Pains and Joys of Raising a Disabled Child

Does your child ever ask you what you’re going to do during the day?  Do they need reminders about what is going to happen next?  With our son we’ve learned that he has done better with a visual schedule and knowing what is coming next.  When we bought our house 2 years ago the door to the garage was plain.  My wife decided that it would be cool to do something with the door to make it more usable.

1. Clean Door

First you need to make sure that the door is clean and primed.  Most garage doors are a plain color and should be easy to paint over.  Our door appeared to have a beige type color.  I didn’t do anything but wipe the door down to make sure dust and other particles were off the door.

2. Paint

I bought chalkboard paint from Lowe’s.  I don’t recall if it was this same exact one, but you can click the picture to buy from Amazon.  I chose to take the door off, however, this is one step I would avoid with heavier doors.  Our garage door is solid and was very hard to put back up.  If I were to do it over, I would put plastic under the door and paint it that way.

I found that it took least two good coats of paint to cover our door.  It may differ depending on the door, but a good covering is best.  The paint dries pretty quick and it took maybe 2 hours to finish the painting.

3. Chalk

This is a fun choice.  You can either choose to go with plain white or choose a color.  We went with a green to match our room and stand out a bit.  You could also  paint your schedule area any color you wanted and put painters tape over to create more permanent lines.  This would add an extra step but would ensure that your daily lines would not be erased.

4. Pictures

This one takes some time.  We had our agency help us with this one.  They had access to a PECs (Picture Exchange Communication System) program.  This allowed them to find the pictures we needed and print and laminate them.  You can find the pictures online at Amazon for 34.99.  You can click the picture to buy them if needed, you get 160 photos already laminated.

5. Set Up

You can choose where to start your week and how many events you want to show.  We usually summarize our day with the main events.  We also made a sun that goes on the current day so the kids know what day it is.  The visual schedule also helps kids learn the days of the week and what to expect for the day/week.

The door is also great to make notes on.  You can allow the kids to write ideas for what they want to do, you can write Dr. appointments on it, etc.  We have found that the kids love to see what is coming up that day and throughout the week and it helps with behaviors as well.  Hopefully this gives some of you an idea of what you can do if you need a visual schedule.  I would love to hear your ideas as well.