How to Use the Talking Tokens Board
(*Developed by Barbara Bloomfield)
The Talking Tokens Board is an easy to use, portable, visual support system for teaching conversation skills to students with ASD. Among its potential uses are teaching students to initiate, take turns, talk about other people’s topics, listen, wait, maintain a topic, or expand commenting. It can also be used to provide learners with important social pragmatic information, such as voice tone and volume, use of body language, or appropriate social distance. It can be easily adapted to meet individual student needs. The components and functions of the components of the Talking Tokens System are as follows:
Function:
· The Topic card provides students with a conversation starter and/or provides a visual prompt to maintain attention to a topic at hand. Many students with ASD understand better what they see than what they hear. The Topic card can serve as a catalyst for a student who does not know how to begin conversation or as a topic reminder for a student who perseverates on one topic. It can also provide visual support to communication partners when interacting with students using an atypical communication system.
How to Use:
· Provide choices of topic cards that not only reflect individual student interests, but the interests of others. Students engage in practice opportunities choosing and conversing about selected topics so that they learn conversation skills around their own interests as well as the interests of others.
· Create a wide variety of topic cards relative to students’ age and interests. Create general and specific topic cards. Common topics might be sports, movies, or weekend activities. More individualized topics might include a student’s personal passions and unique interests. Restrict and expand topic choices to support student in sharing in conversation of interest to both self and others.
Function:
· The “Your Turn to” section of the board provides visual information and prompts about the format, mechanics, and etiquette of conversation.
How to Use:
· Use talking tokens to prompt the student to participate in a conversation. The linear arrangement of Velcro dots in this section is used to teach the flow of a conversation. Using talking tokens provides conversation format information to the student, such as “Say one thing. Wait. Ask a question. Wait. Say one thing. Wait.”
· Use this section to teach “talking turns.” Once a topic has been selected, visual feedback can be provided to the student by using talking tokens to guide commenting and questioning. For example, three tokens would mean the student could make 3 comments about the topic. A token would prompt the student to ask one question about the topic at hand. For some students, this section could be used to expand commenting. For others, it could be used to limit the number of statements to be made on a particular topic.
· Use this section to provide visual pragmatic feedback to the student. Placing a card can remind a student to use gestures when talking, or a card can visually remind a student to lower voice volume when speaking.
· Use the card to provide a clear visual prompt to the student that it is time to wait and listen while a communication partner takes a speaking turn.
Function:
· The “Why?” section of the board provides consolidated visual cues to provide the student with information about conversation rules and social pragmatics. It makes visible the invisible rules and “hidden curriculum” around the practices of conversation.
How to Use:
· Place an “ask personal question” under a to serve as a visual reminder that it is important to express interest in the conversation partner, not just the topic at hand.
· Use a “Choose Topic” token to serve as a visual prompt to start a conversation. The student would then use the board to select a topic.
· Use tokens in the “Why section” of the board to offer missing social pragmatics information specific to student needs about the “hidden curriculum” of conversation.
*Information in this handout was derived and adapted from a VDOE T-TAC presentation:
Bloomfield, Barbara. Visual Teaching Strategies and Supports for Students with Autism Spectrum Disorders. Sept. 25-26, 2006, Charlottesville, VA