AAC Basic Needs and Wants Board Editable

About this resource

EVERYTHING INSIDE — 21 pages, 233 type-in fields

• A Needs and Wants Board: all 7 words on one laminated page, plus one empty cell for a need this set does not cover
• A Quick Needs Board: the 4 most urgent words — bathroom, hurt, break, help — sized two-to-a-sheet for a lanyard, keyring or desk corner
• All 7 words as cut-apart 2-inch cards, in full color AND in a black-and-white ink-saver set (two card sheets total)
• 7 needs and wants words: bathroom, food, water, hurt, tired, break, help
• 12 blank cards with a type-in word line, for any need the printed set does not cover
• A how-to page: before the first day, the two moves every time, waiting for a response, writing down what changes, when a need is missing, what this board is not, how it fits with a core vocabulary board
• A Communication Log (18 rows: date, time or setting, word used, independent?, help given, initials)
• A weekly roll-up (8 weeks) with a percent-independent graph
• A filled example — an invented student, one day on the log and three weeks on the roll-up, every number re-counted from its own row
• A family page with a home practice set of six needs, cut apart
• A hand-off page so a paraprofessional or another classroom uses the same board the same way
• A phrase bank: 24 lines in 6 groups (words to say at the board, written starters for the log, the roll-up and the note home)
• A storage and binder label sheet
• Start Here, a contents page with page thumbnails, and a "what's next" back page

A FRINGE vocabulary board for basic physical needs, not a second core vocabulary board. Where a core board carries the action and request words used across every activity (go, want, more, yes, no...), this file carries seven specific physical needs a student cannot easily wait to ask for: a bathroom trip, food, water, an injury, tiredness, a break, or help. "Help" is the one word this board shares with a core vocabulary board, on purpose — it is common enough to reach for from either one; every other word here is specific to this board. It comes with the same log, roll-up, family and hand-off pages as this store's other communication boards, so a need reached for turns into a line on a page a case manager can bring to a meeting.

The Board And Cards

• The board: all 7 words on one page, laminated and never cut apart
• The quick board: the 4 most urgent needs — bathroom, hurt, break, help — two to a sheet for a smaller, portable copy
• The cards (7) — bathroom, food, water, hurt, tired, break, help: the same 7 words, cut apart so one can be swapped, carried loose, or paired with a core vocabulary board's action word to build a short message

Every picture was rendered in Google Noto Emoji (color) and Microsoft Fluent Emoji High Contrast (black-and-white) and read at print size before it was used. Two of the seven — food and water — are pictured as the concrete object a student is asking for (a sandwich; a water drop) rather than a feeling, because no picture in either set names an internal state like "hungry" or "thirsty" on its own; naming the object is what a want board is for. Cards are 2 inches square; the board's own cells are sized to match the same picture set.

What This Is, And What It Is Not

It is a fillable PDF: type into the log, the roll-up, the family page, the hand-off page and the blank cards, or print and use a pen. The board and card pages print on cardstock or plain paper; the cards cut along dashed lines. It works offline with no account or subscription. It is NOT an editable online slideshow or word-processor document, and it is NOT a speech-generating device.

It is a set of pictures a student points to or hands over to name a physical need, and a way for that use to be written down. It is not a program, an AAC evaluation, or a finding of any kind, and it promises no outcome. It carries no prompting method and no order to teach the words in; how the board is used with a student, and for how long, is what your team's plan says. The goal line and the criterion field are blanks for your district's own wording and your team's own number. The log counts one thing: whether a need was named independently.

Who This Is For

Special education teachers, speech-language paraprofessionals and case managers introducing a small set of basic-needs vocabulary to early or emerging-language communicators — alongside, not instead of, a core vocabulary board — and the families who get the home page sent home.

More In The Collection

This is a single in the Visual Supports Collection, alongside Core Vocabulary Communication Board Editable, First Then Board and Activity Picture Cards and Feelings Chart and Check-In Cards; more picture-card sets are being added to the collection regularly, all on the same cards-plus-data shape.

Pictures (color pages): Noto Emoji by Google, Apache License 2.0. Pictures (ink-saver pages): Fluent Emoji, Copyright (c) Microsoft Corporation, MIT License.