A little bit of structure going a long way

Oh boy! A whole month has FLOWN by!  Somewhere in there, I had Spring Break, which was lovely, 10 IEPs, and LOTS of evaluations.  The weather here has been vacillating between beautiful sunny days and dreary cold rain, which hasn't been very inspiring, and the caseload at my PRN position has been high, so I am spending more time there after school.  Busy busy busy!

With all the testing and the meetings and the end of the year fast approaching, I feel like I have spent much of my time putting out fires.  You know, the student who holds a sit-in in the office because he just doesn't want to be in class today? The student who has been doing fine all year at the end of the day, but suddenly starts having meltdowns about cleaning up and packing up?  My world has been filled with social stories on the go, and attempts at problem solving to figure out why things are the way they are, and what to do next. Most of the changes are relatively small, and usually involve changing the environment and adding just a touch more structure.

Here's what I whipped up today for a student who is struggling with the end of the day.  Last week, we added in a break after cleaning up so that he had the opportunity to unwind a bit.  That helped some, but when I observed him, I saw that he was using his time inefficiently. While many of his classmates made only 1 trip to get their coat and backpack, he made two.  And three trips to his mailbox!  So it seemed like a bigger task because he was doing so much more work!  Enter his end of the day checklist.  For most of us in speech, visual aids are second nature, so this is probably nothing new.  But I always like to see how people are using things in the real world, so I thought I would share. 

Given that it's the end of the day, I didn't want something that he had to write, because his pencil pouch should be away.  However, since I love the feeling of getting to check something off a list, and only imagine that others feel the same, I did want to give him the satisfaction of "crossing something off", which explains the flaps.

As you might have gathered, he's a big fan of a certain web-slinging superhero. 

I started by taking pictures of his afternoon routine.  Then, using powerpoint, I put all the pictures into a table, and added some words at the top (mostly so an adult can prompt him if necessary).  While he can read more than he realizes, written words often increase his frustration, so I wanted him to be able to rely on pictures.  I made another sheet with some webs and Spiderman, so he is motivated to flip down the flaps.  I laminated it.  When he completes a task, the flap comes down and is secured with velcro.

I tried it this afternoon, and it was great! He was the model student- referring to the pictures, doing what he needed to, and then flipping it down all by himself.  He was one of the first to sit back down on the carpet, which is HUGE when you consider that last week, he was 10-15 minutes late getting picked up because he was struggling so much.  Here's hoping that the trend continues.

What I really love is that adding a little bit of structure (in this case, a short break in preparation for a transition and a visual checklist) not only makes things run a bit more smoothly, but it increases the student's ability to be independent and successful, which can be a huge confidence builder. Now that he's learned how to use it, I asked the teacher to just make sure it is on his desk every afternoon so he can start with it (it lives in his seat sack during the day).

I am always on the lookout for different ideas.  What do your visual checklists look like? How do you help with transitions, or dealing with activities/transitions that may be challenging for a student?