From Research to Practice: The Creation and Implementation of Activity Schedules for Students with Autism Spectrum Disorders

One of the criteria for being diagnosed with autism spectrum disorder (ASD) is restrictive and repetitive behaviors (APA, 2013). Individuals with autism often have trouble with transitions due to their need for rigid routines and consistency (APA, 2013). Changing from one activity to another can be very difficult and bring about challenging behaviors. Transition problems can be even more evident for children with autism who are taught in the general education setting (Banda et al., 2009). The difficulty practitioners face is supporting these students without having them become dependent on adult instruction or prompting (Koyama & Wang, 2007). Activity schedules allow for this compromise. An activity schedule is a series of photographs, images, words, or objects placed sequentially for an individual to follow. This works especially well for children with ASD, many of whom have strengths in rote memory and the ability to understand visual information more efficiently than verbal information (Hitam et al., 2011). The icons (i.e., pictures, images, or words used in the schedule) may cover the entirety of the day or the steps to a single activity.