Below is a general skill sequence for helping learners match basic safety signage information.
As learners begin to match common actions and items, one can use their newly found matching ability to teach vital health and safety information that can prevent them from dangerous situations and increase their quality of life. One great place to start is through teaching common community safety signs like stop signs, don't walk signs, and danger signs. Ideally, we'd love to teach our learners to receptively ID these signs, label these signs, or even intraverbally discuss these signs to ensure that we know they understand what they are for. However, for early, more non-verbal learners, matching is a great place to start. This skill area seeks to teach learners how to match common safety and community signage to pave the way for teaching them to match more complex safety information. Additionally, this may function as a bridge to receptive identification and future labeling (or similar) of this signage in an attempt to vastly improve the learners' safe interactions in the community.
How this skill area relates to your assessments!
This skill area aligns with various assessments and their respective domains, with milestone and domain codes provided for reference. Additionally, DSM-5 diagnostic criteria for Autism are included to help clinicians identify how this skill area potentially supports medical necessity in relation to the diagnosis.
VB-MAPP (Verbal Behavior Milestones Assessment and Placement Program)
- Visual Perception/Match to Sample, VP-MTS 6-M, Matches identical objects or pictures in a messy array of 6 for 25 items.
- Visual Perception/Match to Sample, VP-MTS 8-M, Matches identical objects or pictures in a messy array of 8 containing 3 similar stimuli, for 25 items (e.g., matches a dog to a dog in an array that also contains a cat, pig, and pony)
AFLS (Assessment of Functional Living Skills)
- Basic Communication, BC20, Functional community words, universal symbols, and safety signs (e.g. learner can identify functional words (exit, push, pull, open/closed). Safety signs (no crossing, slippery floor, danger)
- Community Knowledge, CK1, Receptively identifies safety and community signs
- Community Knowledge, CK2, Expressive safety and community signs
- Community Knowledge, CK5, Receptive identification of traffic/street signs
- Community Knowledge, CK6, Expressive identification of traffic/street signs
DSM-V Diagnostic Criteria for Autism
- A1, Deficits in social-emotional reciprocity, ranging, for example, from abnormal social approach and failure of normal back-and-forth conversation; to reduced sharing of interests, emotions, or affect; to failure to initiate or respond to social interactions.
CDC’s Developmental Milestones
- 30 months, Cognitive Milestones, Shows simple problem-solving skills, like standing on a small stool to reach something
Treatment Plan Goal Ideas
This is a list of treatment plan goals. These are different from the goals you will find in the skill sequence below. Your treatment plan goals encompass any number of goals from the skill sequence. Sometime they will include multiple goals from the sequence (”Learner will label 5 toys”) and sometimes the treatment plan goal will be simply consist of a really important goal from the skill sequence (”Will label caregiver”). An analogy I like to use goes as follows: Each skill sequence goal (commonly known as a “target”) represent each stair in a flight of stairs. The treatment plan goal is the flight itself.
Treatment plan goal ideas for this particular skill area are as follows:
- Learner will match five common community signs and/or symbol in an array of 15.
- Learner will match ten common community signs and/or symbol in an array of 15.
- Learner will match 20 common community signs and/or symbol in an array of 15.
Component Skills
Your learner may need to be fluent in these component skills first before introducing this goal/skill area. Component skills for this skill sequence may include skill areas that are fundamental to other areas. Fluency in the skill areas listed below may increase the likelihood that your learner will succeed in this skill sequence and those afterward.
Intro to Scanning 
Intro to Matching (Visual Perception) 
Following Gestures
Matches Common Items in 2D Array 1.0 (Identical)
Matches Common Actions in 2D Array 1.0 (Identical)Skill Possibilities
Below is a possible skill sequence for working on increasing your learner’s ability to match basic safety signage from the community. Note that every learner is different and that you likely will need to tweak and vary some programming to their needs. Click the triangle icon to view the full description for each skill in the sequence/area.
Concurrent Skills
Working on these skills at the same time could help with goal mastery. Maybe your learner has mastered these skills already. Perhaps they are already listed as component skills above. That’s okay! Targeting other learning channels might help your learner.
Matches Uppercase Letters in 2D Array (Identical)
Matches Lowercase Letters in 2D Array (Identical)
Matches Busy & Safe Streets in 2D Array (Identical)Composite Skills
These are the possible next steps for learners who have mastered, or are mastering, the skills listed above. Note that new skill areas may require fluency in other component skills not listed above. Also, you can introduce composite skill sequences prematurely to keep your learner progressing, as generativity may occur earlier than expected.
Receptively IDs Basic Safety Signage in 2D Array (Coming Soon!)
Matches Basic Personal/Safety Info in 2D ArrayFollow the link below to better understand component-composite analysis.
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