A choice board contains pictures of a child’s favourite items. This could include toys and food. It encourages them to communicate what they want by looking at, pointing to or saying the name of the picture they want.

Using a Choice Board

Start by offering your child a choice of 2 objects; select the corresponding pictures to place on the choice board. Offer the objects to the child and say the name of each item “bubbles or car?”.

Your child may look at, point to or say the name of the item they want. When they make their choice, give them what they’ve asked for and model the name again e.g. “bubbles!”. Show your child how to point to their chosen item by pointing to the picture on the board yourself.

Gradually increase the number of pictures (choices) on the child’s choice board. You may need to add another Velcro strip or use smaller pictures to represent all of the possible options your child could choose. You can control what your child’s choices are.

It doesn’t matter if you know what they will choose every time, or even if one of the choices is something they don’t like.