Many children benefit from routine in their daily lives. A visual schedule is an easy way to provide a child with a visual reminder of what they can expect for their day. Many children experience less anxiety when they know what to expect before something happens. It is easy to find pictures to make your own visual schedule by searching Google. You can make very specific visual schedules (for example: getting dressed – put on underwear, put on pants, put on socks, put on shirt, put on sweater) or a more general schedule (for example a daily routine – get out of bed, eat breakfast, go to school, eat lunch, TV time, homework, supper, play time, bed time). Print the visual schedule you make and hang it close to where they will use it.

Some ideas to try:

• Give the child a new paper with their visual schedule on it every time so they can check off the steps as they complete them
• Laminate pictures of each of the steps and create a schedule with two columns (one column is ‘to do’ and the other is ‘done’), attach velcro to both sides and have child move the picture from the ‘to do’ column to the ‘done’ column when they have completed it

Here is an example of a visual schedule:

Morning Routine

Eat breakfast

Get dressed

Brush teeth

Brush hair

Put on coat

Put on shoes

Put on backpack