Mary Kostka shows how visual timers help kids manage transitions and time, especially nonverbal children. She demonstrates several types, from children's countdown timers to Time Timer models, and explains when to use them: getting ready, ending activities, clinic settings.
Aloha, magnificent moms and dads. This video topic is going to be visual timers. They are extremely helpful and we use them all the time here at Ohana. I'm going to show you my phone one first so that before it decides to disappear here. So this is one of my favorite ones. It's called the children's countdown timer. And this is what it looks like, this little visual timer. You can set it for up to a minute and there's different pictures that you can pick. We use this a lot when we're trying to get the kids to do something that they don't really want to do, like hold a superman for just a little bit longer or something like that. We use the time timer, this one, all the time in the clinic and the kids are able to manage their own time. As they see the time ticking away and you know, they see that there's like five minutes left, they understand, wow, I've got to pick my last thing that I want to do. And once they, even the kids that are nonverbal, once they get used to using this visual timer, they become, they transition so much easier and they become so much more self sufficient and they don't like it when that time runs out. It's amazing just how many fun things they can fit into the last two minutes of the session. But it works pretty well. And then this one's actually not. Doesn't have battery in it, so but you would hear beep, beep the loudest. The biggest one they have is about this big and it has a beep loud enough to hear in another room. So you could have it in one room in the house and still hear it somewhere else in the house. This medium one, you'd really have to be pretty nearby in the same room for sure. And then the really small ones they have, you can hardly hear them. It would be like at a desk. And these are just awesome. We use them for lots of different things. They're great for say you're trying to make sure the kids are ready to be out the door and they need and they have to be out within 15 minutes, something like that. The visual timer just makes a world of difference and I highly recommend them. Hi again. I am so glad that you took the time to watch this video and I'm really proud of you because I know you're busy and it takes time to sit down and focus and learn something new and just really proud of you. Give yourself a pat on the back. You're going to see this after each video because I just want to reinforce you and just let you know I'm proud of you. And change isn't easy. Some of these things, you hear the idea and then implementing it. We're all habitual, so it's not always easy to do. So just do your best to make little baby steps forward and make little changes that are positive and keep watching. See you in the next video. Aloha.
