An Overview of Tasks Galore Books
Tasks Galore is an extremely practical and user-friendly series that helps parents, teachers and therapists create meaningful, hands‑on learning tasks that build independence for autistic and neurodivergent learners. Developed to give adults clear functional tools for supporting children at home and in school, the series emphasises Structured TEACCHing methods and strong parent–professional collaboration.
Recommended by the TEACCH® Program (Treatment and Education of Autistic and Related Communication Handicapped Children) at the University of North Carolina, Tasks Galore showcases the core strengths of structured teaching, visual clarity, predictable routines and individualised supports, while offering an abundance of multi‑modal, real‑world task ideas that move beyond traditional pencil‑and‑paperwork. There are six books in the series (one with a reader for the child).
Is Structured TEACCHing Neuroaffirmative?
Yes, Structured TEACCHing, particularly the TEACCH approach, is widely considered neuroaffirmative because it is a strengths-based, student-centred method that creates predictable and comprehensible environments using visual supports and routines to promote independence and understanding for neurodivergent individuals, such as those with autism spectrum disorder (ASD). By accommodating neurodivergent needs rather than trying to change them, structured teaching aligns with neuroaffirmative principles.
How Structured Teaching is Neuroaffirmative:
- Focus on the Individual: The TEACCH approach centers on understanding the individual’s unique skills, needs, and interests, cultivating their strengths to support their overall development.
- Creating Comprehensible Environments: Structured teaching organises the physical environment, schedules, and tasks to be clear and predictable, which helps reduce anxiety and improve understanding for neurodivergent students who may struggle in unstructured settings.
- Utilising Visual Supports: The use of visual schedules, work systems, and defined work areas provides clear expectations and reduces barriers to learning, allowing students to navigate their environment and tasks independently.
- Promoting Independence: A primary goal is to transfer the focus from teacher-led instruction to student-led learning, fostering independence and self-efficacy.
- Building on Strengths: Instead of solely addressing challenges, structured teaching identifies and leverages an individual’s unique talents and abilities as part of the teaching process.
- Supporting Neurodiversity: By providing structure and predictability, the method accommodates neurodivergent learning styles and needs, rather than trying to impose a “typical” learning style, aligning with the core idea of neurodiversity affirmation.
Tasks Galore are listed on the University of North Carolina’s TEACCH website as recommended resources. They are also recommended by several other training organisations around the world as practical teaching tools for those who care for children and adolescents with Autism.
What’s in the Tasks Galore series?
There are six books in this series as follows:
Tasks Galore – Book 1 (Yellow) – Early Education
- Creative Ideas for Teachers, Therapists and Parents working with exceptional children
- Full-colour pictorial series of multi-modal tasks used in programs for children with autism
- Applicable to any early education or learning environment
This book is the first book in the delightful Tasks Galore series. it takes a look at developing tasks that address skills across curriculum areas –
- Fine Motor Skills: Pre-writing, writing, and computer skills
- Readiness: Matching and sorting skills
- Language Arts: Book, print and phonemic awareness, decoding and word recognition, comprehension, and vocabulary
- Mathematics: Number sense, numeration, and numerical operations, spatial sense, measurement, patterns, relationships and functions
- Reasoning: Concepts relating to the student’s environment: exploring materials, making predictions, generating attributes and using common objects
- Play: Art, music, manipulatives, games and independent play
Tasks Galore – Book 2 (Red) – For the Real World
This is a valuable tool for preparing your older students, adolescents and adults for independence in the home, school, community and/or workplace. The Introduction section describes a process for developing and teaching functional goals. Forty-three colourful photo pages present task ideas in these categories:
- Domestic Skills
- Vocational Skills
- Independent Living Skills
- Job Sites & School Transition Ideas
Tasks Galore – Book 3 (Blue) – Making Groups Meaningful
This is the third book in the Tasks Galore series and again draws on the authors’ experiences as teachers and therapists with Division TEACCH. Wanting to make the lives of people with communication challenges richly rewarding, the authors detail the following:
- Applying structured teaching strategies
- Individualising skills
- Establishing flow between one-to-one and group learning
- Organising curricula around themes
All of the above have helped them design successful group activities. Examples illustrate how students learn concepts, construct projects, make music, exercise and simply have fun in group settings.
Tasks Galore – Book 4 (Green) – Let’s Play – Structured Steps to Social Engagement and Symbolic Play
Tasks Galore Let’s Play, the fourth book in the popular resource series for parents, teachers, and therapists, utilises play as the program for learning. There is more and more evidence that direct teaching of play skills can increase young children’s symbolic understanding and, thus, have an impact on their imitation, language, and social skills.
Beautiful colour photographs of children at play depict tasks that the authors have implemented successfully to enhance their students’ toy play, flexibility, and social interactions. Printable visual supports that will generalise to multiple learning situations also are included.
Chapters demonstrate how routines, organisational strategies, and visual cues make play more understandable, so students can:
- Share enjoyment
- Use toys appropriately
- Manage play-times
- Make and end choices
- Pretend
- Play with peers
Tasks Galore – Book 5 (Grey) – Literature-Based Thematic Units (includes accompanying Boardbook: I’m Hungry, I’m Hungry, what shall I do?)
The fifth book in the popular resource series for parents, teachers, and therapists, integrates instruction across core curriculum areas by utilising multi-sensory learning.
Using the accompanying storybook as a guide for creating literature-based thematic units, the authors have designed hands-on activities for use with young learners and students with special needs. The strategies employed encourage responsiveness to literature while enhancing vocabulary and language. Tasks illustrate how to make learning more meaningful by:
- Using organisational strategies and visual cues
- Connecting themes to everyday experiences
- Adapting skills for 21st-century learning
- Individualising for differing learning styles
Tasks Galore – Climbing Art Obstacles in Autism
Educator Karen Loden Talmage has created an exceptional book that offers young children with autism spectrum disorders and other related disabilities an imaginative, yet structured way, to explore art. The author feels that through art we can provide an opportunity for our students to express feelings that typically are unheard. In Climbing Art Obstacles in Autism, Karen shares the visual format that allows young children to practice visual motor skills through typical childhood art. Occupational Therapist Vickie Dobrofsky explains how therapeutic goals can be addressed through these fun and purposeful art activities.
Climbing Art Obstacles in Autism includes:
- Art activities tied to common early learning themes
- Colorful photos that depict logical sequence of steps
- Checklists to assist students in collecting needed materials
Testimonials for Climbing Art Obstacles in Autism:
“A wonderful example of how visual materials can be used to clarify understanding for students with autism and increase participation in a general education classroom”
– Sheila Wagner, M.Ed., Assistant Director, Emory Autism Center and author of Inclusive Programming for Elementary Students with Autism
“A great handbook for teachers, parents and occupational therapists”
– Susan N. Schriber Orloff, OTRL/L, author of Learning Re-enabled, columnist for EP Magazine and Advance for Occupational Therapy Practitioners and commentator for Autism One Radio
