One common question I get about using visual strategies involves prerequisites for success. People want to know if there are some skills to teach before using visual supports with students.

My answer to that is NO. You can start today to support your communication with visual cues and visual tools.

Just remember there are many kinds of visual supports
Objects are visual tools. Your body can be used to get attention and communicate information. So, getting in a child's visual field and holding up his coat so he can put his arms in is a great way to use visual cues and supports.

Starting with your own body and objects in the environment can be a very appropriate beginning.

Remember . . . the goal is effective communication
Visual strategies are tools used to improve communication. But for really successful communication, students need to establish a strong social connection with others. Challenges in social relationships are a core deficit in ASD.

Three essential (but invisible) foundation skills for a
social connection
Here are three important skills. They are called "invisible" because they are the kinds of things we don't think about consciously. We don't specifically teach them. They develop in most young children naturally through our typical interactions with them. But children with ASD may not develop them in the same way other children do.

1. Establishing Attention
These students are known for not having good eye contact. They don't respond consistently when people talk to them. Some of them live in a "world of their own," seemingly oblivious to those around them. Establishing attention does not mean staring at someone's eyeballs. It does mean acknowledging a person's presence.

2. Turn Taking
Social interaction requires each person to take a turn. Your turn means you are responding to the other person. Turn taking doesn't mean playing board games. A turn can be as simple as establishing eye contact when someone calls your name. Or imitating a gesture. Or it can be as complex as responding to a request or making a verbal comment about something that is happening.

3. Staying Power
This one is REALLY important. Does the student stay
"connected" with others long enough for real communication to occur? Sometimes students will establish attention or take a turn, but they do it quickly and then flee . . . either mentally or physically. The goal is to get them to stay involved with another person for increasing amounts of time.

Put them all together
I can have the most wonderful, fantastic visual tool or picture card, but if the student won't look or pay attention or stay connected with me, that visual tool won't be very effective.

When the student pays attention to me and connects
for minutes rather than fleeting seconds, more effective communication can occur.

So these are three skills to work on
There are lots of ways to do it. One of my favorites is through play. Not tea party play, but rough house play. Think of what you do with very young children. The kind of play that creates giggles & laughs. Peek-a-boo with a bath towel over your head type stuff. The silly kind of play you do when you are on your hands and knees on the floor.

Pay attention to these essential foundation skills
Spending time building these invisible skills will teach students to relate to others more effectively. They CAN learn these skills. The end result will be a better response to the visual tools you develop for supporting communication.

Copyright © 2008 Linda Hodgdon

I am collecting some information that will help us all as we use visual strategies for improving communication.

Your thoughts and experiences are important to share.


I will be sending you a series of 5 emails. You will receive one
each week for 5 weeks. Each email will contain a question for
you to answer. I promise it won't take long to answer . . . only a minute or two.

I'll really appreciate your feedback.

Your answers will be collected and shared in some future newsletters. We can all benefit & learn from each other.

Thanks for participating.

Are you looking for ways to establish a strong social connection with your students with ASD? Here is some help.

When Visual Strategies on TOUR traveled to different cities, we took a product display stocked with lots of great books and materials. These were the 2 bestsellers!

These two RDI books were the best sellers for the whole TOUR. That says a lot considering we had over 100 titles in stock.

QuirkRoberts has just a few left, so they put the books on sale on the web site. Offer good while supply lasts. Check it out.

Do you ever think about thinking? Most of us don't, unless we've gotten ourselves in a predicament and want to figure out what went wrong. Then we replay in our minds our thoughts and feelings and those of our partner(s) to see where we got off track. It's nebulous territory - and often confusing!


Imagine how difficult this can be for the child with autism, who struggles with social understanding. How do we start teaching them the social thinking that is behind every social action?

One way is by reading social thinking "guru" Michelle Garcia Winner's regular column in the Autism Asperger's Digest. Michelle has an uncanny knack of dissecting social thinking into understandable pieces and creating effective teaching strategies. It's one column not to be missed!

Autism Asperger's Digest: real life information for meeting the real life challenges of ASD.

Gold Winner, 2006 & 2007 MarCom Creative Award
Gold Winner, 2007 & 2008 NAPPA Parenting Resources Award

Linda Hodgdon, M.Ed., CCC-SLP is a Speech- Language Pathologist and a Consultant for Autism Spectrum Disorders. She is the author of the bestseller, Visual Strategies for Improving Communication, one of the most recommended books in the field of autism.

Internationally recognized as a powerful and informative speaker and consultant, Linda has presented her insightful and dynamic workshops to audiences of educators and parents worldwide.

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