Curiosity
One of the questions we occasionally get asked is why our resources don’t include recommended age ranges.
It’s a fair question. Age recommendations can help us narrow options, set expectations, and quickly decide whether a resource might be a good fit.
For Visually Speaking, though, another question comes first:
What is this learner working toward right now?
That question has shaped the way we design every resource.
Shared Language
Chronological age
The number of years since a person was born.
Developmental milestones
Common patterns of development that provide shared reference points for understanding how skills often emerge over time. They can help identify strengths, guide support, and highlight when additional assessment or intervention may be helpful. Like all reference points, they are most meaningful when considered alongside the individual learner.
Age-agnostic
An approach to designing resources without assigning recommended age ranges, allowing learning goals, context, strengths, interests, and support needs to guide how they are used.
Layering Lenses
When it comes to age, we don’t see it as something to ignore, but rather as one lens among many.
Chronological age provides valuable context. It can help us anticipate common experiences, understand expectations, and communicate using shared reference points.
At the same time, learning offers another lens.
Two learners who are the same age may benefit from very different supports. Likewise, two learners decades apart in age may find the same strategy helpful because they’re working toward a similar goal.
Neither lens tells the whole story on its own.
That perspective also influences how resources are designed.
When we organize materials around age ranges, those categories naturally shape the decisions we make. The illustrations, examples, vocabulary, settings, and scenarios often begin to reflect our expectations of what learners of a certain age are doing or experiencing.
Designing without age labels creates space to ask a different question:
What will help this learner engage with the learning in front of them?
What Might This Look Like?
Imagine creating a visual resource about navigating the community safely.
If it’s designed specifically for young children, the examples might naturally include holding an adult’s hand, walking to school, or recognizing a crossing guard. Those are meaningful examples for many learners.
But community safety isn’t only something children learn.
A young adult building independence, someone recovering from a brain injury, or a person learning to navigate a new community may be developing many of the same skills.
The learning goal hasn’t changed.
What changes is the context, the examples, and the way the learner sees themselves reflected in the resource.
Choosing an age-agnostic approach encourages me to begin with the learning rather than with assumptions about who the learner is expected to be.
Continue the Conversation
This is one of the many design decisions that shapes every Visually Speaking resource, and it’s one I’m continuing to explore through conversations with educators, therapists, families, and learners.
We’d love to hear your perspective.
When you’ve chosen a learning resource, what has helped you decide whether it was the right fit?
If this question resonates with you, we invite you to continue the conversation in the Thriving Together community. Some of the most meaningful ideas emerge not from having all the answers, but from exploring thoughtful questions together.
Written By Melissa Choquette
Simplified Summary
We do not put age ranges on our learning resources. People learn at different times and in different ways. Two people who are the same age may need different kinds of support. Two people who are many years apart may be learning the same skill. For example, a child, a teenager, and an adult may all be learning how to stay safe in their community. The skill is the same, but the examples and supports may look different. When we choose a resource, we start with the learner. We ask, “What is this person learning right now?” instead of, “How old are they?” This helps us create learning resources that can be used by many different people while keeping the learner at the centre of the conversation.