How many pictograms should I start with at home?

Between five and ten, and always things the child already wants: "eat", "water", "more", "help", "finished" and two or three favourite objects. Expanding the board before the first symbols are used fluently is the most common mistake.

Do pictograms delay speech?

No. The available evidence in augmentative communication points the other way: visual supports accompany spoken language and tend to encourage it, because they reduce frustration and give the child a reason to communicate.

Where should pictograms go at home?

Where the action happens and at the child eye level: food symbols in the kitchen, hygiene ones in the bathroom, the routine sequence in their bedroom. A board kept in a drawer does not get used.

Do I need to pay for pictograms?

No. ARASAAC offers thousands of free pictograms and the Mulberry symbols are released under a CC BY-SA 2.0 UK licence. You can start by printing and laminating on paper, and move to an app when the vocabulary no longer fits on a board.

How to start using pictograms at home: a guide for families

If your child does not speak yet, struggles to find words or gets frustrated when they cannot make themselves understood, pictograms can change everyday life for the whole family. You do not need to be an expert or buy anything expensive to get started. In this guide I explain, step by step, how to take your first steps with pictograms at home, what to choose first and which mistakes are worth avoiding.

What pictograms are and why they help

A pictogram is a simple image that stands for a word or an idea: “eat”, “water”, “toilet”, “more”, “help”. They are one of the most widely used tools within Augmentative and Alternative Communication (AAC), the set of supports that allow people to communicate when speech alone is not enough.

They work because they turn something abstract — language — into something visible and stable. Unlike words, which “disappear” the moment we say them, a pictogram stays there: it can be pointed at and looked at for as long as it takes. That brings three very valuable things:

Predictability: knowing what is about to happen reduces anxiety.
Independence: the person can ask and choose for themselves.
Less frustration: when someone manages to be understood, meltdowns and protest behaviours go down.

How to choose the first pictograms

The most common mistake is starting with too many. Less is more. Pick between 5 and 10 pictograms built around real everyday needs — the ones that come up many times a day and give your child a reason to communicate.

Good candidates to begin with:

Basic requests: “eat”, “drink/water”, “more”, “again”.
Needs: “toilet”, “help”, “sleep”.
Regulation: “yes”, “no”, “finished/all done”.

Prioritise what genuinely interests them. If they love a particular food, a toy or watching cartoons, those pictograms will be far more powerful than any “ideal” list, because they give a real motive to communicate.

Where and how to put them up at home

Pictograms need to be where they are used and within the child’s line of sight, not tucked away in a drawer. Some ideas that work very well:

In the kitchen or on the fridge: food and drink pictograms, right where the asking happens.
In the bathroom: “wee”, “wash hands”, “teeth”.
By the front door: “go out”, “shoes”, “coat”.
A portable board or key ring: a group of pictograms on a ring or in a folder that you can carry from room to room and out of the house.

Place them at the child’s eye level and in a fixed spot: visual consistency helps them find each one without effort.

Simple routines to get started

There is no need to set up “sessions”. What works is weaving pictograms into what you already do every day. The key technique is called modelling: you point to the pictogram at the same time as you say the word, without requiring your child to do it too.

A morning sequence might look like this:

Before breakfast, you point to “eat” and say: “Let’s eat”.
You offer two real options while pointing at the pictograms: “Do you want a cookie or a banana?”.
You wait. Give them plenty of time to answer, even if the answer is a look or a hand moving towards the pictogram.
You respond to any attempt as valid communication and give them what they chose.

Repeating this several times a day, at natural moments, is worth more than any formal exercise. Anticipation helps a lot too: showing with pictograms what is happening now and what comes next turns the day into something predictable and calm.

Common mistakes to avoid

Flooding them with pictograms: too many at once is overwhelming. Add new ones little by little, as the earlier ones are mastered.
Turning it into a demand: do not force it and do not run “tests”. Communication grows out of willingness, not pressure.
Giving up too soon: results come with repetition and weeks of consistency. Little response at the start is normal; it does not mean it is not working.
Only using them when there is a problem: pictograms are also for sharing nice things, not just for heading off meltdowns.

From paper to an app: when to make the jump

Starting with pictograms on paper is perfectly fine, but there comes a point where the system falls short: you keep needing more images, they are hard to carry everywhere and they do not “speak” on their own. That is where a digital tool makes the difference.

A communication app like ComunicaTEA keeps thousands of pictograms always at hand, reads them aloud in a natural voice, lets you find the one you need in seconds and works without an internet connection, away from home too. The jump is usually worth making once your child already asks with several pictograms and starts combining them, or when handling paper becomes awkward day to day.

Conclusion

Getting started with pictograms at home takes no expensive materials and no technical knowledge: it takes a few well-chosen symbols, putting them where they are used, modelling patiently and keeping at it. Whatever your child’s pace, every small step counts. If you want to take the next one, a tool like ComunicaTEA can go with you so that nobody is left without a voice.