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Welcome!

Firstly, a massive thank you for buying our Weekly Planner. Every purchase really does help our small business. So, from our family to yours – thank you. 

We started ASD after finding it incredibly hard to find high quality, ready-made visuals for our own autistic son, and becoming increasingly frustrated when our hand-made visuals fell apart after just a few short weeks or months.

Our aim, over everything else, it to help families just like ours to overcome some of the challenges faced while navigating life on the autistic spectrum.

With that in mind, we created this guide to help you get the most out of your ASD Weekly Planner.

Membership

Become a member and get instant access to a wide range of resources.

– Illustrated social stories
– A range of introductory guides
– In-depth toolkits
– Free postage on all orders

With our silver membership COMPLETELY FREE, and our gold membership less than the price of a fancy coffee per month, you really don’t have anything to lose.

 

What’s in the Box?

  • 1 x A3 Calendar Board
  • 24 x Activity Symbols
  • Hook & Loop for all Symbols

We’ve made all our products as easy to use as possible – we know you don’t have time to spend hours on making these resources, and once they’re done they need to last. 

We know from (bitter!) personal experience how gutting it is to spend hours making a set of resources only to have them fall apart a few weeks later.

That’s why all our resources are ready made, printed directly onto durable, BPA-free, non-toxic plastic.

Symbols ship in backing plastic to keep them safe in transit, so all that’s left for you to do is press the symbols out, pop the included self-adhesive hook and loop on the back, and you’re good to go!

 

 

Need More Symbols?

Expansion packs are a perfect way to get the absolute most from your ASD Weekly Planner.

Choose from a set of pre-printed themed symbols, or a pack of blank symbols for complete flexibility.

All our expansion packs come with a set of 24 blank plastic symbols, identical to the symbols that came with your Planner.

They also come with a sheet of self-adhesive plastic film, pre-cut to the right size for your symbols. Simply peel the film from the backing paper, and place on the symbol. The adhesive is considered permanent, and will reach full strength after 24 hours.

For the blank symbols, either draw your images using permanent marker pen, or print images directly onto the self adhesive plastic film (using a laser printer, bypass tray, on ‘labels’ setting).

 

Hobbies / Activities

£6.79

Special People I know

£6.79

School Holidays

£6.79

Medical / Therapies

£6.79

School Subjects

£6.79

Christmas / New Year

£6.79

‘Adulting’ Tasks

£6.79

Household Chores

£6.79

Covid-friendly Activities

£6.79

Blank Symbols (printable)

£5.99

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All our visuals have been designed to seamlessly work together to provide an all round, fully comprehensive support solution. Most parents find their child adapts to using visuals best when they use multiple ones throughout the day. The visuals below have been specially selected as ones that work particularly well together for an integrated support system throughout the day.
Morning Routine

£9.99

Evening Routine

£9.99

Now, Next Later

£12.99

Day Planner 

£10.99

Tips and Tricks

Start off with a few essential activities – maybe just pick one activity per day to start with. 

Consider including an ‘easy win’ – for example, just putting school Monday – Friday, and home Saturday and Sunday. This follows the pattern they are already familiar with. 

This helps build motivation, confidence, and understanding.

Keep the calendar in the same place, and encourage the person to check it at the same time.

For example, you might encourage them to check it in the morning after they have got up.

Later on, when you have more symbols on it, you might encourage them to check it again after school.

Whatever routine you choose, be consistent. Knowing where they can find it and when they should check it will help improve confidence and reduce anxiety.

Tailor the board to your child’s needs and preferences.

Don’t be tempted to put every relevant symbol on the board. If they always come home after school, there’s no need to put home on there – that’s already expected, and will just complicate the board.

Focus on putting symbols that will help your child understand their day, not just show them what they already know.

Encouraging the person to participate in putting their activities  on the schedule can also increase their interest and engagement with the calendar.

Encourage interaction with each symbol.

As you guide the user through attaching and detaching symbols from the board for the week ahead, discuss each task briefly.

This not only helps with understanding and memory, but also practices fine motor skills through the physical interaction with the symbols.

End the week (or even the day) with a review of what your child managed to achieve, and provide positive reinforcement.

Lots of praise is important, and it’s a great idea to have a reward that is only used at the end of a week.

This helps associate setting up and checking the calenddar with positive feelings, and encourages them to stick with the plan.

FAQs and Troubleshooting

Why do you use symbols, not photos?

Put simply, symbols work better than photos.

For a literal thinker, a photo of a shop will mean that particular shop. 

A shop symbol is much more general – it can mean whatever shop you need to go to. The important information to convey on a calendar is that they will be going shopping, not necessarily the exact shop they will be going to.

Having a shopping symbol also cuts down the number of symbols you need to keep handy to keep the calendar current.

Why is there only space for 5 symbols?

There is space for around 4-5 symbols per day.

The Weekly Planner is supposed to function like a calendar, not an exhaustive list of everything they will do each day.

Think about your calendar – you wouldn’t put everything you do each day on it – just the key things out of the norm that you need to remember.

It’s about striking that balance between including enough information for the calendar to be useful, whilst not showing so much that it is overwhelming.

Why aren't there 7 home symbols?

We thought long and hard about how many home symbols to include.

We settled on 4, because you only need to actually use the home symbol if your child frequently spends time at other places. 

For example, if they always come home from school (and not to somewhere like a day centre or respite) then you don’t need to include home every day – it just complicates things.

If they go to respite once per week, then it’s probably better to just put the respite symbol on for that one day, there’s no need to put home on for every other day as that’s a given.

4 home symbols gives enough so that if your child spends a significant time outside the home and school (3 days or more), then you can include home for the rest of the time to clearly show them the difference.

Where can I get extra symbols?

We’ve worked hard to make sure the symbols that come with the board are as helpful to as many people as possible.

However, inevitably, there will be some that aren’t so relevant for you, and others that you wish you had.

If you need additional symbols, we have a couple of options for expansion packs that you might find helpful.

Our Weekly Planner Expansion Packs are themed packs of 24 symbols, and are a great way to increase the use of your calendar.

Alternatively, you could use our Blank Symbols Expansion Pack – 24 blank symbols you can print your own images onto. Simply print onto the self-adhesive plastic film using a regular laser printer, and then stick to the base plastic symbol.

Click HERE to view our full range of expansion packs

Questions or Feedback?

Questions about your Weekly Planner, or how to use it?
Unsure what other visuals would help in your specific situation?
Feedback about the product, or suggestions on how to improve?
Please do send us a message – we love to hear from our customers, and are always looking for ways to improve, or to help more.

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