The culture of inclusion at SDN Lois Barker, Waterloo has gone from strength to strength since the addition of the Autism Specific Program (ASP) for Autistic preschool children as part of the centre in 2023.

This year, the team has focused on developing visual communication strategies, resulting in progress for each child in the ASP preschool and enhancing the inclusive practices of the entire team.

Visuals are among the strategies used at SDN’s Lois Barker in to communicate and promote language development, and they are crucial for including the autistic children who attend. For those whose expressive language is still developing, visuals allow both simple and abstract concepts to be conveyed in a concrete, tactile way.

Changes have been made to provide a simplified environment that helps ensure processing visual information doesn’t become overwhelming for the children in the group.

ASP Early Childhood Teacher Renae Goodman explains that most resources are kept in cupboards or on shelves behind a ‘finished’ cloth – a tablecloth-like sheet with a black and white chequered pattern, just like a finished flag at a car race.

“The ‘finished’ pattern is a universal symbol that can be used to show something is closed, or finished, or not available.”

All staff working in the ASP preschool wear lanyards every day, featuring pictures of key words regularly needed in their setting, for the routine and for the dynamic needs of the children.

It didn’t take long for the neurotypical children at the centre to notice Renae using her lanyard to communicate with the autistic children in her class.

Renae was excited to see that even to a child who’d never seen the pictures before, each picture’s meaning was clear.

Visuals are easy for all children to understand

Centre Director, Stephanie Riemer suggests this interest in the lanyards was a natural progression, stemming from the inclusive culture of the service.

 “There’s no judgement here,” she says. “There are a lot of challenges faced by people in this community, but play is the universal language. It’s always been like that here, even before the ASP.”

Now, it’s not uncommon to see children from the neurotypical preschool using lanyard pictures and other visual cues to communicate with neurodiverse children. Sometimes with support from educators, but other times with pictures or pointing and gestures.

Visual communication strategies aren’t only used in the ASP preschool but have been introduced in SDN Lois Barker’s other spaces as well. A daily ritual of checking the ‘routine stick’ in the mainstream preschool room helps all children know what’s coming next, and what they need to wait for.

The visuals are easy for all children to understand, including the autistic children. And the predictability of using them helps everyone to feel calm and connected.

Staff from across rooms have even collaborated to develop a Key Word Sign Acknowledgment of Country that neurodiverse and neurotypical infants, toddlers and preschoolers can learn and participate in alongside one another.