Put on an outfit
Changing clothes is not just swapping fabric. It is a boundary between outside and inside, play and dinner, day and evening. The visual support below makes that crossing visible so the child can keep up.
♂Put on shorts
A boy is putting on a pair of yellow shorts over his gray pants. He is also wearing a blue t-shirt and a blue headband.
About this visual support
The change itself is a border. On one side lies something the child is already inside – play, time outdoors, a film – and on the other side something else is waiting. That is why changing can feel larger than it looks: the trousers are not the problem, leaving what was going on is.
Visual support gives that crossing its own space. A before picture, a changing picture, an after picture – three steps that give the child something concrete to hang the move on. It is easier to end something when you can see that a new scene is already laid out. Children with strong sensory reactions benefit from seeing the next set of clothes in advance, so scratchy labels or cold fabric do not come as a surprise in the middle of a half-dressed moment.
A concrete tip: lay the next outfit out in the order it goes on, so the picture in the app and the pile of clothes say the same thing. In the Routined app you can mark the change as a short routine of its own between two larger activities, so the child can see it is a thing in itself and not just a pause.