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VML

About VML

What We Teach Isn't Always What They Learn

Visual Motor Learning (VML) is a practical and conceptual teaching framework developed by Pasquale Bolognese through more than two decades of professional work with individuals who have different learning, communication, and support needs.

At the heart of VML is a simple but important question: What did the learner actually take away from the experience?

We may demonstrate a skill, provide instructions, offer prompts, and see someone complete a task successfully. But that doesn't necessarily mean the learner understood what mattered, recognized why the response was useful, or will know what to do when the situation changes.

VML encourages us to look beyond whether a person completed a task and consider how the learning experience was understood from that person's perspective. What caught their attention? What connections were meaningful? What did they recognize, remember, and become able to use?

The framework brings attention to the relationship between familiar experiences, meaningful cues, functional communication, useful replacement behaviors, successful outcomes, and opportunities to practice skills in everyday life. It encourages parents, caregivers, teachers, and professionals to organize teaching around what the individual can recognize and use, rather than assuming that completing a task means the intended lesson was learned.

VML also offers six flexible teaching movements: Connection, Challenge, Replacement, Success, Practice, and Identity. Together, they provide a way to think about how learning experiences can become more understandable, meaningful, and useful to the individual.

VML draws upon principles of Applied Behavior Analysis (ABA), established educational practices, relevant research, and professional experience. It is designed to complement individualized assessment and evidence-based intervention, not replace them. VML is a developing teaching framework and has not been independently validated as a treatment.

Its purpose is to help us become more thoughtful about what we teach, how we teach it, and, most importantly, what the learner takes away.

The six movements

Connection → Challenge → Replacement → Success → Practice → Identity

  1. 01

    Connection

    Connection begins with what the learner can recognize and access. Teaching becomes more meaningful when it builds on familiar people, activities, situations, interests, or information that already matter to the learner. Connection is not simply about making an activity enjoyable. It is about establishing a recognizable relationship between the learner and what is being taught.

  2. 02

    Challenge

    Challenge identifies a manageable opportunity for learning. It involves recognizing the difference between what the learner currently understands or does and what they are being supported to learn. The challenge should create an opportunity for growth without unnecessarily producing distress, confusion, or failure.

  3. 03

    Replacement

    Replacement introduces a useful action, response, communication method, or decision that helps the learner navigate a situation more effectively. Sometimes this involves replacing challenging behavior with functional communication. At other times, it means developing a skill or response that is missing, inconsistent, or dependent on another person's direction.

  4. 04

    Success

    Success involves making the new response useful and meaningful to the learner. The outcome should help establish why the action matters in the situation. Praise and rewards may play a role, but successful teaching also considers whether the learner experiences a practical and relevant result.

  5. 05

    Practice

    Practice provides opportunities to recognize and use learning beyond the original teaching situation. This may involve different people, places, materials, routines, or circumstances. Repetition can be valuable, but the larger goal is to help the learner recognize when and how the skill is useful.

  6. 06

    Identity

    Identity refers to the learner's growing ownership and use of what has been learned. A skill becomes more meaningful when the learner begins recognizing opportunities to use it without depending on another person to direct every step. This does not mean changing someone's personality, measuring their worth by independence, or eliminating useful supports. Communication devices, visual schedules, reminders, accommodations, and assistance may remain important parts of successful independent functioning.

These movements are not rigid stages or a formula that every learner must follow in sequence. They offer a way to examine teaching, identify what may be missing, and better understand what the learner is actually taking away from an experience.