I usually did that.BTW -- Having a 5yo, 3yo and 1yo occupy themselves for 45 minutes at a time is, IMHO, not very realistic even for NT kids. I know I said that the Go Play book could occupy them for up to 45 minutes, but that is really when there's one, not 3 with the group dynamic 3 can bring to bear. I'd shoot for 10 minutes at first and have more 10-minute periods, if necessary, or get up before they wake to do some chores. Unless your kids are the kind who'll watch a dvd through to the end without fighting, I don't see that there will be many 45-minute periods of playing without you present that will go totally smoothly. If you DO get them to play well together without you for 45 minutes at a time a couple of times each day, bottle whatever you're doing and sell it!
Copyright Autism-PDD.net