Supplemental Sunday: Rules for Making Visual Aids

I spent most of Friday morning pulling together some visual aids for my clients to use once we get back to music therapy sessions. I love making things that I can use in my music therapy clinic, and I enjoy watching my clients use them later. As I was taking pictures and getting things ready for the final presentation (which isn't finished yet), I thought about the little tips and techniques that I've learned from others and developed myself (through lots of trial and error!) over the years.

If you are interested in getting into the visual aid making side of things, the first thing you need to do is to gather your materials. Here's a list of things that I recommend that you get for easier assembly of visual aids:

1. Several pairs of scissors - You need one pair for cutting paper, another pair for Velcro, and (if you are a scissors fanatic) another pair for cutting laminate. Believe me, having several pairs will make your life easier as you will not be gunking up the paper scissors or dulling the laminate scissors. Decorative blade scissors are also fun to provide some variety in textures.
2. Self-adhesive Velcro - I am coming around to the idea of spending more money to purchase the Velcro dots, but I've always just cut my own pieces. Cutting my own leads to gunky scissors, so I also have some Goo Gone to help get rid of the adhesive - hence the reason I'm thinking I should start buying the coins - no more gunky scissors.
3. Card stock - this makes all moveable pieces sturdier. I always use card stock to back any of the pieces that are to be manipulated by clients. I both print directly onto the card stock (get a strong printer) or on paper and then backed with the card stock. I recommend lots of different colors when you are purchasing stock.
4. Copy paper - again, lots of different colors make things more interesting. This is used for all the pieces that stay on the folder or that are not manipulated and for transfer onto card stock, if needed.
5. Laminator - I cannot stress this enough - GET A GOOD LAMINATOR! If you are at all interested in making your own visual aids, spend a bit of money to get a laminator that will allow you to laminate file folders as well as small pieces. I have one from Fellowes that I absolutely love. It takes the 12X18 inch menu lamination film that I use for file folders, but it also laminates business card sized pieces. Believe me, the cost of a good laminator more than makes up for itself in convenience, ease of access, and availability.
6. Laminating film - I get my menu sized film at a place called Lamination Depot. I also get 9X11 film there as well. These are the two sizes that I use most often.
7. White-Out/Liquid Paper - Mistakes happen. Embrace them, but have lots of correction fluid on hand.
8. Markers/Colored Pencils/Stickers/Rulers/Pencils/Good Erasers - These things make things look pretty.

One of my cutting boards

I also have several other tools that I love to use, but that aren't essential to the process. I use several bladed cutting boards and a corner rounder. I like round edges rather than sharp edges, so my corner rounder gets a workout. I use the cutting boards to trim the file folders. They do not get completely covered unless I trim off about 1/4 of an inch, so I trim off the extra part of the front of the folder so everything will be laminated. Then, I use the corner rounder to make everything look purposeful.

Photo Stickers

My other cheat tool is to use photo stickers to stick layers of visual aids together. I also use them to tape the different pieces to the laminate so things don't slip during lamination. I hate it when I laminate things that don't stay where I put them.

This week's projects included making some generic storage folders for my group therapy boxes (you can see one of them in the green folder example). 

I also made some color-coded "I feel" indicators for inclusion into the boxes. There are six of each of my box colors - green, red, blue, and purple. These go with the emotion pictures that I've been writing about for some time now. I have sets of emotion pictures that are also color-coded (this will help me keep things sorted later on). Those sets have their own folders (also color-coded). The intent is to have the client look at the emotion word choices available, choose one or two, and then share their emotion with the group.

I also worked on the Rock Band project. I spend one week per month talking to my clients about musical instruments. We've been through the instrument families, so now we are moving on and talking about instrumental ensembles.


I found some clip art of the four major instruments in rock bands - guitar, electric bass, drum set, and keyboard/synthesizer. I copied them, cut them out, and backed them with card stock (again, color-coded for sorting purposes). I traced the shapes onto one piece of paper and then wrote descriptions of the instruments onto the piece of paper. I also put small "v" indicators where I'll put the velcro pieces (if I don't do that during the design phase, I forget that I need space for the velcro).

The basic idea is to match the shape to the shape, but I can also use these with my other clients as well. We can discuss the different parts of the rock band while also talking about what we have already learned - instrument families, how to play instruments, what role each instrument plays in the band, and whatever else comes up.
 

The last project was a series of Yes/No or Stop/Go indicators.

Everything is now laminated and is being cut out and Velcroed for use in a week. I am always excited to finish projects, but I am always more excited to share them with others - clients, fellow therapists, others! Happy Supplemental Sunday!