Bell
A sharp sound arriving with no warning does more to the body than most adults notice, but once the bell has a picture of its own, a child knows in advance what the sound means and what follows it. The visual support below shows the whole signal.
Handbell ringing
A yellow handbell with a black handle rings, with sound lines drawn beside it.
About this visual support
The school bell rings mid-sentence, mid-thought, halfway through a tower that was almost finished. For some children the interruption itself is the hard part; for others it is the sound: sharp, loud and impossible to brace for in the moment. Either way the body reacts long before the head has worked out what happened.
Pictures make the signal understandable before it arrives. A card for the bell placed next to a card for whatever comes afterwards ties the sound to a direction, so it reads as information rather than an alarm. Talk the bell through while the room is quiet and let the child point to the next card, instead of explaining in the second the signal goes off. If the child is sound-sensitive, which often goes together with autism, ear defenders or a seat further from the speaker can sit in the row as a picture of their own.
In Routined you can place the bell as a fixed point in the school-day routine and try the app for fourteen 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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