Do laundry
Doing laundry is a long chain: basket, hallway, machine, button. For many children it stalls at the floor pile. The steps below break the job into small images you can tackle one at a time.
Dirty laundry
A large woven basket filled with dirty clothes, including socks with stains on the floor around the basket, with steam symbols indicating a bad smell.
Dirty laundry
A laundry tub filled with dirty clothes, including a blue shirt with wavy brown lines indicating stains, and a fly flying above.
About this visual support
Picture laundry from a child’s point of view: a crumpled heap by the bed, a basket parked somewhere, a humming warm room. It is not one task, it is at least five. For a child whose executive function is shaky, the chain often snaps at the first step, and the heap stays put.
A visual schedule gives every step its own square to point at. Sort darks from lights, carry the basket to the machine, open the door, load, pour detergent, close, choose a programme, press start. Once the whole chain sits in front of the child at the same time, the brain can stop guessing what comes next and just do what is shown.
One practical tip: keep the detergent-dose picture stuck to the machine itself, not just inside the app. Dose is the question that comes up every single time, and a sticker next to the cap answers it on the spot. Beyond that, the schedule works best when your child gets to own one sub-step independently before taking on the rest at their own pace. In the Routined app you can chain the cards into a wash-day routine with a start button, and the 14-day trial is enough to give it a real go.