Picture Cards

It was suggested that we use Picture Cards to help Landon with transitions and verbal communication. Now I could have found time (not sure when) to have created my own picture cards but my parents were kind enough to buy ASD Visual Aid kit directly from the link that was provided. The kit is amazing and included 2 timeline cards to place 4 pictures at a time of the desired activity we were looking for. When the kit arrived I was like a kid on Christmas morning so excited to use this great organizational piece to help my son. The first thing I used it for was to get him dressed! Landon is going through a "naked" phase where he wants to be wearing nothing but his diaper. If we need to go somewhere we need to give him advanced warning and talk him through each step. So I used our picture cards to tell him: "We are going to put our shirt on, then we are going to put or pants on, then we are going to put shoes and socks on and then we are going to go bye-bye_____." At first Landon was hesitant to follow our picture cards. But he would listen and look as we pointed and spoke to him. Amazingly within a few minutes he would oblige to the picture we pointed to. TADA we have a dressed and ready to go little boy. Lately we have been using the picture cards to teach Landon not to hit or bite us. YES, that phase has come back and it is difficult to reason and ration with him when he's in that meltdown, over stimulated phase. We use the cards to tell him "STOP, LISTEN, NO HIT or NO BITE, GOOD LISTENING!" We usually repeat the process two times to make sure he has heard us. Just the other day Landon had a meltdown and hit me. Of course my first reaction was to yell "No Hit!" and as he started to cry he went over to his board, grabbed it and walked it over to me! I was in shock and so proud in that small moment. He sat on my lap and we read and pointed to his cards.

I am grateful that Landon has taken to picture cards and learns from them. Some autistic children do not always have such success. For right now they work and they are helping him to communicate to us. It is the small gain’s he makes that helps my husband and I to stay positive.