Visual support for ASD children critical

What do we need to do to best support the comunication needs of our children on the spectrum? Like everything else, the needs of each individual child may vary but the best support we can give for them is through a generous dose of visual strategies and tools. We need to be talking in pictures at any given time (at home, social gatherings and school) to help them understand accurately what we are communicating to them. Verbal communication is transient. It is gone in an instant. If we examine our own social interactions we will see lots of shifting, in terms of topic, expressions, ideas, body language and tone of voice. We take in information and process it. Then only we can formulate responses appropriate for the situation. All these need to take place rapidly. This is the type of situation our children meet everyday but without the ability to move with the speed of the flow. Verbal information that they recieve during these interactions may disappear before they even had a chance to take in what was said. Therefore they may end up recieving only fragmented messages. Visual support is critical for these children because visual information stays there long enough for the child to see it, take in the information and respond to it. It does not disappear. The child can go back to the picture/s over and over if they need to, to understand and remember what was said to them and what it might mean.