• Boundary Settings
• Classroom Management Tools
• Classroom Structure
• Family/School Partnerships
• Labels
• People Locators
• Reminder Cards
• Rules and Routines
• Strategies for Less Structured Times of the Day
• Transition: Early Childhood to Elementary
• Transition: Elementary to Middle School
• Transition Strategies between Activities
• Visual Schedules
• Work Baskets/Shoe Box Tasks

Labels: Introduction

Everyone uses labels or some type of visual support every day. Think about the last time you had to use a public restroom. Were the restrooms clearly labeled to identify them by gender? Probably. Did you even think twice about which one you had to go into? Probably not.

For most of us, using labels in our day-to-day lives happens without a second thought or any effort on our part. Much of our world is already chock-full of visual supports - like signs and labels - to help make the right choices and to interact appropriately in the world around us. For children with autism spectrum disorders (ASD), using visual supports can help them be more successful in what is often a confusing world. Even though labels exist in the environment around us, the child with ASD does not necessarily recognize and understand how to use the information provided by the label. Many children will need to be specifically taught how to use existing visual supports in their environment.

Using labels to identify important features in the child's environment is the first step in teaching the child how to recognize and then appropriately use the existing visual supports. Pointing out signs or labels while walking through a store, for example, is a good strategy to use to teach awareness of labels (e.g., bathrooms, exit signs, restaurants) (Fig.1). Say the name while pointing out the sign to the child. Of course, just recognizing a sign does not mean the child knows what to do with the information. For instance, just pointing to an exit sign and saying "Exit" does not mean the child understands what exit means. You may need to teach that an exit sign means a way to leave a building or room.

Men's rest room	Women's rest room	Exit
Stop	Hospital	Railroad crossing
Walk	Don't walk	K-Mart
McDonal's	Pizza Hut	Taco Bell

Another basic way to begin is to label the children’s possessions with their name or a picture of themselves. Perhaps Taylor cannot read his name but recognizes a picture of himself. A picture of Taylor on his lunchbox will help him identify which lunchbox belongs to him among all the others at school. Using picture labels along with words on items can help children eventually associate the picture with the word.