Shoebox Tasks – Based on TEACCH Methodology

ShoeBox Tasks were created by Ron Larsen while he was working as an autism therapist using the TEACCH method. The TEACCH method of teaching children with autism focuses on fostering independent work skills by structuring the environment, schedules and tasks in such a way to make them highly visual and closed-ended to ensure high rates of success. The ShoeBox tasks are individual work tasks of varying complexity. Their activities include put-in, pull-apart/put-in, stacking, sorting, fine motor coordination, pre-academic, motivational and pre-vocational tasks.

In addition to selling these Shoebox tasks, the company is also a vocational setting for people with autism who working on assembling and packaging the materials. They use the same teaching methodologies in their workshop and individualize each employee’s work station and work schedule to best meet their needs. Everything is very structured and visual to maximize independent work.

Check out these videos of the ShoeBox tasks and the ShoeBox Task Workshop.

ShoeBox Tasks for Children with Autism

ShoeBox Tasks Vocational Workshop

Although I agree that fostering independence is very important, I’m reticent to encourage the use of these types of products. It is important, I believe, to teaching people with autism to be independent, but my fear with types of products like this is that teachers may rely on them as their sole method of teaching and create a classroom full of drones that are very quiet and compliant but are not necessarily learning and growing. By no means am I saying that the TEACCH method and practices or the ShoeBox tasks are bad. My point is that I fear that “busy-work” tasks will over-take the educational programming of students because they are easy and when the student is successful there may be a desire to continue to build on that to the detriment of other skills.

When I am creating programs for kids I like to make sure there is a balance between independence building, social skills, academic skills, and naturalistic learning. To help my students learn, grow, and prepare them for real-life and the real-world they need a full and holistic program which addresses all their needs and also treats them with respect and dignity by focusing on their likes and dislikes, not just routine busy work.