The Use of Caregiver-Implemented Visual Supports for Individuals with Developmental Disabilities: A Systematic Literature Review

Children with developmental disabilities often have difficulty completing complex multistep tasks, such as daily living skills or leisure and play skills, which often occur in children’s homes. The use of visual supports can increase the predictability of routines and clarify behavioral expectations for children with developmental disabilities. Thus, increasing the likelihood that these children will independently engage in these complex tasks. Caregivers are important stakeholders, especially when it comes to interventions that occur in the family home. Therefore, it is important for researchers to continue to evaluate the effectiveness of caregiver-implemented interventions with visual supports in the home setting. The purpose of the current review was to systematically evaluate the use of caregiver-implemented visual support interventions using the categories of visual supports identified by (Rutherford et al., Autism 24:447–469, 2020). We reviewed 16 studies with 37 participants that examined caregiver-implemented visual supports in the home. We found that visual schedules were the most commonly used visual support. In the studies that included visual schedules, researchers instructed caregivers to use visual schedules to promote their child’s completion of daily living skills most often. Based on these findings, we discuss considerations for implementing these interventions, quality and social validity of caregiver-implemented visual support interventions, and areas of future research.