Get a vaccine
The shot itself takes only a few seconds, but the worry can start days before. The picture below shows a girl pulling up her sleeve for the vaccine and helps your child see the whole visit in advance, not just the needle.
♀Getting a shot in the arm
A girl with braids pulls up her sleeve as a hand with a syringe comes towards her upper arm, which has a bandage on it.
About this visual support
For many children the hardest part is not the shot but the waiting for it. A visit to the clinic or the school nurse mentioned in passing can raise questions for days: will it hurt, for how long, and what happens if I do not want to. When the answers are vague, imagination fills the gaps, and the picture in their head is often worse than reality. For autistic children, who often need to know exactly what will happen, it is the uncertainty itself that can make the visit difficult.
The visual support shows a girl with braids pulling up her sleeve as a hand with a syringe comes towards her upper arm, where a bandage is already in place. Use the picture to go through the visit in order: you arrive, sit down, the sleeve goes up, there is a short sting, the bandage goes on and then you go home. A practical tip is to decide something your child can do with their hands during the shot, such as squeezing a soft ball or counting out loud to five, and to plan a calm and pleasant activity straight afterwards that is visible in the schedule.
In Routined the vaccination can be added to the day's schedule with a picture, before and after, and the app can be tried for 14 days at no cost.
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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In Routined you build schedules from these pictures, add timers and voice instructions, and your child follows the day on their own.
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