Visual schedules - consensus?

[BigWeeHag]

I know they are used as a total panacea by some professionals.

I have bought a few bits from Ebay, morning routine, behaviour in school and a calm down cue. They appear to work well for DS1 who has HFA.

Pros - it enables him to carry out the morning routine independently, which is fabulous because otherwise it is a massive, massive battle each day. (it doesn't have a symbol for pyjamas off though, which I think is an oversight and leads to him often going to school with jammies under clothes!)
He LOVES them, loves to look at the keyrings and read it through several times a day.
THe calm down one works like actual magic quite often.

Cons - we have to go through every stage of the timetable, there is no room for flexibility. So this morning he was up 10 minutes late, but still had to go through it all in order, at his own pace. And then didn't want his hat on, but did want his coat, because that is what it says on the schedule.

So, do you find them useful? Or do they hold your child back/ make them less flexible?
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Opinions?

I think most approaches have pluses and minuses - as long as the pluses outweigh the minuses I suppose. I was/am quite sceptical about VS but DS1 uses one at school and they seem to work there - though he puts (or tries to put) things he wants into the schedule. Would that work for your DS - encourage him to put his own choices in when needed ? Or would that defeat purpose for you ?

I'm not sure, it's newish to us. I was quite sceptical, because he is HF, but it makes such a differnce to him. He must just be so visually oriented - you couldn't give him those instructions verbally, he would go bananas, lol.

I may invest in a symbol programme, because it is very useful so far. It is practically impossible to cover every contingency though. Need a ? symbol that means Mummy Isn't Organised.

Well, on my Early bird course I have indeed been told that visual time tables will solve any problem . (The LA seems to have even replaced SALT and OT with visual timetables - they are fab!!!)

Anyway, two things that I took away were:

1. You can make your own timetable - take photographs of your DS? Draw your own?

2. When it all goes wrong, use a 'woops' card. Again you can personalise this. Picture of Mr Tumble? Football card?

They are sold as a sort of 'cure all'. that's the problem we are facing at DS's school. He hates his with a passion and no amount of positive praise, rewards, motivators etc seem to work. If he feels like following it he will and if he doesnt - God help the school! They keep on at me about introducing one at home, but I really don't want to . His life is so structured at school, I want to be able to give him some freedom and chill out time at home.