Empty laundry
A pile of laundry is really many small steps stacked on top of each other: sort, load the machine, hang and take out. The visual support below breaks it into an order your child can follow, so the pile stops feeling like one ungraspable lump.
♀Empty the basket
A child stands beside a tipped-over laundry basket as socks and clothes spill onto the floor.
♀Empty washer
A girl points at an open washing machine next to an empty basket, with a thought bubble showing crossed-out laundry.
♀Unload the washer
A girl gestures toward an open washing machine as clothes come out, with an empty tub beside it.
♀Into the basket
A girl points to a stack of folded clothes with an arrow showing them going into a large empty tub.
About this visual support
A basket full of laundry looks like a single job, but it is really a whole chain: darks apart from lights, into the machine, out of the machine, up to dry. When your child sees only the lump and not the chain, it is hard to know where to even take hold.
Breaking the task into visible steps makes it graspable. For children with ADHD an unsorted pile can be especially hard to get into, because it is the planning and the order that take the most energy. With one picture per step, your child only has to do what the square shows right now, and the next step appears once the last one is done.
One concrete tip: put a clear sorting picture first, for example two heaps by colour, so the hardest choice is settled before the machine is even opened. Let your child press the button that starts the wash, it becomes a natural marker that the step is done. In the Routined app you can build the whole laundry chain and let your child move through it one step at a time.
Use this image in a schedule
Build your own visual schedule with this image and download it as a print-ready PDF. Completely free.
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