Special education teachers and regular classroom teachers may find that teaching a student with autism or a communication disorder may require the use of social stories and a picture exchange communication system. A social story is a visual story using pictures and symbols to describe a situation that may occur in school or elsewhere. It is a very effective teaching tool for kids who are having difficulty learning to read, write, and/or speak.
Not every teacher is going to be able to create these social stories or storyboards from scratch. Having access to a library of pictures and symbols for creating social stories, rule charts, and visual cues will be a huge help. Teachers may be wondering where to find free pictures, symbols for social stories. The good news is that there are free printables and resources online.
Free Pictures for Social Stories, Free Social Stories
Creating communication boards, print-outs or computer worksheets that have pictures and symbols will greatly improve a student’s ability to understand expectations and directions and perform well in the classroom, both academically and socially. Try these sites for finding free symbols for communication boards.
Tinsnips is an online site that provides useful visual stories and information for learning basic skills and social skills. It also has free pictures for social stories that illustrate some great conversation starters for children with autism and other social disorders involving speech. Tinsnips also offers many activities, pictures, and units of study for sale.
Do2Learn is another website devoted to helping children with disabilities. There is a free area with literally hundreds of free pictures and symbols that can be used in social stories, storyboards, and handouts for kids who are more visual. Safety and behavior symbols and signs, coloring pages that show various emotions, and free picture exchange communication system cards are all available here.
SET-BC (Special Education Technology British Columbia) is a website that offers a multitude of free symbols for social stories and pictures in nearly any category that a teacher might wish to teach, for students with disabilities and communication disorders. The pictures are located in the “PictureSET” section under Learning Centre.
Get Free Boardmaker and Make Communication Boards
One of the most popular augmentative assistive communication software tools is called Boardmaker (by Mayer-Johnson). It is a communication software program containing sound, symbols and even voice-activated tools. Teachers can use this program in the classroom to create social stories and communication boards for kids with autism or communication disorders.
What teachers may not know is that Mayer-Johnson offers a free 30-day trial of this software. During the trial, many communication boards can be created for students who need them. It is worth testing it out, even if there is no funding for the product, because in the process, teachers will learn a lot about what is possible with social stories.
Using pictures and symbols will help the child with disabilities learn important life skills such as those which help his or her development of basic skills, academic skills, social skills, and even safety. Finding free symbols that are simple to understand and easy to teach with can be a huge task. Luckily, many websites offer free pictures for social stories and are great resources for teachers of students with special needs.
Read Free Printables and Resources for Autism for more free autism resources online.
Karen Plumley - Karen Plumley is a writer specializing in parenting and education. She works for Parenting NH and the Hippo, NH's most widely read ...
