Parent Support University: Week 26

Oct 5, 2020
By AnswersNow

Parent testimonial

Parent Support University: Week 26

Visual Supports for Kids with Autism - Parent Support University with AnswersNow - YouTube

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Visual Supports for Kids with Autism - Parent Support University with AnswersNow

Speaker 1:

All right. My name is Adam Dreyfus and I am the chief science officer of AnswersNow. And one of the co-founders, this is a, it says we're live. Our live parents support a university here on Friday night six o'clock Eastern time, three o'clock Pacific time.
What is AnswersNow? What are we doing here? Well, I've got my AnswersNow t-shirt on which says that we are official AnswersNow is a service that connects parents directly with a BCBA. So we've been around for about four years. Started as a chat service where we just wanted to make sure that a parent had somebody like in their pocket, right?

Like that's the biggest issue that a lot of parents face is they see their clinician once every two weeks, once a month. And they got their kids 24 hours a day, seven days a week, and stuff comes up pretty frequently. And they're just not that many BCBAs out there, board certified behavior analysts. So we've been around for about four years. Now we're taking insurance, we're doing direct service via telehealth. We're entirely a tele-health company. So everything we do is through a device of some kind, right? Like your phone or a laptop or a computer.

Visual Supports

So we're doing direct services now, parents support taking insurance, and taking Medicaid. What we've been doing through the pandemic here through the COVID 19 that we've all been in since March, is this parent support university where once a week we've been taking one of the evidence-based practices, one of the proven interventions in applied behavior analysis (ABA), as it relates to individuals diagnosed with autism.
Today we'll be talking about visual supports.

Visual supports are designed to help children with autism understand information via pictures, symbols, or diagrams. It can include simple tools like a first-then board, which visualizes actions children will take: First, they read a book; Then, they get to go on a swing.

And visual schedules are also very common; you see them in classrooms all the time. They help provide predictability and structure.

Here’s an example of a simple countdown visual aid to help children transition off a device: 5, 4, 3, 2, 1, power off. This tool can provide clarity and prevent anxiety around transitions.

Importance of Visual Supports

Understanding visual supports can critically affect children's behavior and ease their stress, particularly during transitions. For kids on the spectrum, predictability is essential, and visual aids can help meet that need.

You can learn more about visual supports from the National Professional Development Center, where various resources are available for parents and educators.

Although often parents may feel overwhelmed with the therapies, I truly believe there are no unteachable kids. Everyone can learn, and our goal with AnswersNow is to bridge the gap and help families navigate this journey.