The project...

Why calendars for children with special needs?

For individuals with autism, a well structured routine can be very important!

Unexpected, sudden changes to planned activities may cause a lot of stress, so many children with autism are eager to know well in advance what’s next or coming in the week ahead. In addition, autistic children may also struggle with reading or telling the time if they have a learning disability, making it difficult to understand conventional calendars.

Of course, as a parent of a child with special needs, you know that the circumstances above make it important to effectively communicate your child’s schedule with them. Many parents and childcare professionals use whiteboards with magnetic images or stickers to convey time-related information to children. Although this can be effective, it also has many limitations.

I personally experienced the above challenges when communicating schedule information with my own child. When using a whiteboard to communicate our family’s weekly schedule, she sometimes became confused by the times that our board wasn’t updated in time, and by the abstract images we downloaded from the internet. This is why I decided that a better solution was needed, and the idea of AVC Calendar was born!

Stuart Pinchen,
Founder & Developer