A Dental Communication Board as an Oral Care Tool for Children with Autism Spectrum Disorder.
A homemade dental picture board lets non-speaking autistic children tell the dentist ‘stop’ or ‘rinse’ and cuts stress for everyone.
01Research in Context
What this study did
Naidoo et al. (2020) built a small, color-coded picture board filled with dental symbols. Think toothbrush, suction, rinse, 'stop'.
They took the board into a dental clinic and let minimally verbal children with autism use it during real cleanings. Kids could point to show what they felt or needed.
What they found
The board worked. Children used the pictures to ask for breaks, say 'hurt', or tell the dentist they were finished.
Dentists reported smoother visits and parents saw less stress. The tool was cheap, fast to make, and easy to sanitize.
How this fits with other research
Octavia et al. (2025) extended this idea. They kept the visual angle but added Tell-Show-Feel-Do, video clips, and in-vivo modeling across five short visits. Their package turned non-cooperative kids into cooperative patients with large, measured gains.
Boudreau et al. (2015) tried a different fix: dim lights, soft music, and a weighted blanket. That sensory-adapted room also lowered anxiety and pain. So two roads—talking visuals and calming sensations—both lead to calmer dental chairs.
Li et al. (2015) surveyed preschoolers and found lower cognitive scores and high challenging behavior predict outright refusal. That warning tells you why simple tools like Magandhree’s board—or the fuller Octavia protocol—are needed before problems start.
Why it matters
If you support children who hate the dentist, slip a laminated picture board into the appointment folder. It costs pennies, needs no extra staff, and gives the child a voice when words fail. Pair it with the Octavia five-visit plan for kids who need more prep, or add A et al.’s sensory tweaks for those who shut down under bright lights. Either way, you turn a battle into a conversation.
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02At a glance
03Original abstract
Children with autism spectrum disorder (ASD) sometimes display an inability for information sharing through functional verbal communication. This may interfere with professional oral care. These children tend to process visual information more efficiently than auditory information. Picture schedules can briefly suffice as visual cues serving a vital function in helping children with ASD to function in a particular setting such as an oral care environment. A visual communication implement such as a dental communication board was developed in this study to allow for a facilitated communication process between the patient with ASD and the oral care professional. This study entailed two main phases, namely the selection of symbols for the construction of a dental communication board and the small scale testing of the board in a clinical setting. This study incorporated a combination of a quantitative non-experimental descriptive survey combined with a concurrent mixed method survey design which retrieved data for both close-ended and open-ended questions from the same respondent. A quantitative survey questionnaire at a structured dental seminar presentation was employed for the first phase, and a combination of a quantitative and qualitative questionnaire was employed for the second phase of this study. Documented responses were collated and analyzed using frequency and thematic analysis. The most frequently selected symbols were retrieved after a frequency analysis and displayed on a color coded background to distinguish the various categories on the dental communication board. The thematic analysis resulted in the emergence of three main themes, namely the strengths of the board; weakness of the board and suggestions. This study anticipates the incorporation of a dental communication board as a visual mode using graphic symbols to augment expressive and receptive language in an oral care environment to facilitate professional oral care for children with ASD.
Journal of autism and developmental disorders, 2020 · doi:10.1007/s10803-020-04436-0