Running Head: VISUAL SCHEDULES 1

Visual Schedules

Hannah Walker

Franciscan University of Steubenville

EDU 348
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Visual Schedules

Young children with different diagnosed disabilities need special accommodations to

help them with everyday routines (Yinger, 1979). People take special education teachers for

granted as to the amount of work that goes into planning a set schedule and routine for their

students with disabilities. What most classroom teachers need to know is that there is improved

behavior and performance with environmental predictability. Kern & Clemens (2006) talk about

the importance of antecedent strategies in the classroom and how they create an organized and

systematic classroom environment. It is important to remember that students with disabilities

need predictability in the classroom. Therefore, to increase this much-needed predictability, there

are several strategies that could be used by classroom teachers everywhere. The physical

arrangement of a classroom should be able to accommodate students with special needs and

should foster a healthy learning environment. This means that the classroom materials and

centers should be accessible to all students, but especially students with disabilities (Wadsworth

& Knight, 1999). Included in the accessibility and organization of a classroom, should be the

classroom rules and expectations. As teachers, it is important to set the students up for success.

What better way to set students up for success than to teach them and showcase to them the rules

specific to the classroom they are in. Classroom rules will remind the students to cooperate with

one another and teach them good daily habits (Rodemacher, Callahan, & Pederson, 1998). A way

of introducing these rules in the classroom could be through the very effective use of visual

schedules. Coincidentally, visual schedules are a big proponent of increasing predictability in the

classroom and help create that healthy learning environment that is so coveted in special

education.
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Definition of Visual Schedules

Visual schedules prove to be therapeutic for children with special needs (Cramer, Hirano,

Tentori, Yeganyan, & Hayes, 2011). These visual schedules are usually displayed on the

whiteboard in the front of the classroom. The visual schedule is a list of pictures, usually

laminated, that starts at the top of the board and goes all the way to the bottom, explaining in

order what the students will be going over that day. Teachers use pictures, usually taken off of a

universally accepted program, Board Maker, to create the pictures for the schedules. Once the

pictures are printed out, the teacher will then laminate the photos and cut them into small squares

that they can either Velcro on to the board or they can use magnets and stick them onto the

board. They will put the pictures in sequential order based on where the activity is in the day.

Visual schedules are not about just putting pictures on a board and never addressing them, they

must be addressed and gone over every single day.

When teachers go into detail about schoolwork, students often tend to not give them their

full attention. With visual schedules, the students will have something aesthetically pleasing to

look at and comprehend. According to Meadan, Ostrosky, Triplett, Michna, & Fettig, (2011),

visual schedules help the students to anticipate what is coming next and increases the

independence of the students. A first/then approach is being put into effect when using visual

schedules. The students see what first needs to be done before moving on to what happens next.

This is how predictability is fostered in the classroom to help lower the rate of behaviors in the

classroom (Meadan et. al., 2011).

The specific behavior management strategy is important because it builds consistency

and predictability (Cramer et. al., 2011). It helps the students to know what is coming next,

making transitions from preferred activities to non-preferred activities easier. Cramer et. al.
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(2011) says in the study that classrooms are always changing and that they are very dynamic,

making it hard for students with disabilities to make smooth transitions, so any way teachers can

help their students should be a priority.

Review of the Literature

Assistive Technology

Technology has significantly advanced in education over the years. Because of the

advance in this technology, schools either do not provide the teachers the professional training

needed, or they do not have the resources to provide their students with these devices. If schools

do have the funds to provide the resources needed, the Picture Exchange Communication System

(PECS) is of the most commonly used assistive technology. The PECS augmentative system is

one of the most frequently used assistive technology tools schools have to offer (Charlop-

Christy, Carpenter, Le, LeBlanc, & Kellet, 2002). People use the word technology, but in

retrospect, it could simply be implemented in a binder with Velcro and laminated pictures. PECS

is a communication device used to display visual schedules and used for everyday

communication between students and teachers (Hayes, Hirano, Marcu, Monibi, Ngyuyen,

&Yeganyan, 2010). Through the use of PECS, children are encouraged to be independent and

initiate conversation with their teachers and classmates. PECS is universal among special

education and is widely accepted and encouraged.

PECS is commonly known for its success with children on the autism spectrum (Charlop-

Christy et. al., 2002). It requires very little fine motor movements of the student and does not

require any extra knowledge in sign language or any other languages other than that of the

individual student. PECS can be implemented at little to no cost. As it was said earlier, it can

either be implemented in a simple folder with Velcro and laminated pictures, or it can be
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downloaded onto an iPad for the students to use (Charlop-Christy et. al., 2002). People that are

not familiar with PECS would ask if it was a time-consuming process, and the answer to that

question would be dependent on the child. In personal experiences, the PECS system has taken

over a year before progress with behavior was found, whereas a study by Bondy and Frost

(1993) wrote that children learned the system in a mere five days.

PECS differs from other communication systems. One of the key components of PECS is

that it requires the student to initiate interaction with whomever the child wishes to communicate

to (Charlop-Christy et. al., 2002). The children are supposed to initiate the conversation so while

they are developing a spoken language, they are also working on their relationship with the

natural environment and learning how it works. Learning language will help students to express

themselves to the best of their ability, therefore decreasing the number of behaviors the students

will engage in. PECS is very popular in schools because of the benefits and the proven outcomes

it has with students' behavior and language acquisition.

Promote an Interactive Classroom

It is very important to create for students, a healthy and interactive learning environment.

Using visual schedules, there are a plethora of ways that teachers can produce this kind of

learning environment. vSked is an interactive system that allows teachers to take charge of

managing their classrooms through an interactive schedule (Hayes et. al., 2010). It is designed so

that the teacher has a master, touchscreen display at the head of the classroom for his/her own

use, but presentable to all the students. All of the students will have a handheld device that will

display the same visuals on the teacher's touch-screen board. The teacher will be able to control

all of the students' technology through the master board. This will help students to see what is

being taught on the board and will keep them actively engaged in what is happening in the
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classroom (Hayes et. al., 2010). In the study by Hayes et. al. (2010), it is made evident that

vSked is an excellent way of promoting an interactive classroom and learning environment.

vSked is an approach that is primarily targeted towards classrooms that specialize in an

intervention (Cramer et. al., 2011). It is highly aimed at students with autism and students that

have social, emotional, and visual impairments. Children with autism suffer from

communication, emotional expression, and emotional recognition impairments (Cramer et. al.,

2011). Because of these impairments, it is quite normal for these students to receive extra help or

aid in the classroom. vSked offers perfect aid and helps these children to stay on-task, manage

daily routines, and engage in social interactions with peers and adults (Cramer et. al., 2011).

Analysis/Synthesis

The number of work researchers has put into planning and preparing different types of

visual schedules is very impressive. All of the research that was reviewed is tied together in little

ways. Using assistive technology with the PECS is an interactive and accessible approach to

using visual schedules. The studies that were reviewed are similar in the fact that they all believe

using visual schedules is beneficial for all of the people involved. Not one study was found that

said that said how visual schedules were not beneficial to the students. Another common theme

that was found amongst the studies was how visual schedules are especially beneficial towards

students with autism (Cramer et. at., 2011). According to Hayes et. al. (2010), interventions

involving visual supports help students with autism to grasp and learn the information better. It is

proven that these interventions are beneficial to students with autism and emotional disabilities

in academic and social areas of their lives (Cramer et. al., 2011). Visuals and visual schedules are

a big part of what makes a running special education classroom so functional and successful.

Implications for Practice

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After reading all the articles presented above, it is important to reiterate how crucial it is

to use visual schedules with students with disabilities to increase independence and predictability

in the classroom (Kern & Clemens, 2007). Three implications for practitioners that desire to start

using visual schedules in their classrooms would be first to make sure that the schedule is

somewhere visible in the classroom where all the students can see from wherever they will be.

The second piece of advice would be to make sure the students are interacting with the schedule,

not just the teacher. It is very important for the students to be interacting and responding to the

visuals whether it be manually going up to the board and using the manipulatives, or interacting

via the vSked device (Hayes et. al., 2010). The third implication for future practice would be to

take advantage of the assistive technology associated with visual schedules. There is so much

good that can be done with technology. Using it to help students be the best learners they can be

is so important and should be high on the teacher's list of priorities.

Special education teachers must adopt this behavior management principle of using

visual schedules. Setting students up for success, rather than failure, is the true mark of a great

teacher. Through the use of visual schedules, both the teacher and students would be on the track

to creating a healthy learning environment that promotes positive behavior.

Future Directions for Research

After filing through different studies, it became evident that a lot of the information was

the same in all of the articles. I think it would be interesting to see a researcher take a different

approach to visual schedules. Perhaps it would be beneficial to hear about how students with

disabilities other than students on the autism spectrum manage visual schedules. I think it would

be refreshing to see studies where visuals were not successful by themselves and what else

needed to be modified in order to help meet the individual student's needs.

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Another area where research could potentially grow regarding visual schedules would be

where environmental predictability plays a role. There was surprisingly enough, not a lot of

studies that had to do with visual schedules increasing the amount of environmental

predictability. One would think that there would be more research in this area but to a great

surprise, there was not.

Conclusions

Students with special needs require extra appropriate measures to be added to their

learning environment. Many different accommodations and modifications are constantly being

added to students' agenda and education. Extensive research and planning are put into designing

lessons that are appropriate for meeting the needs of all the students in the classroom. Visual

schedules increase predictability in the classroom and help create a healthy learning environment

for young children. After thorough research, it is apparent that visual schedules are a vital

proponent of the special education classroom. Students with autism and learning disabilities

benefit tremendously from these added visual supports. It is evident from the studies that

assistive technology and promoting an interactive classroom are both very important and should

be fostered in the special education classroom.

This topic of visual schedules is very important in special education. Without the use of

visuals and visual schedules, it could be hard for students to make transitions. If transitions are

hard for students, behaviors in the classroom tend to come out and therefore cause disequilibrium

amongst the students. The goal is to have every student actively engaged and participating in the

classroom. Active engagement and classroom predictability are highly probable through the use

of visual schedules.
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