With many thanks to Lisa Pinkerton, Head of Education at Widgit Software, for this guest blog. Before joining Widgit, Lisa was a deputy headteacher and inclusion lead at a large primary school. Alongside this, she worked as a SEND consultant for alternative provisions, and as a qualified specialist teacher for literacy-related difficulties. Lisa is a passionate advocate for inclusion and is a Lead Facilitator for the NPQSENCo award with the Best Practice Network.
Across education, health and social care, many of us support children, young people and adults who experience strong emotions that can sometimes feel overwhelming. Emotional regulation is not simply about ‘calming down’; it is about understanding feelings, recognising triggers and learning strategies that help us stay connected, feel safe and be ready to learn.
One of the most powerful ways we can support this process is through visuals. Visual communication, including Widgit Symbols, helps make language clearer, expectations more predictable and emotions easier to understand. When we consistently use visuals, we create environments that support both co‑regulation and self‑regulation.
In this blog, we explore what we mean by visuals, address some common misconceptions and share practical ways we can use visual supports to help the people we work with regulate emotions.
When we talk about visuals, we mean any visual support that helps make information easier to understand. This can include:
• Visual timetables or schedules
• Now and Next boards
• Emotion scales or feelings charts
• Choice boards
• Visual reminders of strategies or routines
Widgit Symbols are widely used across education, health and care settings because they provide a consistent and accessible symbol system. By pairing symbols with text, we support people who benefit from visual processing, including autistic individuals, those with communication differences or learning disabilities, and people with English as an additional language, although we would argue that visuals are a valuable scaffold for everyone. In other words, visuals are essential for some but beneficial for all!
Importantly, visuals do not replace spoken communication. Instead, they strengthen it by providing an additional pathway for understanding.
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