Receptive language is the tricky part. Because – some of our kids are sneaky. Some individuals with autism have excellent expressive language skills. They readily request what they want, engage in social interactions, and have appropriate speech fluency. You might not guess that a child this advanced struggles in receptive language. Often times, individuals’ receptive language abilities do not match their expressive language abilities. Visuals to the rescue! We can use visuals to help support what we say to our students. This will help them understand questions and commands much easier!
There are a variety of ways we can support our receptive language. My favorite way is by using necklace visuals. It’s a small set of visuals staff wear around their neck. At all times you have most visuals at your finger tips! When you are telling a student to stand up, you can supplement that language with the visual card. When you are telling a student to stop biting, you can use the visual to help express that idea. If they are unable to understand your spoken prompt – the visual will help them understand!
You can use visuals to improve our students’ understanding in the area of receptive language:
show how to do household chores
show the weather forecast
assign class jobs
ask questions
teach seasonal vocabulary
do art projects
show how to do a task
ask personal information questions
Here are some posts related to building receptive language skills:
The opportunities for using visuals to support receptive language building are literally endless!
- Planning for the Fall: Part 4 and 5 – Visually Structured Tasks and Routines - January 30, 2026
- Using TAH Curriculum for Homeschooling from a Homeschooling Parent - September 10, 2022
- Using The Autism Helper Curriculum for Homeschool - August 8, 2022
