Ep. 25: Picture This! 📸 Your Ultimate Guide to Task Analysis Visuals

In this episode, we're all about task analysis visuals! We cover:

• What they are and why they're important for ALL learners, especially those with autism.
• Different types of visuals you can use (photos, symbols, even videos!)
• How to choose the right visuals for your learner’s specific needs
• Step-by-step instructions on how to create your own task analyses
• Common mistakes to avoid

Plus, a video example of a dishwashing task analysis to get you started! Tune in to learn how to empower your learners with visuals and set them up for success.

💥Freebie this week: The dishwashing task visuals we discuss and a set of data sheets for tracking progress on task analyses!

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Transcript

Caitlin Beltran: we always gravitated toward a backward chain in my classroom because you're then ending on independence. And so if you're providing that reinforcement or something, it's nice to have the learner finish the task with that sense of independence. 

Welcome to the Misfit Behaviorists Podcast. Join your hosts, Audra Jensen and Caitlin Beltran, here to bring you evidence based strategies with a student centered focus. Let's get started. 

Caitlin Beltran: Hey, everybody. Welcome back to the Misfit Behaviorist Podcast. I'm Caitlin, and I am joined by Audra. And before we dive in, don't forget to check out our Facebook group, also the Misfit Behaviorist Podcast. And we are putting freebies and other exclusive content there almost every week that pairs with our episodes.

So also you can find us on Instagram at the Misfit Behaviorist Podcast and message us and let us know what you want to hear about next. So Audra, what are we chatting about tonight? 

Audra Jensen: So I thought we'd talk about, creating task analysis visuals for students. And today's a really good one that you definitely get into the Facebook group and get some freebies, because I have some freebies that align with this.

And also, if you think about it, watch this on YouTube, because I'm going to show a few things as well, because we're talking about visuals. It would help if we kind of see a little bit if not, we'll talk about it and Caitlin will remind me if we need to describe something better. So I was thinking about task analysis In fact, I think this was your idea and it's a really good one just because summers when I was teaching full time summers was a great time for us to kind of prepare for the upcoming school year and get the visuals ready. What I used to do is i'd create a whole bunch of visuals like get them all laminated and ready and then I'd bring them in the first couple of days when the paras come early and I'm like, here have some things to cut out.

It was great. Got free time. Yes. We'd be sitting there talking about whatever we're going to talk about. I'm like, yeah, you can cut this while you're sitting there. So when you think of a task analysis, what do you think of? 

Caitlin Beltran: I think of breaking down a large skill into smaller chunks. 

Audra Jensen: That's pretty much, that is pretty much all it is.

You know, we do this all the time too, especially when we have little kids that are growing up and we're teaching them basic skills. We break everything down into these tiny little pieces. 

Caitlin Beltran: Exactly. 

Audra Jensen: In fact, that's kind of what ABA really is. It's the idea of taking a large skill that most kids get developmentally and bringing it down into smaller skills.

And then we teach them systematically and then we take databases, but really everything that I've ever done. With ABA is kind of a big old task analysis. I think it's kind of funny. 

Caitlin Beltran: The task analysis of life. 

Audra Jensen: Yes. So, and those of us it's probably everybody who is listening or watching. We work with kids, especially on the autism spectrum who really thrive with visuals and a lot of them, this is how they learn the best is kind of this visual model and there are so many different ways that you can present visual information.

Depending on the learner, whether they are in, even sign language is considered visual, it's a visual language, other ones need videos, or pictures, or symbols, or icons, written word, my son was an early reader, so, in fact, he learned, he actually learned to read before he could talk, which is really weird, we taught him to, we taught him language through the written word, which was really weird.

So like, when he started reading, he was like, I think he was not even two when he read his first words. But he didn't have any functional language. And so, when he would read the word, like out loud he could read the word, but he had no idea what the words meant. He just, you know, phonetically would put sounds together.

And so we went around the house and we'd write "wall" and put a sticky note on the wall, and fridge, and stick it up there, and then he'd come up to something and be like, Yes, that's the wall. That's the couch. And that's how you learn dispersed words. But yeah, they are so visual. Our little guys are so visual.

So for you, Caitlin, when you think about needing to teach a young learner a visual skill, say a task analysis, say, something they need to learn that's a full process, how do you decide, what to teach and how to teach and how to implement it? What are kind of the first thing that you would do in that situation?

Caitlin Beltran:

Right. So I guess for me, say I'm thinking of a self help skill, like brushing teeth. That I have done in so many different ways, because like you said, I have some learners, you know, not many, but some where I could teach the whole sequence, kind of, all together. But for others, I'm breaking it down. I have one learner where, his goal right now is, just to go get his supplies, go get your toothbrush box, put it away.

And we just practice brushing teeth, but that's not really our goal, versus, some other learners who, they could go get the bin and they could put it away. That's no problem. But their goal is like actually thorough teeth brushing where I need to somehow show them there's could be an order to this rather than just, you know, swirling the brush around for 10 seconds.

So really just depends on the learner as with everything else. 

Audra Jensen: So Caitlin, will you explain to listeners, I'm sure this is a review for most people, most of us use forward and backward chain in our total task. Will you kind of explain quickly what those terms mean?

Caitlin Beltran: Sure. So it sounds confusing at first, but in a forward chain, you're teaching the steps in order, so like first to last, whereas in a backwards chain, you're teaching the last step first. But if you're brand new, and you're thinking that you actually practice the skill backwards, like I thought on my first day of training back in the day, that is not the case.

You're always practicing the skill in the same order. But let's just say you had a really simple, you know, four item, go get bin, get toothbrush, brush teeth, put it away. You could prompt the first three of those steps and then target the last step of the chain. That would be a backwards chain.

And so you'd prompt getting it, brushing, you know, and then the last step say would be they put it away. And then my data might just be on that one point versus the forward chain would be I'm waiting for them to reach independence on getting the bin and then I'm going to prompt everything else in some way.

And we always gravitated toward a backward chain in my classroom because you're then ending on independence. And so if you're providing that reinforcement or something, it's nice to have the learner finish the task with that sense of independence. 

Audra Jensen: Yeah, that's excellent. And then the kind of that total task is when you're taking, you're teaching all of the steps at once and taking data on each step.

And I find when I think about the different ways to implement. And I always have that learner in mind. How am I going to choose which way works? So, I might choose a forward task where I'm focusing on that first step only and then prompting through the rest. I might choose to do that for a learner who gets, gets very frustrated with mistakes or needs more prompting in the beginning or something.

You know, I might choose to do that one first. Whereas somebody who, like you said, you might want to help them through and then get that success at the end. The reinforcement, I might choose to do a backwards chain, of course it depends on the task too, so some, some tasks lend better to one over the other, and then I might choose a learner who, who gets things really quickly, I might just go with a full task, and kind of, and then it gets kind of, pulls in some of that reinforcement throughout the whole thing, and these are usually kids who can pick up quickly.

And so then I might choose a total task for that. So those, you know, and you can always just do, you know, a frequency data if you want, if you just want to take data on one step, no matter what it is. Maybe it's a student who has most of it together and really just needs to focus on, you know, one or two steps within there.

You might just take frequency on that particular step. And so those are kind of the ways you might do that. 

Caitlin Beltran: Yeah, I was just going to say something similar, I had a lot of learners who we often had to teach every step thematically, but sometimes you get a learner where it's just that one or two pieces of the puzzle that they don't know, so it could be important with some learners to probe that whole chain, and then you find out, okay, I don't have to teach ten of these steps, I really am just focusing on these two, and if I didn't baseline the entire thing, I might not know that.

Audra Jensen: Yeah, or you might start with something and then you get some momentum and then you're like, Oh my gosh, they're totally getting this. We can switch to just doing the whole thing. So those are kind of the things. As I was thinking about data taking, whether you're taking specific data or not, you just kind of want to have that in mind.

Do I want to teach forward to backward or backward to forward, the whole thing, and just sort of keeping that learner in mind. So I'm going to share my screen. I took, so I'm going to share two things that I created. I created this kind of a quick seven step when I'm, creating a task, the different steps that I take really quickly.

I mean, you go through these steps really fast, but I just kind of broke them out into the seven step thing. And then I happened to get, an email, I think it was an email from, one of the, somebody who's bought one of my task analysis products, and then she said, Hey, do you happen, can you happen to add this particular thing that we're doing?

And I'm like, Oh, this is perfect, because we're like going to be talking about it. So I took a video of myself sort of talking through the process of creating a new task from beginning to end. Now, I, it was, it's a hand washing dishes, so I didn't actually take the camera down and wash myself doing the dishes.

I just sort of talked through my, my, thought process. So I'm going to show that too. So let me share my screen. 

let's just go through this and then I'll show you the short little video. It's just like a three minute quick video. so first thing, I kind of want to identify the skill in mind. And in this case, I'm thinking, does the student have the prerequisite skills?

Is this, you know, socially important skill for them to have? I'm not just going to be teaching something that's not really useful to them. How do I want to break it down for this particular learner? A lot of this stuff, you know, especially our bathroom routines are going to be pretty similar and you can kind of create a generic one, but you might always just have that learner that you have in mind at the forefront because you might create a special task just for them.

So, figuring out the skill first. And then, number two, to kind of observe somebody doing the skill or you perform the skill doing something kind of walking through it. While you're doing that taking notes about each of those steps. So, I like to physically walk through it myself. But then I also like to see somebody else do it to see if we're doing it differently. And I also like to do it within the environment or whatever we're going to be teaching wherever the learner is going to be because process is going to be very different, you know from one house to another, one school room to another. So that's the next step. 

Caitlin Beltran: It's almost like following a recipe, right? Like you want to make sure you go through it and you didn't call for an ingredient that wasn't in the recipe or something. 

Audra Jensen: Yes, that's perfect. Yes. then three, then once you have your kind of notes of what it is to review it, refine it, reorder the steps. you know, you may do it once and you're like, yeah, this would work, but I think I'm going to move this step here.

You're kind of thinking again of the environment and making any changes. Sometimes you're going to have subroutines within your task, and that is actually one of the one that I did. There's a little subroutine. So I created one task and then I had a second task that you kind of continue through. So I'll show you that when that comes up. number four would be to choose the format and that's like thinking about your learner. How do they learn best? So do you want to video model it? Do you want to take actual pictures of the steps, which I'd love to do when you can do that? Yeah. Picture, you know, icons are great if they're symbol based learners.

What are some of the other ways? Oh, text, like I said. Yeah, text. Yeah, I used to be able to do this, just write out the list of things, because he didn't need the pictures or the videos and stuff. He'd just write on the list, you know, one to ten, these are the steps, go make your bed. You know, that's what he did.

Caitlin Beltran: Yeah, and I'm kind of jumping ahead to number five where it says prepare the visuals and try them out. But just, again, knowing your learner, because A lot of people, I feel like, you know, like you alluded to in the first point, they'll print the one generic visual for wash my hands, and then it's the same visual for everyone.

And if it works, it works, but we're always going to have learners where I think to myself, if I, if a goal in his IEP is like, to match a picture to an object, what would make me think he's following this you know, 2D representation of some cartoon character washing their hands. 

Audra Jensen: That's really good.

Caitlin Beltran: So it just never, you know, resonated with me because we used to individualize like every single one of our pictures and schedules. And I had an experience once where I was working on this student following a lot of schedules and he would use like a flip book. So like a old, like a binder, a little mini binder.

And then for whatever reason we were doing brush teeth and I think I just thought like it would just be easier in the bathroom and I like hung it up on the wall. And I remember we tried for a little bit and i, we weren't seeing much progress and the mom was the one that pointed out like, well, everything else you did was in the flip book.

So I think he needs the flip book. And I was like, of course, like, why didn't I, first of all, consult you before I prepared this, but also think about his learning history. He was always used to learning in that style and he really couldn't generalize, you know, for whatever reason. 

Audra Jensen: That's interesting.

Caitlin Beltran: And I didn't want to teach him two skills at once. I'm not trying to teach you how to follow a vertical schedule and brush your teeth. I just want to pick one of those skills to put it in the flip book and it worked much better. 

That's fantastic. We had one, we had an adult who was in a group home, non verbal. He was highly impacted by autism, but he was amazing with flowcharts, and that's why I put this on here, and so we were able to create flowcharts that he was able to follow.

In fact, I've used flowcharts with him and with a bunch of my, teenage social groups. They're really good. They like the flowcharts. And so you, that's why I'm just to get creative, whatever your population, whatever you're working with, what they respond to, and then you're just going to use that. It doesn't have to be a vertical picture schedule.

Exactly. It's like, right, be flexible. Okay. So the next one then, like you said, is to prepare the visuals, putting it together. Then trying it out in real life, making sure that it works. And then number six to kind of implement it and adjust it. And this is where I didn't put a lot of information on here just because this is where the learner comes into play.

So you're going to start working with it. You're going to set up your data, whatever you're using for that. And that's number seven is taking data. And this is where you're sort of tweaking, you know, we have to be flexible thinkers as well, because we're going to modify these. We're not going to, I mean, sometimes I guess you throw it up there and you never need to move it again, but almost always there's like little tweaks.

And it's especially if you're doing some of these that are really individualized for learners who, an important skill in particular, bathroom skills. So you might be modifying these and changing things as they master things. You might move some of those pictures out so they gain more independence and shorten up the list that they need.

So those are just things to think about. 

Audra Jensen: Yeah, I love that.  Okay. So let me switch over. All right. Can you see that? Yes. Okay. Short little video of, one of the tasks I just did. So I had a buyer reach out to me who asked if I could add a couple of things to a task analysis product that I have that she purchased, and I wanted to just go through, because it was a task analysis thing, and I know this is something we're going to be talking about, go through kind of my quick process and how I would generate a new task.

And this is the product that she has, which just has a bunch of different tasks for the day. What she was looking for was an addition in here in the daily living. She is working with some students that she needs a hand washing dishes and putting them into the drying rack. And she also needs a mopping with one of those like Swiffer, easy mop things.

And I thought this would be a great opportunity to kind of show how I would quickly create a task analysis. The way that I normally would do it is I would walk through the task by myself and jot down each of the steps. So in this case, it might be, you know, clearing out the dishes, making sure all the food is scraped off, filling the water basin with water.

Rinsing them off. So I would go through the whole process and jot down So,let me pause while I do that. I type really fast.

All right. So this is probably what I come up with to just get started. So in this case, as I'm thinking about it, I'm imagining myself there. I clear out the sink, scrape off any food, stack the dishes, turn on the water until it's warm, and then I'll have each of those pieces in a separate step. So adding a small amount of soap to the sponge.

And then for the, after washing, pushes, put the dish under the warm water, scrub it with the soapy sponge, rinse it under warm water, put it on the drying rack or towel. And then when everything's done, I'll probably add a step for that, rinsing out the empty sink and wiping down to the counter. So that was just a quick way to run through how I would think about it.

Then I would come back here and I would find one of these that is similar to the number of steps that I just generated. Probably that that's very similar because I have dishwashing. and then I would just duplicate this page and I would start to add, I use Boardmaker, so I would use my, add my Boardmaker symbols, create this, and I have this so that it can be in a reading strip left to right.

depending on where I'm going to place it, I may make it, you know, up and down, but I'm thinking for washing dishes in a sink, I can see it in front. And I think that's what I'll probably do is do it in front, left to right, and so I think I'm going to do that. And I will share this all with you when I have it done, so you can see what the final piece is.

So that's a quick kind of synopsis of how I would create a new task. Okay, so then I did exactly that. So then I created the strip that, you can see this on YouTube, and I think it's an eight step, and then part of that was, oops, that was the wrong one, there's this one.

But then I created the second one, that says, you know, the washing dishes over and over. And so what I think I would do, once, and this is the thing, is I didn't record this, is after I printed this and put this together, I'm like, you know what, I would like to have the big one there, and I would make this one, half the size.

Because this is, washing the dishes that you do over and over again. I would make this half the size and I would probably put a little arrow or something so they learn when they get to this spot, then they go to the subroutine, which they're gonna do until all the dishes are clean, and then they go back to the main one.

And then, just because I was thinking about the learner that contacted me, I also created a little, like, story that has each of those steps in hand things. So when they're doing teaching on their own, practicing and stuff, they can go through this in practice, and they can have their own little book of the same thing as the story. So that was what I did. 

Caitlin Beltran: What I like about the pictures too is, and you making the book out of them, just reminding us, there's a lot of different ways to practice it, because I'm thinking in a school setting too, you might have a sink, you might not, but you could still maybe expose the learner in some way to, this is what the process would look like, or even if you go once a week to, like, a cooking room the other four days, you could be having them, like, sequence the pictures, so there's a lot of different ways you could target that.

Audra Jensen: Yeah, that's what it's just being flexible and thinking sometimes outside of the box. So yeah, and so the last thing I just wanted to touch on was, you know, things to avoid when you're doing these is making sure you're not doing too many steps. Again, having that learner in mind, you want to do as minimal as possible because you want to fade that out as quickly as possible anyway.

So just making as few steps as possible as you can do for that learner and not making the visuals too complex. Again, dependent on the learner, but I do like the simple either Boardmaker what's the other one that everybody uses? There's another visual system that I can't think of. Symbol sticks, I think.

Caitlin Beltran: Okay. 

Audra Jensen: That's a really good one. Very simple pictures. You know, icons, symbol icons. Yeah. But again, some people, some kiddos are going to need pictures of it too, so. 

So those are kind of just the things that I thought of, things to avoid when you're doing this. And not to give yourself too much work. You know, don't spend too much time on it. You know what, I keep these post its everywhere. Because I have made so many quick task analysis or notes just doing this.

I mean, if you have something that comes up, you're like, Oh, this kiddo really needs to learn such and such. Seriously, post its are the best. You draw a picture or words. And you can post it anywhere. 

Caitlin Beltran: I love that. 

Audra Jensen: So that's all I have on task analyses. 

Caitlin Beltran:

Okay, awesome. Well, don't forget to go to the Facebook group. Join us for conversation and also grab that freebie. Audra has a special set of task analysis visual cards that you don't want to miss. And some data that will go with it. Ooh, and some data sheets. and next week, join us because we are going to be talking about independent activity schedules, how to set them up, how they're going to benefit your classroom, and some tips for really effective systems.

So don't forget, follow us on Instagram, join the Facebook, and tune us, tune in next week. All right, we'll see you then. Thanks. 

Thanks for listening to the Misfit Behaviorists. And be sure to tune in next week for more tips and tricks. Don't forget to subscribe so you don't miss an episode.